steveho (steveho@concentric.net)
Sun, 18 Jan 1998 09:00:57 +0100
The soul is not dead. It just smell funny.
New technology -- brain technology or neuroscience, to be exact --
especially PET (position-emission tomography) scan and fMRI (functional
magnetic resonance imaging) allows scientists to see genes in motion.
(They actually light up on a monitor screen!)
Studies using these scientific methods (Edward O. Wilson, for example)
have come up with an underlying premise: Every human brain is born not
as a blank tablet waiting to be filled in by experience but as an
exposed negative waiting to be dipped into developer fluid. You can
develop it well or poorly, but either way, you are going to get precious
little that is already imprinted on the film.
This "genetic history" determines your moral choices -- not to mention
your role preferences, emotional responses, etc. If this is true, then
we have no free will (The Moral Sense, by James Q. Wilson -- no relation
to Ed. O.)
Are we hardwired? If so, how do we handle genetic mediocrity? Does the
"self " exist? If so, where is it? PET and FMRI scanners can't find it.
Is God dead? (I apologize for all these questions. But don't blame me.
I'm wired wrong!)
More later....
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