>When I state, `there is no
>YOU, there is just the emergent face of your memesphere,' I literally
>mean that your informational ecology, existing in both the environment
>of your body and its environment, produce the fiction of you.
Woo! I just put a new cooling fan in my PC- sorry if I'm responding in an
out of date manner.
I've been trying to train myself into thinking that I don't exist, and that
what I thought was me, was in fact just a part of the UNIVERSE becoming
imperfectly self-aware for a bit. Basically, even a cortically tooled-up
brain, plus CNS, plus body, wouldn't give rise to any sensible consciousness
at all without an external environment.
The linguistic habits of referring to yourself in the first person
presumably emerge from a biologically rooted tendency to treat yourself
better (or at least differently) to how you treat others- and, indeed, other
things.
I liked Reed's points about limbic influence and importance- I think
cognitive theorists' underplaying of limbic influence on consciousness
really comes from their focused interest in cognitive phenomena. Meaning,
they really love talking about cognitive processes, and so are bound to miss
all the emotional stuff.
I had a bad mood the other day, and watched my limbic system hammer my
cognitive functions out of existence. Fantastic. Also I now take naps on
public transport, and play "monitor your consciousness powering down", which
is pretty funny. I know it's introspection going mad, but I swear you can
fleetingly become (aware of) the crazy parallel processes underlying your
pseudo-serial conscious narratives as you fall asleep.
Dave Pape
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Always bet on the guy with the spine.
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