[ExI] Nolopsism

Ben Zaiboc bbenzai at yahoo.com
Sun Feb 7 11:04:36 UTC 2010


The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Philosophically nolipsism bears some resemblance to 
> Buddhism which is fine from a spiritual point of view. 
> E.g. why fear death when there is no "me" to die, etc.? 
> Being an attorney however, I am sure you are aware of 
> the legal can of worms nolipsism opens up. Human rights 
> are tied to identity. If "I" don't exist, then  
> stealing my stuff or even murdering me is a victimless crime. 
> Doesn't make for a happy outcome in my opinion, 
> especially for libertarians. 
> Probably why the authors back-pedalled from their 
> claims in the conclusion.


Philosophically, it may be as you say.  Practically, though, it's not really that useful because it makes no actual difference to the way we regard things like fear of death, or to the law.

It's in the scientific arena that nolipsism is most useful, because it explains what subjectivity actually is, and clears the nonsense and confusion out of the way.  We know, at least in theory, that subjectivity can be built into an artificial mind, and we can finally dump the concept of the 'hard problem' in the bin.

The concept of a "de se" designator explains why we don't have souls, not why we shouldn't have property rights. 

Ben Zaiboc


      



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