[ExI] Flash of insight...

[ablainey at aol.com]

 I had a mental play with this after the thread the other day. I closed my eyes and tried to consciously move the 'I' around with very little success. I tried to concentrate on various sensory inputs to see if it make any difference to the percieved position of consciousness. Apart from the perception of moving maybe a few inches inside my head it wash a complete wash out. Perhaps that is enough to show something. I certainly wasn't floating around the room or having any sense of perception from an external point.
One thing I did notice is that the 'I' is not perceived as a singular point, it feels more like it is diffused over a 3d region. 


 
I would still like to know if blind people also percieve themselves to be in thier heads? Especially if they are cortically blind. Also if it visual input from an artificial source would alter the position? This might show if the 'I' position is created by a physical reference to the sensory input or by the physical position of the brain itself. Do snails percieve themselves to be at a point somewhere between their eye stalks or in thier heads?


 

-----Original Message-----
From: Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tue, Nov 2, 2010 9:11 pm
Subject: Re: [ExI] Flash of insight...


On 11/2/2010 3:04 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: 
 
> I believe there were experiments a couple of year ago inducing 
> out-of-body "delocalisation" in perfectly healthy people. Interesting, 
> but not such a big deal, IMHO. 
 
It's only a big deal given that several people who seemed to think that sense of identity is innately constructed as being *behind your eyes* might be wrong about how this actually works at a deep level. 
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