[ExI] Is anyone an expert on Aristotle and Life?

[Stefano Vaj]

2011/12/30 Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com>

> There seems to be folk psychology, shared by all humans, that
> distinguishes body from soul. Different cultures, of course, talk about the
> soul in different ways, some have more than one level, some link it to
> breath, others to blood or possession by a totem animal or god, etc. but
> nonetheless, all human cultures agree that there is some additional
> component to a human being than just a body...and often this component is
> seen as being uniquely human. When it is seen as belonging to animals or
> trees as well, it is because those animals or trees are also
> anthropomorphized. (As in cultures where bears or jaguars are viewed as
> ancestors who were once human, to take just one of many examples.)
>
> It is striking that this belief in a soul is so pervasive. Twentieth
> century science discovered how the soul can be real without being anything
> besides brain matter. Brain matter is the substrate, personality is the
> program. But some materialists have taken this to mean that the soul (or
> psyche or personality or memes) cannot be separated from the body.
>
> This is where most transhumanists disagree. Why could the program not be
> run on a different substrate?
>

Yes, the real point is that if a belief in the existence of a "soul" is
generalised to the point where it actually recovers all the relevant
concepts throughout cultures and history, I think that even transhumanists
can be comfortable with it, even though obviously not with some specific
versions thereof.

As Kurzweil himself clearly, albeit somewhat implicitely, remarks in Are We
Spiritual Machines?<http://www.amazon.com/Are-We-Spiritual-Machines-I/dp/0963865439/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325337170&sr=8-1>"materialism"
itself falls within the dualist mentality and philosophy. Who
actually does or should care whether my atoms in a seven years time are
entirely replaced?

I actually think one would have an easier time interesting Aristotle or
> Plato  in the transhumanist project than extreme materialists. In fact, I
> think to most pre-modern peoples, the idea that one could, with the right
> tool, take the soul out of one kind of body and put it into another kind of
> body would be self-evident.
>

Absolutely. Yet, I am not sure that extension of "soul" to all animals, or
living things, or even things tout court, was just the product of
anthropomorfism. Hindous themselves, who are certainly closer than we are
to the original indo-european worldview, still have no problem with that.
And neither do I, albeit obviously in a "perspectivist" rather than
"objectivist" sense (of course a river does not exhibit any actual
"consciousness", but there is nothing wrong that my psychology is inclined
to grant him an "identity" of sort, and to organise my perception and
comprehension of the world around some implicit panpsychism).

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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