Philosophy

A New Thought Experiment

Along the lines of my previous post, I’m still trying to get my head around when Terri Schiavo’s soul departed her body, and am still trying to understand the thoughts of those who believe in souls.

Hans Moravec has postulated a thought experiment in which his brain is gradually replaced by a mechanical de-vice, one subunit at a time. After each component replacement, he’s asked if he still feels like himself. Presumably, if the answer is yes (and an assumption is made that he’s being truthful), then the next component is replaced, ad semi-infinitum, until there is no longer any meat left in his head, and he’s thinking entirely with hardware. At the end of the process, by definition, he still feels and thinks like Hans Moravec. So is he? Or is he a robot?

Now, this ignores the (perhaps large) degree to which thought processes and feelings are mediated by hormones–it simply assumes that there are some kind of sensors at the interface between the body and the mechanical mind that sense them and get the mind to respond the way the gray matter would have. Of course, one gets the sense that Moravec would prefer to have done with those unmanageable emotions anyway. Which is why he’d probably have replaced his body first, and gotten rid of all those yucky glands, before doing the brain upgrade.

But leaving that aside, the question is, does mechanical Hans still have a soul? Is he still made in God’s image? If not, and assuming that he did prior to the initiation of the procedure, at what point did it leave?

These are not just ethereal philosophical questions. They’re going to become theologically important to some people as technology continues to advance, and we become more cybernetic in the future. We’ve heard about gaining kingdoms at the price of one’s soul. Will there be some unwilling to undergo life-saving medical procedures, fearing such a stiff bill?

OK, now, let’s forget about the gradual replacement scenario. Suppose the functions are simply removed, and not replaced. This is in fact what happened, to some degree that remains in dispute, to Mrs. Schiavo. Getting back to my earlier question, suppose that her cortex was damaged to the point that she no longer had any awareness, of herself or others?

Well, remove it completely, but keep her breathing and her blood circulating. Keep her body healthy.

Now remove other parts of her brain, one by one, but all other organs remain functioning and healthy. Leave in the eyes, and provide nerve impulses to them so that they follow moving objects observed by external cameras, and cause her to emit random sounds with her mouth and lungs of seeming recognition at faces that would have been familiar to her prior to her tragedy. That is, remove the brain entirely, but have her behavior seem exactly the same as it appeared to be in reality.

Is that Terri Schiavo nee Schindler? Does that body still have her soul, or anyone’s? If not, during which excision did it depart for new premises? If so, if it’s a function of physiological functions of respiration and blood circulation, then what does that really mean in terms of today’s technology, that will soon be capable of keeping a brainless body alive, if it isn’t already?

To the degree that I understand the concept of the soul, I can’t believe that it is associated simply with a body, living or breathing. To the degree that I believe in souls, I think of it as a different word for “mind.”

That’s why I think that if I were someone who loved Terri, and I believed in souls, I’d comfort myself with the thought that hers perhaps departed long ago, and was observing in anguish from above throughout the whole circus, and that while effort to hold on to something of her was noble, her ultimate end was foreordained fifteen years ago. And at some level, I’d have to feel relief that the long nightmare was over for everybody.

Science And Society

Encouraging Diet News

At least for me.

It’s long been known that caloric restriction is one means of extending lifespan in lower mammals (e.g., lab rats) and presumably humans as well. It’s a tough diet to maintain, though, since most who try it are perpetually hungry. Now there’s evidence that most of the benefits can be attained by periodic fasting (alternate days), allowing a normal dietary intake, but at more irregular intervals.

It makes sense that, like many features of civilized (in the literal sense, meaning cities and civilization) lifestyles, regular meals are unhealthy for us, since our ancestors were probably more in a “go hungry until you can chase down the next mastodon, then feast” mode, and evolutionarily adapted to it. So we need to consider not just what we eat (more paleolithic foods, like meat, nuts, fruits and berries and less or no grain) but when we eat it as well, if we want to do what our bodies (are still) evolved to do.

This is good news for me because I’ll often go long periods without eating, just because I get busy, and have no need for regularity to my meals. Unfortunately, many (particularly hypoglycemic types) start to feel bad if they go more than a few hours without food. Of course, it’s possible that if they change their diets and habit, that they could get used to it as well.

Political Commentary

Asking For Trouble

The Democrats are apparently going to put up a fight against the nomination of John Bolton:

Although Democrats have challenged a number of diplomatic nominees, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, “they see this nomination as more distasteful, and they’re more united,” said one Democratic Senate aide.

The split on the panel is one of several signs that the proceedings, set for April 7, could be acrimonious.

Advocates have organized letter and ad campaigns for and against Bolton. Democrats said they intended to investigate Bolton’s comments on a variety of issues, an exercise that Republicans said could stretch the hearing into a second day. Republicans said they were concerned that Democrats might attempt to filibuster the nomination if it reached the Senate floor.

Bolton, undersecretary of State for arms control, is controversial because of his criticism of the United Nations and other international institutions and agreements.

“He’s been contemptuous of the U.N.,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record) (D-Calif.). “There’s a lot to talk about at this hearing. It’s going to be very contentious.”

I think they’re misreading the mood of the public, and setting themselves up for an Ollie North moment, in which the witness makes fools of them. Bolton will have two messages: 1) the UN is very badly broken, and he will lay out all the evidence for that, from Darfur to Oil-for-Palaces to child sex rings among the “peacekeepers, with a Secretary General who is either incompetent, corrupt, or incompetently corrupt, and defiantly unwilling to step down; and 2) that his job is to reform it, not wreck it, something that cannot be done without a clear recognition of its many problems. In their own blind transnationalist love for the UN as they’d like to fantasize it, rather than as it is, the Donkeys are going to end up looking like defenders of the status quo, and I suspect that this will be quite obvious to anyone watching the hearings. This will not be a smart political move for them.

Philosophy

The Point Is Moot Now

The people who thought it would be about two weeks seemed to have it right. The body of the person who was Terri Schiavo has finally stopped metabolizing. How many more weeks will it be before we stop talking about it?

There are lots of comments over at Free Republic about “bless her soul,” and “she’s with God now,” and the like.

While my heart goes out to the long-suffering family, whose hearts are surely now fully (if only figuratively) broken, at the risk of being (more than) a little iconoclastic, as long-time readers know, I’m not fully down with this soul thing. Perhaps those who are can enlighten me.

At what precise instant did the soul pass from her body, and was transported to God’s sitting room?

Was it when she stopped breathing? When her heart stopped beating? When the phosphor trace on her EEG (assuming that she was on one) stopped wiggling? Even now (or at least a few minutes after the end of these activities) she could have been resuscitated with CPR and defibrillator, and resumed these activities, at least briefly, particularly if rehydrated. Had someone done so, would the soul have had to rush back from heaven, to take up residence in the body again, in case there was still one more legal appeal to play out? Or was the body a lost cause, and the soul would know it? But if the latter then why wait for the conventional functional shutdowns that we arbitrarily use to declare legal death? Why not vamoose once it was clear that all the appeals were exhausted, and the organs were failing, regardless of the respiratory and cardiac state?

The relatives said that Terri has been communicating with them, and they with her, but was that wishful thinking? Did they see a spark in her eyes that they imagined was her, words in her vocalizations that they, in their grief, fantasized as expressions of love and human desires? If so, and those who said that she was truly in a “persistent vegetative state,” uncomprehending of self or anything else, are right, then is it possible that her soul actually left when her cortex collapsed, years ago, and that since then they’ve only been feeding an empty shell in the form of a human being?

I ask these questions for two reasons. First, because I’m genuinely curious, not about souls per se, because I don’t believe in them, but about how those who do justify their beliefs, and how they think about them. Second, because I do think that this bears on a more practical issue to those of us who do want to live as long as possible–at what point should someone be allowed to go into cryonic suspension? While the issues of soul dispositions and locations shouldn’t enter into legal discussions, it’s inevitable that they will, and I’d like to know how the arguments in court might go.

Technology and Society

The Sky Is Falling

Now where have we read things like this before? Oh, yeah.

The very headline is absurd. For it to make any sense, one must believe that “resources” are some fixed quantity, rather than a product of technology and human ingenuity. Which was of course exactly the same mistake that Dennis Meadows made in “Limits to Growth.” Not to mention Paul Ehrlich.

[Update at 2 PM]

Phil Bowermaster has further thoughts. He also has some great SF movie titles. I’ll bet these are being optioned as I type.

War Commentary

Did General Sanchez Perjure Himself?

Mark Kraft thinks so. At first glance, that’s how it looks to me, too, but I’d be interested to see what the General or his defenders have to say.

Unlike him, though, I don’t see any basis of inference that Rumsfeld did anything wrong. Of course, I don’t consider any of the things listed in that memo torture, or relevant to the more egregious acts at Abu Ghraib. I am concerned about the possible perjury before Congress, though. As they say, it’s not the act, it’s the cover up.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!