(March 14, 2012 at 8:52 am)Rhythm Wrote: Very simply Genk, you only need a half or full adder and you have a computer. You don't need the cpu, the ram, the rom, multiplexers or any circuit in between, nothing. What you're talking about are the varying degrees of complexity to a computer. Hell, you could just build a simple latch, a single bit memory cell with 1 input connected to two outputs (or itself and a reset line) and you have a computer with both function and memory. As such, your analogy has literally no bearing whatsoever on "I", or "the self", only degrees of complexity to "I" or "self".
Complexity is irrelevant to the point I was making - which, as it stands - applies to the adder or the latch as well.
My point is that for emergent entities such as a computer, you cannot consider it reductionally and search for the entity within its components. For example, in you simple latch, the "computer" is not the memory cell or the input/output lines. Similarly, it would be incorrect to reductionally consider a human being - dividing him up into his brains, nerves etc - and try to find which part hold the "self" or the essence of the human being. The "self" or the "I" is the emergent entity that exists as a result of combination of all these factors.
Incidentally, I think it is this reductionist approach that caused us to come up with the idea of a soul or a spirit. If you start looking for the essence of a human being - his self - by dividing him up and discarding parts of him - something like - "No, I'm not my body, I'm more than that. No, I'm not my mind - I'm more than that. No, I'm not my thoughts - I'm more than that. No, I'm not my emotions - I'm more than that" - you'd end up with nothing. Then the only recourse would be to come up with the imaginary non-physical "soul" as the essence of a "self".
