Spirits (was RE: [extropy-chat] Qualia Bet.)

[Samantha Atkins]

On Nov 29, 2005, at 11:06 AM, The Avantguardian wrote:

> I am simply suggesting that there are personality
> differences between individuals that cannot be
> explained simply by genetic or environmental
> differences. I used twins that live together to
> control for genetics and environment. Dominance was
> just an example of one such personality trait. There
> are many more that differ between identical twins. To
> me this demonstrates (albeit in an anecdotal fashion
> as I have only ever known 3 pairs of identical twins)
> the existense of qualia. Two twins, raised in the same
> environment, can recieve the same stimulus yet have
> two different experiences.
>

Then does "qualia" substitute for what is probably due to different  
internal experience as we can't explain the observed difference by  
studying externals?   Are all such things "qualia" in your  
thinking?   I would think a bit of chaos theory would go a  
considerable ways to explaining such differences.  Before even  
pulling that out of the toolkit it impossible for even the brains of  
identical twins to be identically wired at birth much less to give  
them both identical experiences.

>
>
>
>> Also I wonder why you are defending elan vital.
>>
>
> Probably because somebody worthy of disagreeing with
> is attacking it. ;) Plus it truly hasn't been
> disproven, it has only lost popularity.

Trouble is that it never got any proof and increasingly became an  
unnecessary hypothesis.

- samantha