{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1279",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1279,
    "subject": "God Is In the Implementation Details",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-03-21T13:38:30+00:00",
    "last": "2001-03-21T13:38:30+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0474@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan Parmenter",
        "address": "dan at lec.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-03-21T13:38:30+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) God Is In the Implementation Details",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "One of the other Dans aka Blattid writes (oddly):"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Who is to say, in a universe where [souls are (in some sense) \ndemonstrable fact/consciousness can (apparently) exist \nindependently of hardware], that the brain is the [sole/primary] \nseat of [soul/consciousness/memory/personality]? It makes a kind \nof sense that [it is/they are] [more distributed/less local] in \nthe nervous system and perhaps other [organs/parts of the \norganism/tissues], particularly if one accepts that [it is/they\nare] at least partially [spiritual/non-physical/supernatural] in\n[nature/origin/constitution]. Then a(n) [organ/part/tissue] which\nhas spent a significant time in one body, even if it is not an\noriginal [component/part] of that body, [may/will] \"house\" some\n[aspect/part/holographic image] of the \n[soul/memory/personalty/consciousness] [inhabiting/controlling]\nthat body and, when [transferred/transplanted] to a [new/different]\nbody may carry that [aspect/part/holographic image] to the \n[new/different] body.\n\nOn the contrary, allowing that \"souls\" specifically are \n[non-physical/spiritual/supernatural] in [cosntitution/nature]\nallows us to [suppose/believe/conjecture] that \"souls\" may\nhabituate to their bodies (as they may habituate to a location,\ngiving rise to phenomena such as Pike's ghost), and \"hang around\"\nremaininf functional [parts/organs/tissues] of the body after \nthe death of the body proper, so that whatever aspect of \n[memory/personality/consciousness] attaches to the \"soul\" rather\nthan physical [tissues/organs/parts] might in fact \n[transfer/travel] along with them and \"inabit\" the [new/different]\nbody."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I'm not sure if our views are incompatible.  I'm simply offering what\nseems like a plausible [implementation/realization] that satisfies me\nas a computational linguist.  Clearly \"distributed intelligence\" is\nsomething that Wolfe is fascinated by, as well as the notion that\nconsciousness can be consumed and integrated.  But as an engineer I\ndoubt that Wolfe would reject my hypothesis, though I freely admit\nthat he probably didn't give the matter a whole lot of thought.\n\nOf course if you're right, and if consciousness resides (at least\npartly) in the soul, then we must assume that Maytera Mint was wrong\nand Taluses do have souls.  Are souls a consequence of consciousness?\n\nI don't think there's any reason to not have both a \"physicalist\"\nexplanation as well as a \"dualist\" view.  I think it's quite Wolfean\nin fact."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>\nFrom there one can see Wolfe imagining (thought I doubt the church\nteaches) that something of a person's \"personness\" resides in her body\n(not just her brain)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "[...]"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Then too, Wolfe also may be drawing inspiration from fantasy/horror\nstories such as the ones where someone receives a transplant from a\nmurderer and begins to have murderous impulses.  Or the magic hand that\nwill graft itself to the stump of a person's forarm, granting her great\npower but slowly remaking her in the image of the hand's original owner."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Yes, and let us not forget those Planarian Worms.  Obviously Gene\nWolfe has never quite gotten over that, even though it seems to have\nbeen a non-repeatable experiment.  As I've no doubt mentioned before,\nthis was also one of Alan Moore's central conceits in his take on\nSWAMP THING: Swampy is a plant that has consumed the consciousness of\na dead scientist and grown a new body.  By this mechanism he joined\nthe ranks of the Earth Elementals/Green Men/etc.\n\nShellac\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}