RE: Know your mind

From: Higgo James <james.higgo.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 09:23:24 +0100

Ah - I thought you meant *another* beholder. Yes, I am in 100% agreement
that consciousness is in the eye of the (conscious) beholder, and it is not
a noticeable feature of reality for anyone able to see the whole of reality.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hans Moravec [SMTP:hpm.domain.name.hidden]
> Sent: Saturday, July 10, 1999 1:12 AM
> To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
> Subject: Re: Know your mind
>
> James Higgo:
> > I'm not sure why someone else's knowledge of a system has any
> > bearing on it's subjective experience. If it does, then anyone who
> > believes in God (omniscient) is, by this definition, not capable of
> > subjective experience in their own view. Minds are piles of
> > components; why does it matter if they can be known? I have just
> > received Robot, and perhaps the issue is discussed in more detail
> > there. James
>
> My take is just that subjective experience (consciousness) is an
> abstract (subjective!) property, like beauty and value, which requires
> a beholder to note its existence, and which does not exist for every
> beholder. The disorienting twist is that consciousness functions as
> a beholder, allowing the beheld property of consciousness to behold
> its own existence!
>
> Maybe it is possible to change your own consciousness' opinion about
> your own consciousness (as about your own beauty or worth). Doesn't
> Zen Buddhism work towards that: a state in which ego and sensation and
> thought vanish, while body and brain continue to function normally?
>
>
> There probably are other abstractions in your head that have their own
> idea of what you're all about: they just don't communicate in obvious
> ways. For instance, there are split-brain experiments that show
> pretty clearly your mute right brain can have different beliefs,
> feelings and goals than the talky left brain.
>
> Also, in multiple-personalty disorder, several talky consciousnesses
> seem to share the same brain. How many always-silent multiple
> personalities, that nevertheless believe themselves to exist and have
> feeling, might one find in a normal person, if one knew how to look
> in just the right ways?
Received on Mon Jul 12 1999 - 01:28:08 PDT