[extropy-chat] Re: Multi personalities reveal self is fiction

[Jef Allbright]

Eugen Leitl wrote:

>On Sun, Jun 12, 2005 at 07:41:17PM -0600, mike99 wrote:
>
>  
>
>> My present practice as a Soto Zen priest is to become more aware of
>> the bare attention that *is* the kernel mental state, totally shorn
>> of the many layers of distractive mental processes we ordinarily
>> experience. I can observe those other layers float by, but I cannot
>> see the one (i.e., the mental processes) who observes them.
>
>You're fooling yourself. There's no useful knowledge to be gained from
>introspection. You might trip the god circuit, and bask in the glow for a
>while, but this insight won't help you to build numerical models of people.
>  
>
And "you" might gain a valuable perspective from which to operate more 
effectively, freer from the evolutionary and environmental clutter.

>Ok, not quite correct. Such experience could lead you to conclusion that self
>isn't important, personal death is not a problem, and trying go achive personal
>immortality is a waste of time.
>  
>

And "you" might take a step further and gain a fuller realization of the 
utility of such an objective view for understanding systems, while 
maintaining the effective use of the subjective view for understanding 
values and thus motivations.

>It's the explicit purpose of that hardware, after all, designed-in by 
>Darwin to help intelligent but mortal beings cope with their mortality.
>
>Of course, as most people continue to operate in that mode we'll never get
>the funding to get a R&D program for personal immortality going, so that's
>the rub.
>  
>
That view of evolved altruism highlighted by Eugen, while technically 
correct within context, is soooo 2nd millennium. We are now attaining 
the level of information awareness that allows individuals to appreciate 
(but not fully comprehend) their place in the larger system and optimize 
their subjective benefit over increasingly large scope with which one 
self-identifies.

It doesn't get (subjectively, of course) better than that.

- Jef
http://www.jefallbright.net