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Old 06-17-2003, 03:25 PM   #14 (permalink)
CSflim
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Location: Ireland
Quote:
Originally posted by Podmore
Boy, am I betting that the scientific method was not applied in this. If there was any hard evidence behind it, it would be onthe front of every major paper in the country.
I'm with Podmore on this one. I'm incredibly sceptical of this one. I mean the article cites what, three examples? Out of how many thousands of heart transplants every year? The scientific method is the ONLY method of uncovering the truth. And BOY am I sceptical about this article.

That being said, I will apply the converse to our "accepted" notion that our consciousness...our very personhood lies within our brain. Well, scientific method fails to prove that either. Admitedly it is a very TIDY theory that we exist in our brains and that the rest of our body is purely...functional. (We need arms to move our hands to feed our mouths, to take in food, to digest in our stomach, to bring sugars to blood...to power the brain, etc)
However tidiness does not imply fact. To me the ultimate question lies in the nature of our consciousness. Science knows nothing of conciousness other than it exists (I think therefore I am). Beyond that we know nothing about it. It is mere conjecture that whatever physical process is responible for our conciosness lies exclusively in the brain.

The tuith is we just don't know, we cannot say for sure. But if pressed, I'd put my money on the brain.

A good example of this is people who have their heads cryogenically frozen, in the hope that in the future, they will be thawed out, and either a new body can be created to attach to their head, or that their conciousness can be "extracted" from the frozen head and inserted into a new body. These people are pretty much betting that their "personhood" is exclusive to their head. I for one am with them, and would more readily have my head frozen than say...my arm, pr my heart. (hypothetically I mean, I don't really have any desire to be cryogenically frozen, it was just an example.)

Last edited by CSflim; 06-17-2003 at 03:28 PM..
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