This post is apparently dedicated to undermining the idea of a self that persists in time. In fact, it assumes that this is already the goal, and instead poses the question of why the brain would think that way in the first place, in the hope that the answers will allow the false idea to be driven out all the more efficiently.
Currently it has 14 upvotes and zero downvotes. So perhaps I’d better plant some seeds of doubt here: When your model of reality contradicts something that would otherwise seem undeniable, like the passage of time, or your own existence, not just in this moment, but as a being with a definite past and future… that’s not necessarily a signal to double down on the model and rationalize away your perceptions.
I don’t want to endorse every spontaneous opinion that anyone has ever had, or even the majority of common sense; and it’s inevitable and even desirable that people test out their models by taking them seriously, even if this leads to a few philosophical casualties. That’s part of the trial and error whereby lessons are learned.
So I will try to be specific. I would ask the reader to entertain the possibility that reality is not the way it is portrayed in their favorite reductionist or platonic-computational model; that these are quite superficial and preliminary conceptions of reality, overlooking some very basic causal factors that we just haven’t discovered yet, and “mathematical” insights that would completely reorder how we think of the formal part of these models, and correct understandings of what it means for something to exist and to have a property, and almost everything about how life is actually experienced and lived. And finally—here’s the punchline—please consider the possibility that these aspects of reality, not yet present in your favorite formalisms and theories, are precisely such as to allow time, and a personal self, and the objective persistence of that self through time, to be real.
So I will try to be specific. I would ask the reader to entertain the possibility that reality is not the way it is portrayed in their favorite reductionist or platonic-computational model; that these are quite superficial and preliminary conceptions of reality, overlooking some very basic causal factors that we just haven’t discovered yet, and “mathematical” insights that would completely reorder how we think of the formal part of these models, and correct understandings of what it means for something to exist and to have a property, and almost everything about how life is actually experienced and lived. And finally—here’s the punchline—please consider the possibility that these aspects of reality, not yet present in your favorite formalisms and theories, are precisely such as to allow time, and a personal self, and the objective persistence of that self through time, to be real.
I’m not sure how saying “it’s possible there’s something we might not know yet which might make persistent selves real” is being specific. (And if there’s anything any more specific than that in the paragraph, I seem to have missed it after reading it twice.)
Is reality really relevant here? The way I see it, if questions like these are phrased properly, a correct answer would be true for any universe I might find myself in.
I’m failing to think of any universe that could contain something like my human mind, in which conclusions other than the ones I have drawn on these matter could be true. Obviously, that could be a failure of my imagination.
Can anyone here describe a universe in which there is a… and I’m really not sure how else to describe this concept in ways that don’t use the word soul or make it sound silly … a thread connecting past and future subjective realities?
This post is apparently dedicated to undermining the idea of a self that persists in time. In fact, it assumes that this is already the goal, and instead poses the question of why the brain would think that way in the first place, in the hope that the answers will allow the false idea to be driven out all the more efficiently.
Currently it has 14 upvotes and zero downvotes. So perhaps I’d better plant some seeds of doubt here: When your model of reality contradicts something that would otherwise seem undeniable, like the passage of time, or your own existence, not just in this moment, but as a being with a definite past and future… that’s not necessarily a signal to double down on the model and rationalize away your perceptions.
I don’t want to endorse every spontaneous opinion that anyone has ever had, or even the majority of common sense; and it’s inevitable and even desirable that people test out their models by taking them seriously, even if this leads to a few philosophical casualties. That’s part of the trial and error whereby lessons are learned.
So I will try to be specific. I would ask the reader to entertain the possibility that reality is not the way it is portrayed in their favorite reductionist or platonic-computational model; that these are quite superficial and preliminary conceptions of reality, overlooking some very basic causal factors that we just haven’t discovered yet, and “mathematical” insights that would completely reorder how we think of the formal part of these models, and correct understandings of what it means for something to exist and to have a property, and almost everything about how life is actually experienced and lived. And finally—here’s the punchline—please consider the possibility that these aspects of reality, not yet present in your favorite formalisms and theories, are precisely such as to allow time, and a personal self, and the objective persistence of that self through time, to be real.
I’m not sure how saying “it’s possible there’s something we might not know yet which might make persistent selves real” is being specific. (And if there’s anything any more specific than that in the paragraph, I seem to have missed it after reading it twice.)
It’s more specific than “science might be wrong when it contradicts [unspecified pre-scientiific belief]”.
Also, I listed a variety of ways in which the current scientifically-inspired belief might be falling short.
Is reality really relevant here? The way I see it, if questions like these are phrased properly, a correct answer would be true for any universe I might find myself in.
I’m failing to think of any universe that could contain something like my human mind, in which conclusions other than the ones I have drawn on these matter could be true. Obviously, that could be a failure of my imagination.
Can anyone here describe a universe in which there is a… and I’m really not sure how else to describe this concept in ways that don’t use the word soul or make it sound silly … a thread connecting past and future subjective realities?