From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Thu Feb 06 2003 - 10:51:52 MST
Jeff Allbright wrote:
> The sense of self is an illusion.
### Can you explain what do you mean by "illusion", especially as contrasted
to examples of "non-illusion"?
I am afraid you are using an epistemological argument in preparation for a
reworking of ethics.
---------------
Science has begun to show that our
> own sense of self, which seems to us continuous and central, and --
> important -- is actually a result of multiple asynchronous fed-back
> processes. One emergent characteristic of these processes is what we
> think of as consciousness or self-awareness. What even most
> technophiles don't realize is that this sense of self is under
> constant revision, with memories lost, and sometimes replaced with
> various degrees of inaccuracy, emotions changing, and even
> "processing capability" changing all the time.
### Yes, it is changing. So what?
-----------------
> What I find strange is that many people would generally agree with
> the above paragraph, but then continue to think that preservation of
> this illusionary "self" is an all-important goal.
### Everything is an illusion. The illusion of my self I like above almost
all else. Feels quite natural to me.
--------
> (I understand what is conventionally meant by "self", I live with this
> illusion constantly *myself*, but we're seeing enough cracks in this
> theory now, and understand enough of it's evolutionary basis, that
> I'm suggesting we start getting used to a broader view, beyond
> personal identity (beyond Lee's level 7)).
>
### The non-personal identity can be a choice, sure, yet it is not less or
more illusory than any other level. In certain circumstances, sentient
beings can evolve (or be built, or arrive at by stochastic processes) to
have non-personal identity attachments, like the "tribe", "species", "the
Borg". Anything might be possible, yet none of these choices have an
overriding, meta-ethical validity. Maybe, a society built of the perfect
altruists will one day outperform and displace the conglomerates of
cantankerous individuals that exist today, maybe not. It's not a question of
what should be, but rather what works.
Rafal
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