Maverick Philosopher

Suppose (1) that I am a brain-body composite and (2) that the brain is that in me which thinks. (Surely, if a physical part of me thinks, it is not the liver or heart but the brain.) Then (3) I think in virtue of my brain thinking. But (4) my brain is a proper part of me, whence it follows (5) that I think in virtue of the thinking of a proper part of me. Now (6) that which is a proper part of me is numerically distinct from me. Therefore, (7) I think in virtue of the thinking of something numerically distinct from me. But (8) this is absurd. Why? For the reasons given, mutatis mutandis, in the earlier post. Therefore, (9) if the brain is that in me which thinks, then I am identical to my brain.

But could I be identical to my brain? If I am not identical to my brain plus the rest of my body, then I am not identical to my whole brain either, since not every part of my brain is involved in thinking. But the real problem is that it makes little or no sense to suppose that the brain or any part of it is thinking when I am thinking. My brain is no more thinking when I am thinking than my eyes are seeing when I am seeing. (And my eyes are no more seeing when I am seeing than my glasses are.) I see with or by means of my eyes just as I hear with or by means of my ears; but when I see something it is not my eyes that see it. I see it. As Chisholm puts it, "Those physical organs do not do my seeing and hearing for me." (171) The same goes for the brain. If I hope you find this post interesting, then it is I who hope this, not my brain.

I am not denying that the brain is causally necessary for thinking to occur. The point is rather that the brain cannot be the subject of thinking, that in me which thinks. I cannot be identical to my brain. This can be argued Kripke-style:

a. If x = y, then necessarily x = y. (Principle of the Necessity of Identity)
b. If I = my brain, then necessarily I = my brain. (From (a))
c. I can conceive myself existing without my brain existing.
d. What is conceivable is possible.
e. Possibly, I exist but my brain does not. (From (c) and (d))
f. Possibly, I am not identical to my brain. (From (e))
g. I am not identical to my brain. (From (b) and (f) by Modus Tollens)

1. I am identical to a soul-body composite. (Assumption)

2. The soul is that in me which thinks. (Assumption)

A materialist may demand to know why the brain cannot be the subject of thinking, that in me which thinks. But this is a separate question. We are now examining the question whether I could be a soul-body composite.

3. I think in virtue of my soul thinking. (From 1, 2)

4. My soul is a proper part of me. (From 1)

Why? Well if X is composed of A and B, then A is a proper part of X, where a proper part of a whole is a part that is not identical to the whole. Every whole has itself as a part, but not as a proper part. So if you don't balk at (1), you should not balk at (4), since (4) is an immediate logical consequence of (1). Conceivably, one might balk at both (1) and (4) by denying that 'whole,' 'part,' and 'composite' have any meaningful application here. But surely one can use these terms in nonspatial senses. A part need not be a spatial part; analysis need not be a literal physical decomposition. Consider the sense of a declarative sentence and how its sense is built up out of the senses of its constituent words. Those senses are parts -- semantic parts or logical parts -- of the whole sense. So I see no reason to think that all the parts there are are spatial parts.

I would say that anything that can be analyzed must have parts. Analysis, by definition, operates under the aegis of two distinctions: whole/part, and complex/simple. To analyze is to analyze wholes into parts, and complex parts into simple parts. Can one analyze arguments? Then they must have parts. Can one analyze concepts? Then they must have parts. And so on. Anything that can be understood analytically must have a partite structure. I do not, however, maintain that all understanding is analytic understanding.

Can one subject a physical thing to be both a physical and metaphysical (ontological) analysis? Why not? Suppose you have two red spots of the same shade and shape on a piece of white paper. One could do a chemical analysis of the red ink, but one could also attempt an ontological analysis. The two spots are two, yet they share every non-relational property, and we might even suppose that they share every relational property. What then makes them numerically distinct? In classical jargon, what is the principium individuationis? One can argue that each spot has 'in' it an ontological constituent (ontological part) that grounds (accounts for) numerical difference. In this way one arrives at the notion of an ontological part.

If you deny that coffee cups and red spots and kitty cats have ontological parts, then you are committed to sayimg that they are ontologically simple -- and that sounds absurd. After all, cats and cups have properties, and some of these properties induce causal powers, and these powers are presumably in the things that have them. There is arguably also form/matter and essence/existence compositionin things. Or do you waht to say that cup is identical to its essence and so exists necessarily? Of course, a book-load of argument is needed to back all this up. But the main point is simple: talk of ontological analysis and ontological parts, wholes, and composites makes sense even if, at the end of the day, and for some respectable reasons, you reject such talk.

5. I think in virtue of the thinking of a proper part of me. (From 3, 4)

6. That which is a proper part of me is numerically distinct from me.

This is an instance of the truth that if A is proper part of X, then A is not numerically identical to X. And this sounds rather plausible. If you disagree, explain how a proper part of a whole could be identical to the whole.

7. I think in virtue of the thinking of something numerically distinct from me. (From 5, 6)

8. (7) is incoherent hence necessarily false.

Why is (7) incoherent? Well, when I execute the Cartesian cogito, do I secure an insight into the certain existence of something distinct from me? No, I gain insight into the indubitability of my existence, the existence of my thinking I, as long as thinking is occurring. Is it not self-evident that my indexical use of 'I' -- this being the first-person singular pronoun, not the letter 'I' -- can refer only to me and not to something distinct from me when I say 'I think that such-and-such?'

It makes sense to say that Frazier falls in virtue of his body falling, just as Frazier is bloody in virtue of some part of his body's being bloody. And Frazier can express these truths to himself using the first-person pronoun. He can say, 'I fall in virtue of the falling of something (my body) which is numerically distinct from me.' But it would make no sense were Frazier to say to himself, 'I think in virtue of the thinking of something numerically distinct from me.'

A falling man has a 'deputy' in the physical world, namely his body. Something distinct from me can 'take the fall' for me. But a thinker has no deputy. Only I can think for me. If I am out of gas, then I am out of gas in virtue of my car's being out of gas. But if I think that being out of gas is not good, then it is not in virtue of the thinking of something distinct from me that I think this thought.

9. (1) is false.

This follows by reductio ad absurdum given the truth of the other assumptions.

10. I am identical to my soul.

What the argument seems to show is that the assumption that I am a soul-body composite entails that I am not such a composite, but identical to my soul. But what about my soul? Is it a complex, a whole of parts? If yes, then the argument can be iterated to show that I am indentical to one part of this whole. And if this part has parts, then the argument can be iterated once again to show that I am identical to a part of this part, and so on, with the upshot that I am identical to a simple entity. We would then have an argument for the simplicity of the soul.

Although it is true that determinism ought not be confused with fatalism, Kane here presents an uncharitable definition of 'fatalism.' No sophisticated contemporary defender of fatalism would recognize his position in this definition. Indeed, as Richard Taylor points out in a well-known discussion (Metaphysics, Ch. 6), it is logically incoherent to suppose that what will happen will happen no matter what. If I am fated to die in a car crash, then I am fated to die in that manner -- but it is absurd to append 'no matter what I do.' For I cannot die in a car crash if I fly to a Tibetan monastery and swear off automobiles. Taylor:

The expression 'no matter what,' by means of which some philosophers have sought an easy and even childish refutation of fatalism, is accordingly highly inappropriate in any description of the fatalist conviction. (3rd ed. p. 57)

Kane's contrast is therefore bogus: no sophisticated contemporary is a fatalist in Kane's sense. Should we conclude that fatalism and determinism are the same? No. I suggest we adopt Peter van Inwagen's definition: "Fatalism . . . is the thesis that that it is a logical or conceptual truth that no one is able to act otherwise than he in fact does; that the very idea of an agent to whom alternative courses of action are open is self-contradictory." (An Essay on Free Will, p. 23.)

As I unbderstand the matter, fatalism differs from determinism since the determinist does not say that it is a logical or conceptual truth that no one is able to act otherwise than he in fact does. What the determinist says is that the actual past together with the actual laws of nature renders nomologically possible only one future. The determinist must therefore deny that the future is open. But his claim is not that it is logically self-contradictory that the future be open, but only that it is not open given the facts of the past, which are logically contingent, togehter with the laws of nature, which are also logically contingent.

Perhaps we can focus the difference as follows. Suppose A is a logically contingent action of mine, the action, say, of phoning Harry. Suppose I perform A. Both fatalist and determinist say that I could not have done otherwise. They agree that my doing A is necessitated. But they disagree about the source of the necessitation. The fatalist holds that the source is logical: the Law of Excluded Middle together with a certain view of truth and of propositions. The determinist holds that the source is the contingent laws of nature together with the contingent actual past.

1. P wills (wants, desires, chooses, etc.) to do A.

2. P's willing (wanting, etc.) A is unencumbered by any internal or external impediment, or subject to any internal or external compulsion.

Perhaps we should add a third condition:

3. P's willing (wanting, etc.) A is motivated by reasons rather than passions, and is indeed motivated by good reasons.

For example, I did not will and execute my backpacking excursion while in the grip of wild passions, but after calm thought and for presumably good reasons: to benefit from a particularly strenuous form of exercise; to appreciate the incredible beauty of John Muir's "Range of Light"; to have intense experiences impossible down below, etc.

There is no denying that the above definition specifies a legitimate sense of the word 'free.' It is also clear that one is free in this sense whether or not the universe is deterministic. A deterministic universe is one in which the present state of things is the only possible state of things given (a) the actual past and (b) the actual laws of nature. Equivalently, on determinism, the universe's present state, in all its details, is necessitated by its past states via the laws of nature.

So, on determinism, was my backpacking 'up to me' or not? Well, in one sense it was: my locomotion was willed by me, without constraint or compulsion, and for good reasons. What more could one want in terms of being free? Why not adopt something like the above compatibilist understanding of freedom? One reason for not adopting it is that we do think ourselves to possess something more when we account ourselves free. We feel that the action willed is 'up to one' in the sense that 'one could have done otherwise' not in the sense that one would have done otherwise if other (countervailing) reasons had presented themselves or if one had willed otherwise; but in the unconditional sense that one could have done otherwise with all the antecedent and circumambient conditions the same.

We seem to believe in an absolute spontaneity of action. We view ourselves as the unmoved movers of (some) of our actions. This is called the liberty of indifference. The great Leibniz rejects it, but in rejecting it seems to contradict himself (translation by Spur):

All actions are determined and never indifferent. For there is always a reason that inclines us to one rather than the other, since nothing happens without reason. It is true that these inclining reasons are not at all necessitating and destroy neither contingence nor liberty.

A liberty of indifference is impossible. So it cannot be found anywhere, even in God. For God is determined by himself always to do the best. And creatures are always determined by internal or external reasons.

Inasmuch as Leibniz holds that reasons incline without necessitating, he rejects determinism and embraces liberty of indifference. For a determining reason is a necessitating reason. But he plainly states that all actions are determined. So he rejects liberty of indifference. The waffle phrase 'inclines but does not necessitate' was censured severely by Schopenhauer in his classic On the Freedom of the Will (pp. 15, 61)

That the great Leibniz gets tangled up shows the depth of the problem. Why doesn't this defender of the principle of sufficient reason just come out unambiguously in favor of determinism? Schopenhauer would say that it is because of L's theological commitments: he needs to get God off the hook for the evil in the world. But less cynically we could say that Leibniz feels as I do a sense of his own absolute spontaneity in the generation of (some of) his actions. We feel ourselves to be in some sense spontaneous and ultimate originators of (some of) our actions. We act for reasons that incline us this way and that but do not (we feel) necessitate our actions.

When I keenly regret and feel gulty about doing something or leaving something undone, I have a sense of moral responsibility. I say to myself: I ought not to have done that! (Think of a case of genuine moral as opposed to prudential regret.) Since 'ought' implies 'can,' I infer that it was within my power to refrain from doing the regrettable deed. And that means: it was within my power to refrain from doing the deed even given all the antecedent and circumambient conditions and all the motives and excuses swirling before my mind at the time of the deed.

Moral responsibility entails libertarian freedom of the will. If I were free merely in some such compatibilist sense as the one above defined, then there would be no accounting for one's sense of moral responsibility. One could of course claim that moral responsibility and regret for past misdeeds are illusory psychological phenomena. One feels guilt and regret, but these emotions are not revelatory of anything: one simply did what one had to do in the circumstances, and it is a mistake to feel guilt or regret or moral responsibility. But if one holds that they are not illusory, then I think one is committed to libertarian freedom of the will.

I am tempted to say that the fact of deliberation proves the reality of free will.

But then someone objects: "The sense that it is up to you what happens is illusory; it merely seems to you that you are the ultimate source of your actions. In reality your every action is determined."

To evaluate this objection, we need to ask what is meant by 'illusory' in this context. Clearly, it is not being used in an ordinary way. Ordinary illusions can be seen through. Hiking at twilight I jump back from a tree root I mis-take for a snake. In cases of perceptual illusion like this, one can replace illusory perceptions with veridical ones. Something similar is true of other illusions such as those of romantic love and the sorts of illusions that leftists cherish.

But if free will is an illusion, it is not one that can be thrown off or seen through. I cannot help but feel, whenever I deliberate, that the outcome is at least in part 'up to me.' Indeed, it is inconceivable that I should disembarrass myself of this 'illusion.' One can become disillusioned about many things but not about the 'illusion' of free will. For it it integral to my being an agent, and being an agent is part and parcel of being a human being. To get free of the 'illusion' of free will, I would have to learn to interpret myself as a deterministic system whose behavior I merely observe but do not control. I would have to learn how to cede control and simply let things happen. But this is precisely what I cannot do. I am "condemned to be free" in a famous phrase of Jean-Paul Sartre. The sound core of the Sartrean exaggeration is that being free is constitutive of my being human.

Or is it only the (false) belief that one is free that is constitutive of being human? Perhaps the fact of deliberation proves merely that one must view oneself as free. Why couldn't this be a false view? Why couldn't it be the case that we all go through life with the false belief that some of what happens is up to us when in reality nothing is up to us?

My considered opinion is that this ultimately does not make any sense. It makes as little sense as the notion that consciousness is an illusion. What is the difference between an illusion I cannot throw off and the reality of being an agent? It is difficult to see any difference. Connected with this is the impossibility of existentially appropriating the truth of determinism. Suppose determinism is true. Can I live this truth, apply it to my life, make it my own? Not at all. To live is to be an agent, and to be an agent is to be a free agent. To live and be human is not merely to manifest a belief, but an all-pervasive ground-conviction, of the falsity of determinism. Determinism cannot be practically appropriated. It remains practically meaningless, a theory whose plausibility requires a third-person objective view of the self. But the self is precisely subjective in its innermost being and insofar forth, free and unobjectifiable.

B. Suppose causes and effects are all of them events (states, changes, etc.) rather than substances or continuants. Even if we thus restrict ourselves to event- as opposed to agent-causation, one should be able to perceive a logical gap between 'x causes y' and 'x determines (necessitates) y.'

Suppose a brick sails through the air, collides with a window, and breaks it. The cause is the colliding, the effect the breaking. If there is determination/necessitation in this situation, then the breaking is the only physically possible outcome: at the moment of collision there is only one nomologically possible future, namely, the one in which the window breaks. But there is surely no contradiction in the thought that, at the moment of collision, there are possible worlds in which the window does not break. If there are such worlds, then the colliding cannot be said to necessitate the breaking. In the actual world, the colliding is followed by breaking; but this outcome is not fixed or determined or necessitated by past events and the laws of nature if, at the moment of collision, there is a 'branching out' into a plurality of possible futures.

To put it another way, does the window have to break when the brick hits it? Is it not conceivable that one 're-run the universe' up to the moment of collision, at which moment the window does not break but remains intact? Of course, this will not be conceivable if one assumes that there is no causation without instantiation of an exceptionless regularity or law of nature. (There is more to a law than exceptionless regularity, but let's not worry about this nore consists in.) But we are not bound to make this Humean assumption. We are not bound to view causation as impossible without "constant conjunction." There are singularist theories of causation such as that of Curt Ducassse.

As Elizabeth Anscombe has insisted, the root idea of causation is that of one thing coming out of, being derivative from, being produced by another. Thinking about this carefully, one should be able to see that a logical wedge can be driven between production and necessitation. The colliding produces the breaking, but it is a quite separate idea that the colliding determines or necessitates the breaking. There seems to be nothing in the concept of a cause to require that a cause, or a cause together with all its circumambient condiitions, determines an effect.

This gives us a second reason to distinguish the Principle of Causation -- every event has a cause -- from the thesis of Determinism. For even if every event is the effect of a cause, it does not follow that everyy event is determined or necessitated by a cause.

References

G. E. M. Anscombe, "Causality and Determination" in Causation eds. Sosa and Tooley, Oxford, 1993, pp. 88-104.

Peter van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will, Oxford, 1983, pp. 138-140, p. 4.

The first thing to consider is whether the parody argument is strictly analogous to the original. And here is where I demur. It seems to me that the parody argument should go like this if it is to have the same form as the original:

1*. If determinism is true, then the states of my thermostat are a consequence of events and laws of nature in the remote past before it was made.

2. My thermostat has no control over circumstances that existed in the remote past before it was made, nor does it have any control over the laws of nature.

3. If A causes B, and X has no control over A, and A is sufficient for B, then X has no control over B.

Therefore

4*. If determinism is true, then my thermostat has no control over its own states.

Now (4*), unlike (4), is unobjectionable. Since the starred argument, unlike the first parody argument, has the the same form as the original consequence argument, we have been given no reason to think that the original proves too much.

If determinism is true, human beings and thermostats, despite their profound differences, are in the same logical boat: they are both deterministic systems whose states are determined by the laws of nature and past events. My thermostat controls the temperature of my house, but it does not control its own states. My range of control vastly exceeds that of a thermostat, and indeed extends to some of my own physical and mental states: I control whether my body will stink or not, and I have some control over my thoughts, desires, and aversions. But if determinism is true, my acts of will are not in my control. I may will to control my anger, but my willing to control it is not itself in my control, and so is not free.

I admit that upon first consideration it has considerable intuitive appeal. But there are powerful reasons to suspect that this initial impression is erroneous. Consider again the basic Lockean example of the man locked in the room. He is determined to stay in the room by things that are outside his control, namely, the state of the room together with the laws of nature. Still, by supposition he wants to stay in the room, and that is what he wills to do. If (3) were true, we'd have to say that the man is not in control when he wills to stay put. Yet, intuitively, it seems almost irresistible to think that he is in control in willing to stay put. He is in control for the same reason he is free, namely, because he is doing the very thing he wants to do. If a person wants to do X, and consequently wills to do X, and even succeeds in doing X, then how can we deny that he is in control?

The man has no control over the total set of causal factors (A) that have led to his being in the room (B), and yet Spur thinks that the man is in control of his being in the room because he wants to be in the room despite the fact that the man is locked in the room and so cannot leave even if he wanted to. To my mind, this is a strange way of thinking. How can the man be said to be in control of his situation given that he is powerless to change it? How can wanting or desiring or choosing to be in a situation over which one has no control show that one really does have control over it? Can a prisoner become a free man simply by wanting to be imprisoned?

Suppose we consider some similar cases.

A. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The fact that one wants to do something does not show that one is in control if the wanting is compulsive. Someone who is subject to obsessions and compulsions, such as the compulsion to repeatedly wash his hands, is, to the extent that he suffers from OCD, not in control.

B. Addiction. The addict has a burning desire for his fix, but this hardly means that he is in control of his situation. The addict is out of control inasmuch as he is controlled by his addiction.

C. Coercive Taxation. There are liberals who want to pay the high taxes they pay believing as they do that these are monies well spent for the common good. Some of these liberals object when it is pointed out to them that taxation is coercive in the sense that failure to pay brings dire consequences in its train. They seem to think that wanting to pay taxes renders them uncoerced. But they are coerced all the same. Analogously, the man in the room may want to be there, but this does not change the fact that, objectively, he is not in control of his situation. It is not 'up to him' that he be there, despite the fact that he wants to be there and believes (falsely) that the door is unlocked.

D. Phobias. I use 'phobia' in the correct as opposed to the politically correct way. (Compare 'homophobia,' 'Islamophobia.') A phobia is an irrational fear. Suppose the man in the room suffers from an acute case of agoraphobia. His irrational fear of leaving the room makes him want to stay within it. In these circumstances, how can his wanting to stay put be taken to show that he is in control of his situation?

For the reasons given, I fail to see why (3) should be rejected.

2. Moral responsibility is to be distinguished both from causal responsibility and from legal responsibility. Suppose I have just passed my stress EKG with flying colors and have no reason to think I have heart disease. But I have a heart attack while driving home from the stress test and kill a pedestrian. Surely I am not morally responsible for the death. And it would be a draconian law indeed under which I would be held legally responsible. On the other hand, I am morally responsible for the entertaining (if not the initial occurrence) of evil thoughts such as the thought of running down a man who has insulted me, but not legally responsible for them inasmuch as there are no — and should not be — any positive laws regulating what one thinks. (Positive laws are those posited by legislatures.)

3. An action-omission is a failure to act. Example: I promise to meet you at Insufficient Grounds coffeehouse for chess at an agreed upon time, but fail to show up or notify you of my inability to be present.

4. That (P1) is true I take to be either self-evident or more evident than the load-bearing premises of any argument the conclusion of which is its negation. That we take credit for some of our actions/omissions shows that we take ourselves to be morally responsible for them. This credit cannot be accounted for in terms of mere causal or legal responsibility. And the same applies when we blame ourselves and others for actions and omissions.

5. (P2) will be rejected by compatibilists. They will hold that moral responsibility does not require libertarian freedom of the will (LFW), where this is defined in terms of 'could have done otherwise.' Compatibilists believe that moral responsibility can be had 'on the cheap' if a person is free in the sense of not being constrained to act or refrain from acting by anything external to the agent. The basic compatibilist idea is that determinism is compatible with freedom if freedom is taken to be mere freedom from external constraint.

I agree with Kant, however, that compatibilist freedom is the 'freedom of the turnspit' and as such not the genuine article. The spit is free to turn if nothing impedes it. To update the example, think of the spit as a self-contained, motorized, battery-operated unit. One can even imagine it turning itself on when a hunk of meat is attached to it, and turning itself off when the meat is cooked. One can say that the turnspit 'acts' freely as long as nothing interferes with it.

This 'action,' however, is logically compatible with the truth of determinism. Determinism is the view that whatever happens is determined by antecedent conditions together with the laws of nature. The turning of the spit is thus entirely determined and 'free' only in the sense that its operation is not impeded by anything external to it.

But this is not the sense of 'free' in which we morally responsible agents are free. Facing a morally relevant choice, I experience myself as free in the sense that it is 'up to me' what happens, that what I do is determined by me, and that when I do A rather than B (both being possible), I could have done B.

6. One might try to argue that this sense of libertarian freedom, and the sense of moral responsibility that rests upon it, are illusory. I do not believe that it makes any sense to view these phenomena as illusory, but this question is reserved for the next post in this series.

7. The argument given above is not compelling, but then few, if any, arguments for substantive philosophical theses are compelling. (If you think you have a compelling argument, present it to me and I will show you why it is not compelling.) But I do claim that the above argument renders the belief in libertarian freedom of the will rationally acceptable.

But note that the existence of identical twins demonstrates that an individual human life can begin after conception. In such cases, two human individuals can be traced back to a single zygote. As such, those two individuals cannot be numerically identical to the zygote, or else - by the transitivity of identity - they would be numerically identical to each other, which they are not. (They are two individuals, not just one.) We must conclude that at least one of the twins (or, less arbitrarily, both of them) began their "individual human life" at a point in time after the zygote/embryo split in two, and thus after conception.

Chappell's point is on target. It is false that every individual human life begins at conception. But all I need is the converse: Every life that begins at (human) conception is an individual human life. Thus the zygotic precursor that later splits is an individual human life that begins at conception and ends when the split occurs.

I might make the following repair: insert the proviso, 'that is not the result of a splitting' after 'individual human life.'

What I was doing in that post was showing the silliness of formulating the abortion question in terms of the question: 'When does life begin?' (As Rudy Giuliani, former NYC mayor, did recently.) That question is hopeless because multiply ambiguous. Are we asking about the beginning of life on earth in general? No. Are we asking phylogenetically about the beginning of human life? No. Are we asking ontogenetically about the beginning of an instance of human life? No, but this is closer to the real question which is the question when the human fetus (in the broad sense) acquires the normative status of being a person or rights-possessor.

I used 'individual human life' to contrast with human life as such, but failed to realize that 'individual human life' is ambiguous as between (i) instance of human genetic material and (ii) human individual. As suggested by its etymology, 'individual' connotes something indivisible, something that cannot survive a splitting operation. But an instance of human genetic material can survive splitting. Or can it? Here things are becoming murky.

(So think twice about making a molecule-for-molecule copy of yourself! If you walk into the North end of the Matter Duplicator and two mutually indiscernible hombres walk out of the South end, which one is you? Which one gets to 'conjugate' your wife? Arguably neither, your wife is now a widow.)

(Similarly, you should have doubts about Ray Kurzweil's roseate hopes for cyberimmortality. He thinks that all you have to do is make a copy of your brain's 'software' and then run that 'software' later on a superior machine once your present body falls apart. But although one can copy software, one cannot copy an individual. Suppose my 'software' is run on two machines: which one am I? Neither! I haven't survived, I have died. Who was it that wrote the paper, "The Importance of Being Identical"?)

There is obviously a lot more to be said on these topics. But now it is time to punch the clock.