[Wittrs] Re: Mode of Existence for Subjective Experience
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 21 May 2010 19:59:28 -0000
Sekhar, I'm not sure of the relevance of this post of yours to what you
appended it to. There I was making the point that Wittgenstein changed some of
his views from the TLP to the Investigations which point has little, if
anything, to do with the question of producing artificial life (let alone
artificial consciousness which we have been so hotly debating here). However, I
did see a mention of this development you reference below (though my Wall
Street Journal did not arrive this morning, leaving me bereft of morning
reading as I had my coffee (or tea, depending on what I aim to accomplish for
the rest of the day)!
It is certainly an interesting development with very substantial implications
for human life going forward. Will it lead to cloning of artificial persons or
of creatures of more unique design? Will it lead to production of better
prosthetics than the current crop of inorganic devices we now make use of,
however well designed, innovative and capable they may be? Will it have an
impact on the question of consciousness itself (which I take to be a quite
separate phenomenon from questions of life and intrinsic biology)?
I'm not sure, nevertheless, what there is to debate about this philosophically
except, perhaps, for the potential ethical questions and implications that must
inevitably arise.
In the end philosophy isn't about new knowledge or advancing the borders of the
known world but, rather, about putting things in their place, fitting old bits
of information (that we think we know) with new bits and coming up with a way
of understanding the whole messy business that must inevitably ensure when new
knowledge, thanks to the work of the sciences (or related fields), is added to
the mix.
Thanks for posting this, by they way, even if I'm not quite sure how to "play"
it in the current course of discussion.
SWM
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Rajasekhar Goteti <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
>
> Washington, May 21 (IANS) Three Indian-origin scientists are part of a team
> that has for the first time created a synthetic cell, controlled by man-made
> genetic instructions, which can also reproduce itself.The 24-member team
> included Sanjay Vashee, Radha Krishnakumar and Prashanth P. Parmar.'We call
> it the first synthetic cell,' said genomics pioneer Craig Venter, who oversaw
> the project. 'These are very much real cells.'Developed at a cost of $30
> million by the researchers at J. Craig Venter Institute, the experimental
> one-cell organism opens the way to manipulation of life on a previously
> unattainable scale, the Wall Street Journal reported.According to experts,
> scientists have been altering DNA piecemeal for many years, producing
> genetically engineered plants and animals, but the ability to craft an entire
> organism offers a new power over life.However, the achievement documented in
> the journal Science, may stir nagging questions of ethics, law and
> public safety about artificial life.'This is literally a turning point in
> the relationship between man and nature,' said molecular biologist Richard
> Ebright at Rutgers University who wasn't involved in the project.'It has the
> potential to transform genetic engineering. The research is going to explode
> once you can create designer genomes,' David Magnus, director of the Stanford
> University Center for Biomedical Ethics, was quoted as saying.The new cell, a
> form of bacteria, was conceived solely as a demonstration project, though
> several biologists were certain that the laboratory technique used to birth
> it would soon be applied to other strains of bacteria with commercial
> potential, the paper said.Email
> Yahoo news
> sekhar
>
> --- On Fri, 21/5/10, SWM <SWMirsky@...> wrote:
>
> From: SWM <SWMirsky@...>
> Subject: [Wittrs] Re: Mode of Existence for Subjective Experience
> To: wittrsamr@...
> Date: Friday, 21 May, 2010, 5:45 PM
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@> wrote:
> <snip>
>
> >
> > where did he advocate limiting your language to limit your world?
> >
> > Joe
>
> Wittgenstein is on record, in the foreword to the Philosophical
> Investigations, as saying that the author of the TLP (himself at an earlier
> stage of his career) was wrong. In his later career and, especially, in the
> later book, Wittgenstein went beyond the TLP and aimed to correct things he
> had thought earlier about language, about the way we think about language,
> about the way language works in the world, etc. -- SWM
>
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