The Ultimate Question

[carlo]

Probability and Heredity. If you are a pure materialist,then what one receives from parents could very well be relegated to "chance" if only the sperm are considered. A person could say that from the Mother(one egg) comes the solidity in life while from the Father comes the various possibilities dependent upon which sperm penentrates the egg. But in this consideration in which each sperm is different and therefore there are multiple beings vying for existance. As a materialist you could not say "I received my traits from the sperm/egg" for you are the sperm/egg combination. It is out of consideration to say you would have had different traits if a different sperm had penentrated the egg. That would be a different being.

The only way you could logically say that "my traits are different because of the sperm/egg combination" and still be YOU is if YOU are not the sperm/egg and thusly enters the soul/spiritual nature of MAN.

You enter life with a pattern of form given by your parents(heredity) but you are very much involved with your growth in all areas. The physical body which you initially recieve is more like your colors/palette in which the human spirit/soul being does his work- "the artist within".

carlo

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
"Why would it be anything other than simply getting to be the little lucky sperm and egg that made it through gestation to allow me to become a person?"
<font color="white"> . </font>
So only that combination turns into "you". Might some other combination turn into the same "you" except with freckles (or a different sex organ)?

[/ QUOTE ]

No.

Your being, the Here-This which is you, that-which-acknowledges-itself, that which is conscious of its existence, is the product of a unique combination of elements.

The probability of you coming to be (you and not some other variant, of which, of course, you can have no inkling) is so fantastically small as to be practically zero.

In other words, you have no business being here -- each and everyone of you.

(The ultimate act of heroism is to realize this, to stop denying it. And, instead of going crazy or committing suicide, to carry the burden of life's wonderment and horror through, and make the best of it. Ecce homo!)

I'm not the same "self" as I was 10 years ago. My sense of "self" is made up of all of my memories, and psychological make-up (my temperment, likes, dislikes, etc.) If my genetic make-up were different, then I would not have been the same physical person that I am today. I doubt that I would be the same psychological person, either... since my genetic make-up affects my brain, which then affects pretty much everything else. So, I think the answer would have to be "probably not". [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Warren Whitmore]

In stock market wizzards one of the questions that was asked of people who turned $1000 into more than $400 000 000 was how much of your sucess was determined by luck and how much by ability?

Most people answered all skill in the long run none of the winners in this game are where they are today because of luck.

One man said 100% luck.

How can that be?

Some people are lucky enough to be born smart and some are not. Thats what it all comes down to.

[bearly]

and this the 'ultimate' question in whose mind?..........b

[ZeeJustin]

[ QUOTE ]
I've been meaning to bring this up for quite a while and will do so now because it came up in another thread.

"Why would it be anything other than simply getting to be the little lucky sperm and egg that made it through gestation to allow me to become a person?"

So only that combination turns into "you". Might some other combination turn into the same "you" except with freckles (or a different sex organ)?

[/ QUOTE ]

It interests me how this question relates to chaos theory. A single tap on the shoulder resulting in a single sperm moving a hundredth of a millimeter can make the difference between someone being born with cancer or buck teeth.

[David Sklansky]

Hopefully you experience more than a "tap on the shoulder".

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]
"Please define what is meant by "you"."

Your sense of "self". What religious people call the soul.

[/ QUOTE ]

The soul is infused by God and is not dependent on biological processes that might have occurred differently. And that soul is the eternal aspect of yourself that survives death. This is not merely intelligence or psychology, which are greatly dependent on those biological processes. Imagine if your soul, intelligence , memories and sense of self could be swapped into the body of man of the same age who was a tribesman eeking out a living on the edge of the Kalahari desert. How useful would that intelligence be in that environment, being the smartest dirt poor tribesman with no resources there? Probably not much as far as your life on earth went. But your soul, created by God for an eternal purpose, would still be no worse off than that of any man on earth since you could still attain the eternal end that God desires for you.

[David Sklansky]

And if I grant you that, what makes you so sure that this soul is infused at the momnent of conception?

[Piers]

[ QUOTE ]
Your sense of "self". What religious people call the soul.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think it’s perfectly possible for someone else to really believe (s)he is you.

Take someone and wipe their mind, then build up your brain structure within there’s. In theory you could create someone who thought (s)he was you, and was indistinguishable from you to most if not all observers.

Would that person be you? Would it make a difference if you were alive or dead? Would it make a difference if all evidence of the replacement were removed? Is Star Trek like teleportation a real possibility? Can you transplant your mind to a computer?

It all depends on how ‘you’ is defined. Just using an even more ambiguous concept like ‘soul’ for the definition is just an unhelpful cop out.