Date: Sun, 9 Apr 1995 23:46:00 -0400
From: SBronzell-AT-aol.com
Subject: Re: human body transformation (re: sentimentality)


Well, using your words (Patrick), "existential depth" has a lot to do with
"power and its exercise."  To be one's own sovereign.  Exercising power
doesn't guarantee sovereignity.  Being sovereign, however, involves power.

And if you think of some good science fiction writers, they tackle all the
viscittudes of these questions.  Poul Anderson, for instance, is not just
exploring the effects of technology but also the bearing of those effects
upon personhood, to use another word that has been used in this thread.  And
Phillip K. Dick is certainly exploring "what is a person" in the midst of
power struggles and intrigue, etc.  And many others.

Any field, sci-fi or philosophy or whatever, is full of quacks or criminals,
etc.  And every field includes people who are exploring "deep" questions.
 Many of these questions are shared by Heidegger and Kant and Feuerbach and
Clarke and Anderson and Dick and Asimov and ...

Sean


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