[ExI] Pain and anesthesia

[Stuart LaForge]

Quoting Bill Wallace:

> Stuart wrote:  However, the mechanism by which an integrated self or ego
> arises out
> of a large and disparate, but coherent set of such motes of awareness
> still eludes me.
>
> Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind
> <https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0691146748/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1>
> by Robert Kurzban
>
> I just finished this book and was very interested in the data.  He makes a
> pretty good case that there is no integrated self.

I just ordered the book on Amazon and it will be delivered in a week  
or two. In the meantime would you care to summarize his argument, cite  
passages, or something?

I suspect that Kurzban's case rests on trotting out some studies of  
pathological conditions such as various forms of brain damage and then  
arguing the semantics of what reality means. Much like the "qualia are  
not real" crowd of Dennett and company. One could just as easily argue  
that there is no forest, there is instead just a lot of trees that are  
really close to together. Of course, that simply proves the cliche of  
missing the forest for the trees.

Philosophers like Guatama Buddha have been saying that the ego self is  
an illusion since before the christian era. Regardless of the fact  
that in certain pathological situations, the illusion breaks down,  
nobody can deny that the illusion itself exists and is quite  
persistent in normal healthy individuals.

So perhaps I should rephrase my question as how does the illusion of  
an integrated self arise from a bunch disparate parts?

Stuart LaForge