[extropy-chat] it's easy to laugh at luddites...

[Jef Allbright]

I hadn't read Max's PhD thesis but I had read Derek Parfit's Reasons and
Persons. I took a few minutes just now to skim Max's The Diachronic
Self(not doing it justice) but it seems I have a fundamental
difference with
each of those views.

With Reasons and Persons (read several years ago), I recall feeling that the
author was was so narrowly focused on the "objective" logic of his argument
that he minimized the importance of the Self (and thus Other) by neglecting
the subjective element by which all value and meaning is derived.

With The Diachronic Self (skimmed far too quickly), it seems to me that the
focus was on how we define the Self, showing that past and current
definitions are inaccurate and/or incomplete, and thus leading to updated
interpretations of Self for the future. It seems, upon my superficial
skimming of the text, that Max described the Self as being quite discrete,
and did not discuss that a more encompassing definition of Self might
include a range of identification from the isolated individual, through
indentification as part of a cultural group, to identification as part of a
collective intelligence.

[To confirm, I did a quick text search for the words "collective" or "hive"
and didn't find either of these.]

I think that the understanding of a expanding sphere of self-identification
[lacking from both of these above accounts] is essential for a more
encompassing understanding of moral decision-making.


- Jef
http://www.jefallbright.net


On 9/23/05, Al Brooks <kerry_prez at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Resistance to diachronic being, right?
> But don't we use our vision more than our other senses? I just noticed
> today that the women on campus here walk around exhibiting their pulchritude
> yet have expressions saying, "I am a Whole Self, not an object". Such is
> parading around your asset, having it, and eating it too. An immediate form
> of doublemindedness.
> A guy on the street hanging his keester halfway out of his pants is a
> varmint but a woman who does the same thinks she's some sort of a goddess? I
> bring this up because it is visual & immediate.
>
> It might be enlightening to take this up a level and apply the same
> observation to the vanity many people exhibit for their current mental
> "self", so often considered in isolation and as if it possessed intrinsic
> value independent of its environment of interactional possibilities and were
> worthy of indefinite static preservation.
>
> - Jef
>
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