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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Thank you Stefano. I know about psyche and
the Western world’s interpretation of it as soul and Aristotle's meaning
of it in de Anima. Your explanation of it is well said to be sure.<span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>I like the idea of breath and the land of the
spirits. This is an excellent way to contextualize it. What animates the
body?<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>Energy – metabolism –
etc.<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>I agree with you that it has more
to do with the processes of the body than dualism. Aristotle was concerned with
“live” and the “living”. My concern is how he
understanding of “life” and the “living” links to life
extension/expansion in how the psyche is necessary for personal identity /
mind.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoAutoSig><font size=2 color=navy face=Calibri><span
style='font-size:11.0pt;color:navy;mso-no-proof:yes'><a
href="http://www.natasha.cc/"><font size=2 color=black face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:black'>Natasha Vita-More</span></font></a><br>
</span></font><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial;color:navy;mso-no-proof:yes'>PhD Researcher, Univ. of
Plymouth, UK<br>
Chair, Humanity+ </span></font><font color=navy><span style='color:navy;
mso-no-proof:yes'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy;mso-no-proof:yes'>Co-Editor, <i
style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><span style='font-style:italic;mso-bidi-font-style:
normal'>The Transhumanist Reader<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>
extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b><span style='font-weight:
bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b>Stefano Vaj<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Friday, December 30, 2011
5:33 AM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> ExI chat list<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> Re: [ExI] Is anyone an
expert on Aristotle and Life?</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>On 30 December 2011 01:11, BillK <<a href="mailto:pharos@gmail.com">pharos@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>The basic problem is that the Greek word 'psyche' is commonly<br>
translated as 'soul' in English writings. :)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
Interesting issue, that I have considered myself a number of time, because I
suspect that all such vocabulary has been dramatically polluted by the
psychological, semantical and philosophical consequences of some 1500 of
monotheistic cultural egemony,<br>
<br>
Yes, it is true that the current translation of psyche is soul
("anima" with some variants in Latin, Italian, Spanish, French,
etc.).<br>
<br>
OTOH, what does "psyche" literally means for a Greek? The
Indo-european root of the word is the same as that of "spirit" , and
both onomatopoeically refer to the puff, the breath emanating from a living
body (as in the English inspire, expire, siffle...), which is of course the
most obvious indication that the body is alive and functioning rather than dead
(as in "his spirit has left him"). Moreover, the (possibly
distinctive) "breath" of somebody indicated the current or recent
presence of an individual in given room (as in "his spirit was still
permeating the place"). <br>
<br>
The "land of the spirits" or "of the shadows" is therefore
simply where our memory hallucinates that the breaths or the shadows of bygone
people who have been important in one's life are still behind one's shoulder -
a common enough experience for many of us, with goes along with our inclination
of "speaking with the dead" by asking our memory to simulate the
comfort, the advice, the guidance, the emotional satisfaction we derived by
somebody's actual presence and interaction (interestingly, in the Japanese
tradition one can be haunted also by the spirit/ghost/phantom of a living, but
absent, individual). See the visits of Ulysses and Aeneas to the
"Ades" in Homer's and Virgil's poems.<br>
<br>
But are we really on different ground with the Latin "anima" that has
been translated with "soul" (firstly attested in the Beowulf, if I am
not mistaken, and likely to mean itself originally "the thing binding
things together")? <br>
<br>
An "anima" is again "what animates a body", that makes it
move and directs its behaviour as long as it does not become finally inanimated
- a corpse that the anima has deserted. This, in turn, has of course to do with
the body's "form" in an Aristotelian sense (its structure, pattern,
model, functional principle) and with its "psychological" states in
the modern sense.<br>
<br>
Has all of it something to do with the dualistic, metaphysical view that
permeates the judaeo-christian tradition (world/God, body/soul, life/afterlife,
etc.)? Not much, but for the fact that the vocabulary and the philosophical
categories of ancient Europe came in handy for a translating and formalising,
in a drastically reinterpreted sense, the new "anti-world" concepts.<br
clear=all style='mso-special-character:line-break'>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><br>
Hope this is of help to Natasha.<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Stefano Vaj<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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