Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:02:27 -0800, Darren New wrote:
>>
>>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> I don't know that it does - is there evidence/proof to suggest that it
>>>> does?
>>> Do you know who Abraham Lincoln was?  George Washington? Adolph Hitler?
>>> Julius Ceaser?
>>
>> What's that got to do with souls?
> 
> I'll let you think about it first, for a while.  Ask yourself what a 
> soul is, and what makes a difference between a live and a dead person.

I just wondered if you wanted to continue this.  So, having thought 
about how to try to put it in words...

A chicken doesn't have a model of the universe in its head. You put a 
three-foot fence between a chicken and food, and it'll walk around the 
fence. You put a nine-foot fence between a chicken and food, it'll walk 
a little ways, see its getting farther away, and come back to the middle 
without getting to the food.

Remember eating breakfast this morning. Think about it. Visualize it. 
Where's the camera? Behind your eyes? Or can you see yourself?

You have in your head a model of the universe. Imagine yourself in your 
bedroom, all the doors closed in the house, all the lights out. How 
would you go to the kitchen? Get up, open the door, turn on the hall 
light, maybe go down stairs, around that corner, turn on the kitchen 
light, pull out the chair, sit down. Yet you didn't actually have to do 
that to know that's what you have to do.

You have a model of the universe in your head, and in that model, you 
have a model of yourself. That is your soul. It's what makes you 
self-aware, and it's what makes you know the difference between good and 
evil.

You're self-aware because you can run simulations on yourself to 
determine what would happen were you to do something. You don't need to 
step off the edge to know you'd bounce painfully on the way down.

You know good from evil because, being able to simulate yourself, you 
can determine likely outcomes.  You also know good from evil because you 
have models of other people in your head, too. You know your mom would 
be insulted if you call her a bitch. You know, were you young enough, 
that she would punish you for doing so. You probably even know what sort 
of punishment, and you *probably* even understand *why* she would do so.

You have a bit of your Mom's soul in your head. Put there by love, 
unless you had an exceptionally unhappy childhood, in which case it was 
put there by fear and hatred. Bits of your Mom's soul will continue to 
live in your head after she is gone.

You know you're not your Mom because the model predicting what your Mom 
would do is flawed much more than the model predicting what you would do.

When you can model all the important aspects of someone in your head, 
that person is on the way to achieving immortality, or perhaps 
reincarnation might be a better word. Many attempt to model their 
behavior on what they think Confucius would do. Since he was clear and 
explicit and intentionally trying to tell people what he thought and how 
he thought they should behave, many succeed to a greater or lesser 
extent. But Confucius lives on.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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