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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: dougSF30 who wrote (126740)	10/23/2000 11:42:38 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1579106

Those people who buy into various mythologies about 'souls' and so forth are probably led to the coin-flip at the point they imagine this 'soul' has been granted to the organism. This is consistent with their 'beliefs'; however, it's unfortunate that those beliefs themselves are irrational, and lead them to make an incorrect ethical decision. Doug, Why is believing in souls irrational but not believing in them is not? Neither premise can be proved. ted

To: dougSF30 who wrote (126740)	10/24/2000 5:51:49 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 1579106

OT If I could only save one I would probably save a 2 year old child rather then an adult. In real situations the adult may be more likely to be able to save themselves but for the sake of the argument I can assume this would not happen, it still does not change my mind. Part of the reason I would choose the child is emotional, but I'm not sure that emotional factors should not play a part. If you want purely rational quantifiable reasons, the 2 year old has a longer life expectancy so they would lose more if they die, and gain more if they continue to live. The adult has at least had a chance to live a large portion of a normal life span, the child never had that chance. As far as "highly conscious beings", I tend to treat that more as a threshold. A 2 year old is more developed then an infant, and an adult more developed then a 2 year old, but that would not give them any more "points" with me when I have to make the choice. I might favor saving a more inteligent person then an idiot but that would mainly have to do with what they could achieve if saved, then any desire to save the more "highly conscious being". Tim