S&S vs. SF in BotNS

Gerry Quinn · 21 Dec 2011, 22:46 · from 2011-December.txt.gz

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From: gerry at bindweed.com (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:46:09 -0000
Subject: (urth) S&S vs. SF in BotNS
In-Reply-To: <CAJ8=rtg--c6Np_oGQCE9OCY-w56r1mndZaDGmP+ZEmNb+YVCAw at mail.gmail.com>
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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes 

> I see the basic problem. You do not know the difference between a soul
> and a mind.

> I suggest you read some basic pneumatic theology.
Has theology advanced so far as to have a standard answer regarding the souls of robots, or digitised personalities running in a computer?
The Catholic Encyclopaedia (presumably referring only to humans and animals) says:
?The soul may be defined as the ultimate internal principle by which we think, feel, and will, and by which our bodies are animated. The term "mind" usually denotes this principle as the subject of our conscious states, while "soul" denotes the source of our vegetative activities as well.?
On ?mind? it says:
If we define the soul as the principle within me, by which I feel, think, will, and by which my body is animated, we may provide a definition of mind of fairly wide acceptance by merely omitting the last clause. That is, in this usage mind designates the soul as the source of conscious life, feeling, thought, and volition, abstraction being made from the vegetative functions. On the other hand the term soul emphasizes the note of substantiality and the property of animating principle.
So while they are not identical, they are rather strongly linked.  And that is in humans, not the digitised personalities we have been discussing.  What do you think their souls consist of?
And you didn?t answer my question about Mucor.
- Gerry Quinn


On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 2:05 PM, Gerry Quinn <gerry at bindweed.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
>
>
>> Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
>> > What powers of Mucor are you saying are magic?
>
>> All of them.
>
> But she has a modified brain, and the things she does are similar to the
> things done by others, who do not seem to do them by magic.  Why do you say
> Mucor in particular is magic?
>
>
>> > The Whorl gods? possession
>> > of people is explicitly glossed as technology rather than magic,
>
>> Correct.
>
>> > and that surely also involves the soul.
>
>> Not so fast. We get nothing from the point of view of a possessed
>> person, except at a double remove (what is told to Silk, as re-related
>> from him to the authors of the Book of Silk).
>
> Yes, but since neither Silk nor Horn was ever possessed, that is the only
> information we can have.  It is intrinsic in the structure of the book, and
> not a reason to be suspicious.
>
> Possession by a god seems to be quite similar to possession by Mucor.  It
> leaves similar traces: Mamelta says ?I feel I am Mucor?.  While the
> possessee may not remember events, they seem to be compatible with what we
> are told by Kypris-in-Chenille
>
>
>> > Do chems have souls?
>
>> They seem to!
>
>> > One imagines so, and Mucor doesn?t mistake Quetzal for one.  Yet
>> > their soul presumably starts off as a computer program.
>
>> No. A chem's _mind_ starts as a program. The mind is not the soul.
>
> If a chem?s soul is not its mind, what is it?
>
> And what about the Whorl gods?  We are told what they put inside possessees
> is the pattern of the god, the program.  That seems to identify the soul
> with the program, and by extension the mind.
>
> - Gerry Quinn
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
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