Re: Where the I is

From: brent.allsop@attbi.com
Date: Fri Feb 07 2003 - 17:27:43 MST

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    "Jef Allbright" <jef@jefallbright.net> wrote:

    "The sense of self is an illusion."

    Assertions like this are missing a big part of the picture – the most important
    part of the picture!

    If this "sense of self" is an "illusion" – what then is this "illusion" made of?

    An "illusion" is some real conscious knowledge that inaccurately represents its
    referent. For example, our knowledge of a pencil in a glass of water is not
    straight when the real pencil in the real glass of water is actually straight.
    We call this an illusion because our conscious knowledge doesn't accurately
    represent its referent. But just saying it is an "illusion" doesn’t mean our
    conscious knowledge doesn't exist! We know, more than we know anything else,
    that this conscious knowledge of the pencil exists regardless of the fact that
    it is an illusion and not straight.

    We also have conscious knowledge that is our "I" – even though there is nothing
    in physical reality that exists that this "I" represents. We have conscious
    knowledge of our skull represented by our brain. Inside this knowledge of our
    skull is real knowledge of an entity looking out through this knowledge of
    our "eyes". Just because this knowledge of this "I" is an illusion and there
    is nothing in reality that it is a referent of, doesn’t mean that it doesn't
    exist.

    I've written a short story and a paper on this topic that is available here:

    http://home.attbi.com/~brent.allsop/

    In the short story I describe one possible way this conscious knowledge of
    this 'I' will be uploaded and what it will be subjectively like to experience
    such an upload.

    Always remember that even false conscious knowledge is still very phenomenally
    real! We know this more than we know anything else.

    And the web is already self aware! Google stores lots of information about the
    web. Its just that this mathematical knowledge isn't phenomenally conscious
    knowledge of the web like that which exists in our brains.

    Brent Allsop

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