Is Eternal Life Even Desireable?

[Angrboda]

I like your take on scientific truths and dare say you're way more current on monism vs. dualism than I am. As well as filiing one's own posts for retrieval 2 years later. My computer's so cluttered I'm thinking I might be less prone to reject the null hypothesis inappropriately were my brain replaced by a Turing machine. Paul & Pat Churchlands' "luminous room" in Scientific American (Jan. 1990) is fascinating yet I'm unsure it overcomes John Searle's maxim that syntax cannot generate semantics, a thing nearly all linguists accept.

I think I'd agree with them that, "[r]ather than exploit one’s understanding of these things [semantics and meaning in us], Searle’s argument freely exploits one’s ignorance of them." We don't know enough of what our understanding of meaning is to say that the room's understanding of meaning isn't. (The Churchland paper is long so I've only read the luminous room part so far.)