>>> Frank Masingill on "Existence Exists" 
 FM> I thought, William, that medical determination of death had become
 FM> relatively easy.  
How is that clinically determined?
 FM> As for those of us without medical training, common
 FM> sense kicks in and if we see living animals and then the same species
 FM> of animals lying about in the woods in various states of decay most of
 FM> us have little trouble determining a difference.  
Common sense and medical determination are always the same?
Whether or not there
 FM> is some animating force ASSOCIATED with a "living" body has been a
 FM> millenial question.  When Homer(s) was writing his classic the body was
 FM> conceived as something like what we would consider today as being an
 FM> "animated corpse" if we can still imagine any such thing.  That is what
 FM> the gods and later the God did to mudpies - gave them animation 
Well come on, the theory of evolution starts with a bunch of soup and bestirs 
it unto life.
 FM> Quite honestly, at 77, I'm not really interested in a lot of
 FM> action following THIS life.  
Indeed old age convinces one that a long life may not be a blessing.  As I 
put it, having experience finite life would you like to try infinite life?
The philosophical question regarding
 FM> governance of the masses, however, is how order is accomplished without
 FM> a rather literal belief in rewards and punishments which conveniently
 FM> people often want to judge while still "living."  If they lack such
 FM> belief then it is quite easy to say, "oh well, there quite possibly IS
 FM> NO judgement so I'll just do all of the devilment I would like to do,
 FM> enjoy myself and if I can manage to escape punishment for my crimes
 FM> here, I'm home free.  
Abstraction of dominance and submission.  What do you think heaven and hell 
are about?  Threats, and if you don't believe, then actual attack.  Japanese 
have a shame based ethics instead of fear based ethics.  Ostracism instead of 
punishment.
 FM> Political Philosophy has to take such a question as this quite
 FM> seriously because it goes to the question of whether or not conscience
 FM> is of any consequence.  Physical science demands no conscience
 FM> whatsoever.   
Are you talking about consciousness or a moral conscience?  Science is 
totally puzzled about consciousness.  As for ethics a sociological approach 
would be to consider how ethics may regulate a society.  A psychological 
consideration would be to determine the relation between ethics and behavior. 
 Medicine however seems to include some professional ethics.
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