XPost: alt.philosophy, alt.atheism, talk.atheism   
   From: craig.franck@verizon.net   
      
   "Immortalist" wrote   
      
   > "Craig Franck" wrote   
      
   >> "Immortalist" wrote   
      
   >>> the activities of particular nerve cells, but not the nerve cells   
   >>> themselves?   
   >>>   
   >>> like the sheen and smooth qualities of water when we see through   
   >>> magnification that it is just grainy atoms   
   >>>   
   >>> like the melody of many instruments playing together, that something   
   >>> that vanishes when they play seperately   
   >>>   
   >>> a biological process that happens when nerve cells are active   
   >>   
   >> From all that you provided at the end of this post I'm sure you are   
   >> aware this is a complicated issue, but identifying the "self"  as   
   >> activities of brain cells or even biological structures is the wrong   
   >> level   
   >> of abstraction.   
   >>   
   >   
   > If someone asks me what sentences consist of and I answer words and   
   > letters are you going to say that I am at the wrong or right level of   
   > abstraction? Or are you going to say that the only way to find out what a   
   > sentence is is to compare it to other sentences and imagine we that can   
   > ignore words, letters, paragraphs, sections and chapters?   
      
   Well, the OP was considering things like personality traits, beliefs,   
   attitudes, metaphysical entities, etc. Nerve cells are common to all   
   those things, even, perhaps, metaphysical abstractions. But then   
   they are common to all mentality.   
      
   So it's like asking about moral imperatives, and being told they are   
   made up of language. We need to know what's unique about moral   
   imperatives or "the self," not what they have in common with all   
   things in the same domain. Is your autonomic nervous system   
   part of the self?   
      
   >> True Self-ness requires a full-blown theory at least as elaborate as   
   >> Catholic theology. (Simply explaining why one body can or can't have   
   >> multiple selves would require an essay-length treatment. The same   
   >> is true for Buddhist self vs. Western self.)   
   >>   
   >   
   > From the evidence of neurology and neurophysiology the best theory is that   
   > this self-ness (IS) the activities of particular nerve cells only. But I   
   > agree that events external to and influential upon these particular nerve   
   > cells may be necessary if the complex is to converge upon one possible way   
   > to create human experience.   
      
   What I mean is the theory that the "self" goes away when a person is   
   in a coma is not the activity of nerve cells, but an abstraction. My "ego"   
   is a complex of personality functions, not a part of the brain.   
      
   It is true that the sense of self in a schizophrenic, for example, is   
   disrupted by physical traits of the brain. But then a software program   
   may stop functioning when there is a problem with the computer hard-   
   ware. I wouldn't say Internet Explorer is made up of silicon.   
      
   --   
   Craig Franck   
   craig.franck@verizon.net   
   Cortland, NY   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)