Russell Standish writes:
> This is also a response to one of Bruno's comments.
>
> When talking about minds, the self/other boundary need not occur on
> the biological boundary (skin). I would say that when dreaming, or
> hallucinating, the random firing we perceive as coming from our input
> centres (visual cortex for instance) is coming from outside our minds
> (although still within our heads).
What if I'm not dreaming or hallucinating but just thinking abstract thoughts
about number theory or philosophy. I'm conscious, but I don't necessarily have
any sense of input from outside myself, whether real or imagined. I could live my
whole life like this, and if I ever suspected that something other than my own mind
existed it would be just another theory created by my mind on its own.
> There is a strong selective pressure to align our psychogical
> self/other boundary to our biological one - hence hallucinations are
> typically not adaptive, and I guess dreaming is tolerated as a byproduct of
> whatever sleep is useful for (committing things to long term memory perhaps)
>
> The self-other distinction is fairly strong. When it goes wrong (ie is
> not aligned with biology), things become really strange, with people
> thinking they're possessed, or thinking that their arms belong to
> someone else etc.
That's true, but psychotic people are still conscious.
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Wed Nov 22 2006 - 04:41:03 PST