Core claim in my post is that the ‘instantaneous’ mind (with its preferences etc., see post) is—if we look closely and don’t forget to keep a healthy dose of skepticism about our intuitions about our own mind/self—sufficient to make sense of what we actually observe. And given this instantaneous mind with its memories and preferences is stuff we can most directly observe without much surprise in it, I struggle to find any competing theories as simple or ‘simpler’ and therefore more compelling (Occam’s razor), as I meant to explain in the post.
As I make very clear in the post, nothing in this suggests other theories are impossible. For everything there can of course be (infinitely) many alternative theories available to explain it. I maintain the one I propose has a particular virtue of simplicity.
Regarding computationalism: I’m not sure whether you meant a very specific ‘flavor’ of computationalism in your comment; but for sure I did not mean to exclude computationalist explanations in general; in fact I’ve defended some strong computationalist position in the past and see what I propose here to be readily applicable to it.
the ‘instantaneous’ mind (with its preferences etc., see post) is*—if we look closely and don’t forget to keep a healthy dose of skepticism about our intuitions about our own mind/self*—sufficient to make sense of what we actually observe
Huh? If you mean my future observations, then you are assuming a future self, and therefore temporally extended self. If you mean my present observations, then they include memories of past observations.
in fact I’ve defended some strong computationalist position in the past
But a computation is an series of steps over time, so it is temporarily extended
Core claim in my post is that the ‘instantaneous’ mind (with its preferences etc., see post) is—if we look closely and don’t forget to keep a healthy dose of skepticism about our intuitions about our own mind/self—sufficient to make sense of what we actually observe. And given this instantaneous mind with its memories and preferences is stuff we can most directly observe without much surprise in it, I struggle to find any competing theories as simple or ‘simpler’ and therefore more compelling (Occam’s razor), as I meant to explain in the post.
As I make very clear in the post, nothing in this suggests other theories are impossible. For everything there can of course be (infinitely) many alternative theories available to explain it. I maintain the one I propose has a particular virtue of simplicity.
Regarding computationalism: I’m not sure whether you meant a very specific ‘flavor’ of computationalism in your comment; but for sure I did not mean to exclude computationalist explanations in general; in fact I’ve defended some strong computationalist position in the past and see what I propose here to be readily applicable to it.
Huh? If you mean my future observations, then you are assuming a future self, and therefore temporally extended self. If you mean my present observations, then they include memories of past observations.
But a computation is an series of steps over time, so it is temporarily extended