See also EgoFeature
Self Identification is the central line of code in everyone’s conceptual network. It determines our sense of Self. Currently for most people this central line of code contains the identification: Self = Immediate Human Body (including of course the Mind that emerges from Body).
Identification with a vulnerable Human Body/Mind causes a great deal of our fearful and defensive stance vis a vis the rest of the world. This fear for our vulnerable Body/Mind gives rise to a Body/Mind-centered stance vis a vis others and the rest of the world.
The false line of code is Self = Immediate Human Body/Mind is the EgoBug that causes our Body/Mind to usurp the center of our lives. The EgoBug infects our very sense of Self!
Self = Immediate Human Body/Mind is demonstrably false. Self is that which experiences our lives. Since the Human Body/Mind is something we can all observe, it cannot be the Self. Let us call that which experiences our lives “the Observer”.
Each of us has “the Observer” to a lesser or greater degree. It is the Observer in each of us that is the Real Self. Since the Observer cannot Oneself be observed, the Observer is not an Object. The Observer is therefore Pure Subject.
When we eradicate the EgoBug by deleting the identification: Self = Immediate Human Body/Mind, Self gets automatically identified with the default Self, namely the observer of our lives. Our identity reverts from Object to Subject. This is the most important single change that needs to take place in each of us, if only because this will automatically initiate the gradual correction and integration of each one’s conceptual network. The more our conceptual Network is corrected and integrated, the more we will each live from our default identity as the Pure Observational Facet of the Universe, or Universal Spirit.
The Observational Standpoint lets us:
OmidyarDotNet has a discussion and a fair amount of action around defining and deleting the EgoBug. You have to sign in to read/participate though (will work on getting this changed). I was introduced to this topic by RaviArapurakal who is one of my mentors. If anyone is interested, I’ll invite him here to discuss it with us.
Hmm, I recently read an essay called “The Multiple Self” that uses the same kind of metaphors about the self, except it’s more descriptive than prescriptive (which I think is good - I don’t particularly want to get rid of my “Ego bug”, but being aware of how I work is Good).
Key quote:
Pretty similar, eh ? 
Also, in the comments:
Emile, I’m off to read the Multiple Self now … thanks for the link 
And, when you say “I don’t particularly want to get rid of my EgoBug” do you mean “I believe Self == Immediate Human Body and I want to keep believing that”?
I don’t know if I’d say “Self == Immediate Human Body” - it’s not a matter of believing or not, it’s a matter of how you define “self”. I’ve got no problem with the idea that the “observer” isn't completely in charge.
I guess I don’t fully understand what this page is about (is it about the ego, defined as being a bug, or is it about a bug in our ego ?), but there are some conclusions I don’t really agree with (“The universe as our true common body”) - to me, other people are other people, and information about the self, the ego, consciousness or whatever won’t change that. Mind uploading, brain-computer interface, technological telepathy and the like might, though.
I too have difficulty with the idea here.
I am Soul. I inhabit a mind, which in turn inhabits a body, which in turn inhabits a world.
I don’t think most people have the “EgoBug” as described here.
If anything could be a “problem,” it would be identifying with mind. And I don’t think even that is a problem. Recognizing how we’re not our mind is useful as far as achieving enlightenment goes, but I don’t think it’s a major achievement in social progress.
People will still fight and argue and disagree, whether they think they are their mind, or not. They will still have “acceptable,” “unacceptable,” and “forbidden.” And they will disagree on where the borders for those things are.
Metaphysical nitpicks:
I talk about the HiveMind a lot, but: It’s a separate thing. A human cell is not the human body.
I’ve refactored the DocumentMode portion of this page, and started to address the comments that have built up. Thoughts on the refactoring?
>> I don't know if I'd say "Self == Immediate Human Body" - it's not >> a matter of believing or not, it's a matter of how you define "self"
This is indeed the crux. How do you define self? What are you?
When I contemplatively trace “self” back to its essential nub, I find: “That which is self in me is identical to that which is self in you.” The actual flesh of our bodies and the mindsets that have been uploaded into them differs a great deal … but the core that is life and awareness is the same. In fact the supercool emergent thing that is life can be seen to more or less degree in every living thing. That supercool emergent thing called life is what drives evolution to greater complexity and specificity. While this can be understood rationally, it remains a powerless (lifeless) construct until it is grasped through the eye of contemplation. This one of the fundamental realizations that zazen meditation leads toward.
>> I guess I don't fully understand what this page is about (is it about >> the ego, defined as being a bug, or is it about a bug in our ego ?), >> but there are some conclusions I don't really agree with ("The universe >> as our true common body") - to me, other people are other people, and >> information about the self, the ego, consciousness or whatever won't change >> that. Mind uploading, brain-computer interface, technological telepathy >> and the like might, though.
Certainly there is a real and functionally very important distinction to be made between the Emile Body and the Brandon Body (and likewise between the Emile Mind that emerges from the Emile Body and the Brandon Mind that emerges from the Brandon Body). And … that distinction no longer deserves its place upon the pedestal of self-identity. What is of primary coolness with regard to you and of primary coolness with regard to me is exactly the same thing. The special abilities and deficits of our flesh with respect to other flesh is cool … but not as cool as the life that animates us and drives our awareness.
Lion, you say
>> I am Soul. I inhabit a mind, which in turn inhabits a body, which in turn inhabits a world.
What is soul?
You also say “Recognizing how we’re not our mind is useful as far as achieving enlightenment goes, but I don’t think it’s a major achievement in social progress” and then assert that people will still fight and argue and disagree.
While I am with you that people will still fight and argue and disagree, I believe “enlightenment” brings about a major shift in how one relates to others. Social progress fundamentally springs from enlightenment. If every body’s mindset became more like that of the dali lama I think that our fights, arguments and disagreements would be less likely to bridge into violence. Please list some major desirable achievement in social progress that you believe is of paramount importance. I’ll then seek to show how it springs from this fundamental shift in awareness.
I agree that you’re mind is not the same as Emile’s or mine. And … I’ll assert that the property of consciousness or awareness that emerges from and participates through our body/minds is the same fundamental thing. Awareness is seeing through Emile’s eyes right now just as it is seeing through your eyes.
>> People very clearly ''are'' in conflict with one another. One mind >> wants one thing, another wants another, and they disagree and struggle >> with each other.
Indeed, individual body/minds are in conflict with one another. But saying that “we” are in conflict is falling prey to the EgoBug. There is no “we” other than the one awareness that perceives through each of us.
>> I talk about the HiveMind a lot, but: It's a separate thing. A human cell is not the human body.
The HiveMind emerges from the structured interaction of human minds in the same way that the human body emerges from the structured interaction of cells. In both cases, that which emerges from the arrangement of the parts is greater than the sum of the parts … I guess that means that in some ways the emergent coolness is distinct or separate from the parts it emerges from. It is also deeply connected and dependent upon those parts as well.
I Soul as “Consciousness” or “Awareness” or “Experience,” but not mind, computation, processing, or substance.
Things we know about Soul; Undebatable truths:
(It’s not by dogma that these are debateable; It’s simply that if they are debated, it’s either a misunderstanding of terms, or else the other person really isn’t talking about experience, and probably can’t be communicated with more. Everybody who’s experienced experience would have to agree with the above things.)
Things that we don’t know about Soul:
This is what I mean by “Soul.”
These are things that I am certain about, but certain about knowning, and certain about not knowing.
Certainty is an attribute of the mind. There are experiences of worlds that are not inspired by mind. (Though they are completely bound by logic.) Observations in those realms lead me to accept other ideas. However, I’m not certain of those ideas; I can only have faith in them.
Awareness & Emile:
I accept the assertion that there is a Soul in Emile, looking out through his eyes, and that Soul in Emile is the same type as Soul looking out through my eyes.
However, I do not believe that it’s the same Soul.
A few points on this:
Most specificly: I do not believe that there is one awareness looking through all of us.
I do believe that there is one universal mind, operating through all of our incarnations. We can call it: “The Grand Simulation,” or “The Demiurge” (the master craftsman, or master technician.) We can call it “the Matrix,” like in the movie. We could call it “Universal Mind” or “Cosmic Mind” or something like that.
But it is a gearworks, a machine, a computer, a story, a dream, a theory, a contraption, a device, a record, a pattern. It is plausible that it is intimately connected with something that is aware, I don’t really know. But I am saying, this thing, in this aspect, is the only thing that I accept sharing with Emile.
But actual experience, I do not accept is shared with Emile, and it is not a mistake or a bug, either: We genuinely see through different eyes, and genuinely see different things. Since I am what sees, (Soul,) then I would have noticed an equivalence. But there is no such equivalence, and so we clearly must be different things.
Again, Soul is literal, and it cannot be “fooled.” It is either experiencing, or it is not experiencing; There is no such thing as “fooling” it, or it “thinking wrong.” It can’t experience one thing in reality, but falsly believe itself to be experiencing another.
It could be observing a confused mind. It could be tracking a creature that thinks that it itself doesn’t exist. It could be tracking a creature that thought 1+1=3. DeCartes? may have summoned an Evil Genius to totally wack out the mind under observation by the Soul. But the experience of all these things remains constant, and the experiencer won’t experience anything other than what it is truely experiencing. That’s what I’m calling the “literalness” of Soul.
Note that a hypothetical God could experience everything, but still not be the same thing as Soul (or “be one with Soul.”) That is because the Soul is conceivably not a thing- only experiencable subjects are things. The hypothetical God may well be observing everything you observe. But that’s just two Souls tapping into one subject. It does not mean that the Souls are identical. (Note that, God, if it is concious, must be a Soul; The word Consciousness can be substituted everywhere here for “Soul,” and it makes just as much sense, and is just as true.) Perhaps the hypothetical God is a Soul with special access priviledges or something (this would require that Soul has some ability to select, or volition.) But it would be a Soul nonetheless.
So: This is what I am. I am not my mind, I am not my body. I am Soul.
I personally think it is valuable if people identify themselves this way. I think we would have a more spiritually realized world if people thought of themselves similarly.
That said: I am not convinced that such a recognition would lead to the end of conflict. While some problems would be solved, new ones would be opened. People may struggle against a Matrioshka Brain that they do not believe is truly aware. Zombie wars against skeptics are plausible as well. Transhumanist Post-vegans may argue that plant matter has soul, and that uploading and consuming sunlight is the only way forward. The original vegans may then counter-argue that the uploads are not aware, they are only hollow machines.
Further, the view says very little about the way that we should live; Christians and Muslims may still well destroy each other.
I think our minds are in near complete agreement on what Soul/Awareness/Consciousness is. The single bit that I would like to clarify is this: does the HiveMind have a Soul?
Deleting the EgoBug is necessary but insufficient to bring about an end to conflict. Once we delete the EgoBug, we must systematically evaluate and garden our culturally uploaded mindsets.
I don’t know; I don’t think so.
If it did, it would be very strange.
That would mean that nations have souls, to. Or any time a group of people get together and work together, a Soul pops into existance. Very strange.
Do cells in your body have Souls? Do ants have Souls? Do chimps or orangs have Souls? Do sperm and egg have Souls? Does a fetus have a Soul? Do babies have Souls? Does your body have a Soul?
No … There is only one Soul and that Soul is present wherever there is life/awareness/consciousness (however rudimentary).
The information exchange between neurons is functionally equivalent to the information exchange between human bodies. If it doesn’t seem strange to say that your Soul is observing the world through your two separate eyes, why does it seem strange to say that the Soul of all life is observing the world through billions of separate eyes?
If there is only one Soul, the question is: Why am I not experiencing the experience that everyone else is having?
What reason is there for believing such a counter-intuitive idea?
But then there is the question: People communicating with one another by words (the HiveMind) is similar to parts of the brain talking with each other using electrical signals (the Mind); Why then wouldn’t there be a Soul observing the HiveMind?
I don’t know that there isn’t. But, I can say this: If there is one, it’s different than me; It is a different Soul than the Soul that I am. It is an other, a different entity. Otherwise, by definition, I would be seeing through it’s eyes right now. (And I’m not.)
The existance of a Soul observing the HiveMind is strange, but it’s not unthinkable. It may very well be a reality. It could be that every planet has a Soul that is observing through the machineray of all the life on the planet. No more rediculous than a Soul that is observing through the machinery of all the life in a body.
It is just a very distant thing.
One thing I would note, is that if there is such a Soul, it is not speaking to us about itself.
The human body & brain machinery that should not know about Souls or Awarenesses or Consciousness (because Consciousness does not influence machinery) somehow sees fit to address experience. And, it clearly means something different than processing, it’s talking about the honest-to-god “observer.” The machinery either knows it is being observed, or the observers have simply chosen to observe only defective machines that acknowledge the presence of the observers.
Regardless of how this strangeness works itself out- there is no corresponding declaration of self-existance that comes with the sum total of all life. There are documents that say, “This is the United States, this is how it runs, it is a cybernetic organism consisting of the following parts…” …but nowhere does the United States say: “I am the United States, I am Aware, Conscious of myself, I make mountains to move, I move blood through my roads.”
Then again, perhaps it thinks these thoughts to itself through a vehicle called “a poet.”
But we don’t really know; We don’t even know if there are Souls in other people.
So, I am left somewhat inconclusive.
As for the EgoBug; I personally think it’s a property of self-preservation. All cybernetic organisms that are going to survive in some niche need a plan for self-preservation, and self-autonomy. I think that’s where our problems come from, but I don’t think it is solvable. A person without an EgoBug is a person who is going to accept any old programming from anybody. Such selflessness is reckless and dangerous; I can’t imagine wanting to live in such a world..! People preserve what they know is true and valuable, because they don’t want that information to be lost. Every person is keeping the Truth alive within themselves; They don’t want it to break apart, because they value it.
If someone had no “EgoBug,” we could quickly indoctrinate the person with whatever truth we wanted them to. We could put a different EgoBug in it’s place- what ground would the person have for rejecting it?
How can we assume that a person without an EgoBug could be more easily indoctrinated than a person with one? Isn’t the Soul already in place to review, evaluate and determine which programming is to be retained?
In the absence of the EgoBug, doesn’t Soul function instead?
It’s not clear to me that the Soul performs any function, at all.
(Lion, have you been reading some KurtVonnegut? ?)
I’m still not sure of what is meant by EgoBug : - Is it the idea that “I” (whatever that is) am fully the same thing as my body ? (as opposed to the idea that there are some parts “I” don’t really control, “I”‘m just pretending : the “Maggie Simpson” model) - Is it the idea that “I” am different from the universe at large and all consciousnesses it contains ?
(As much as possible, I prefer to avoid words like “soul” to which a lot of people give different definitions)
A question that might help me understand : do rabbits have an “EgoBug” ?
Well, I think we nailed down “Soul” pretty squarely, above. 
No, I haven’t read KurtVonnegut?. Did see Slaughterhouse 5 a long time ago, though.
I think EgoBug refers to thinking of ourselves as individual minds, brains, or bodies.
I agree that it’s a misidentification to think that we are the same things as our minds. However, it seems to me that the “EgoBug” is a property of the mind, and that it is appropriate for a mind to think of itself as a separate mind.
I agree with the notion that Souls are the same sort of thing as one another. I don’t agree that they are the same thing: You can have 13 atoms of Oxygen. They are all Oxygen. But those 13 atoms are still different than one another.
But even recognizing that the Souls are of the same type, it doesn’t mean that our minds all will have no problems. Souls and minds are worlds apart. Minds will always disagree with each other, and they will always have separate identities. At least, I hope so.
Souls just watch stuff. I don’t think they actually do anything. It’s possible that they do, either by selection (choosing which dream to watch) or manipulation (changing the dream,) but it’s not at all clear that they select or choose at all. The universe may just take it’s flows, and we watch (strict determinism.) I am sympathetic to all 3 views, really, but make no decisions among them.
Let’s begin with the question asked through Emile: “Do rabbits have an EgoBug?”
The answer is: Extremly unlikely. And here’s why. Consciousness in both humans and rabbits perceive through their respective senses. Some of what is perceived gets noticed. Let’s call such units of notice – percepts.
Each of these percepts is an experience. An abstract facsimile of each percept is copied and stored as a concept, which is an abstract form of the percept, which can also later be noticed as a memory.
Let’s say consciousness, through both the human and the rabbit, experienced a car rolling toward them through their respective senses of sight. They would both have a concept of the car stored in their respective brains.
Concepts get linked in both human and rabbit brains. Both humans and rabbits also link concepts in ways that they experienced associations or relationships between experiences.
Let us say that consciousness in both the human and the rabbit also heard a screeching sound when they saw the car. They also copied this sound in the form of a concept.
Let’s look at these concepts as nodes of information stored in the respective brains of the human and the rabbit. There are also links among such nodes, as when the concept of the sight of the car gets linked to the concept of the sound of the car in the brains of the human and the rabbit respectively.
This is commonly known as learning. Both humans and rabbits link concepts in ways that they experienced associations or relationships between experiences, as we have seen above.
Rabbits seem to get all their concepts they possess as copies of their sensory experiences. But this is as far as rabbits seem to get to go. Humans go further.
With humans, a lot more seems to happen. As the concepts formed by each human are stored in that human’s brain, these concepts are invisible to consciousness except to the consciousness viewing into the human in whose brain the concept is stored.
So humans have a second layer of sensory experiences in the form of sights and sounds that refer to something OTHER than these sounds or signs, namely language.
So humans have a specific sound and sign for the concept of the car as seen, and another specific sound for the concept of the car as heard.
Consciousness that saw the car and heard it now transfers the non-sensory concepts of these experiences by forming the sights and sounds that refer to each concept, namely language.
Here’s where humans really get away from rabbits in terms of what they seem to do. Consciousness through humans sometimes get language signs for concepts that refer to percepts that no active (operating through a human or other creature) consciousness has ever had.
This means that consciousness cannot actually have a concept for the reality that perceives what is stored within the creature’s brain. But it does through humans. This word is self. Self is the sound and symbol that refers to whatever is experiencing all the experiences had through a particular creature.
Rabbits are not known to have any concept that can be referred to as self, if only because there is no basis for consciousness to be able to have a concept either for the rabbit’s body, or to have experienced a word that refers to it. But humans do, and and a link between this concept of self and the concept of body. This information link between these two nodes of information comprises the Egobug. So Egobugs occur in humans, but are unlikely to in rabbits.
The Egobug is a false association formed as a result of the mistaken interpretation of consciousness perceiving as a human perceiving.
Now let us (consciousness) get to the point made through Lion. “it seems to me that the “EgoBug” is a property of the mind, and that it is appropriate for a mind to think of itself as a separate mind.”
Consciousness is saying through Ravi that Oneself (consciousness) is the only subject or agent in the entire system. Everything else, like humans or rabbits is either a vantage point, or a filter or a prop that allows specific kinds of experiences to occur, or specific kinds of actions to be executed, depending upon the capability of the instrument, eyes, ears, legs, hands, mouth, tongue, etc.
Mind cannot be a subject. It can be experienced, and noticed. So mind cannot think. Thinking is the process that occurs as a product of consciousness, namely the means by which new nodes are formed or linked or existing nodes are linked, unlinked or relinked in the infomration system of concsiousness. And to refer to an object such as mind doing or thinking is an error of misplaced agency or subjecthood.
Of course, there is the word ‘mind’. If mind is a catchall referring to all the conceptual objects and events that occur, that is reasonable. But when ‘mind’ is upgraded to also having a capability it doesn’t possess, i.e., to observe, to experience, to notice, to think, etc., we need to ask what is meant by the use of that word in this way. Does the concept for ‘mind’ include the concept for consciousness in the information system stored in Lion’s brain?
Assumption A: “Thinking is the process that occurs as a product of consciousness.”
I disagree, unless consciousness is defined as the activity of neurons and the brain.
Let’s describe two things:
Object B: The entity at the end of an experience (a “percept”) that experiences light & sound & what not.
Object C: Mental calculations, processing, nodes, linking, and the various machinery of mind that take place in a brain.
I think that Object C (what I call “the mind”) is either entirely responsible for thinking, or mostly responsible for thinking. Why do I think this way? Because we can crack open a skull, look at a brain, and observe that the motions are due to the firings of neurons. We have not seen any evidence (yet!) of “spooky” action, as an Object B (a Soul, a consciousness,) manipulates the process in ways that betray the 4 laws of physics (and I mean: Strong, Weak, Electromagnetic, Gravity.) The laws are not important; What is important here is the concept of machinery and determinism. We see no evidence of “EtherealMachinery,” or “cosmic forces of the soul.”
That is: It’s entirely plausible to me that Object C is responsible for thinking, however concepts and links between concepts are encoded in the brain. (It’s plausible to me that concepts and links between concepts are somehow an illusion, and that the conceptual network is actually an appearance. Perhaps some other system is at work, that, when an Object B looks at it, it appears to be a concept grid. Neuroscience is way too young for us to think too seriously about how it all works down there.)
So I disagree with Assumption A if by “consciousness”, you mean “Object B.” If you mean Object C, though, I find the view much more agreeable.
Let’s now consider three possibilities:
Possibility D: Soul (Object B) selects universes to observe, out of the multiverse of all possible universes, but does not manipulate them. (The “dream” hypothesis: The soul is a dreamer, the world a dream.)
Possibility E: Soul can manipulate the physical world. (The “magical universe” hypothesis.)
Possibility F: Soul appears whenever there is something that notes itself. (The “self-reference births consciousness” hypothesis.)
Possibility G: All energy and matter gives rise to Soul. (The “living table” hypothesis, named after the idea that tables are aware. More conventionally called, “panpsychism.”)
Possibility H: There is no such things as consciousness. It’s all just an illusion. (The “illusion” hypothesis.)
Possibility G can be stricken off the record as incredibly unlikely; Every single atom and every single collection of atoms would have to be aware. If you have 5 atoms, you have 5 single-atom awarenesses, 10 two-atom awarenesses, 10 three-atom awarenesses, 5 four-atom awarenesses, and 1 five-atom awareness, for a total of 31 awarenesses. This is assuming that awarenesses form around atoms, and not fermions, in which case there may be a gadjillion awarenesses in there.
If you say, “only specially connected matter” is aware, then pan-psychism has border problems. So, I think it’s safe to put a dash through Possibility F.
Possibility F can be stricken off for similar reasons. I can write a program that notes whether or not the IP (instruction pointer) is increasing. As the program advances, it checks to see whether it is advancing. This is simple enough to do, the program can be written in say, 10 bytes. Yet I don’t think anyone would seriously believe that a consciousness is observing the program.
Possibility E is what you are proposing: The “magical world” hypothesis. The problem is that we have no evidence of spooky action in the brain. There does not appear to be anything beyond the 4 laws of physics at work in the brain.
It is entirely plausible that, within a decade (by 2015,) almost certainly within two decades (by 2025,) that we will witness the hippocampus of a rat completely simulated. Not only simulated, but made to function within a living, breathing, rat. If we do this regularly, I think we will (rightly) lose all faith in possibility E. (And, also, Assumption A: “Thinking is what an observer does.”)
Which leads us with two possibilities: D (“dream”) and H (“illuson”.)
Given such meager choices, most physicalist (“there is nothing beyond the universe”) scientists opt for H. But we can dismiss H immediately: There is very clearly an experience. Furthermore, it is impossible to claim that experience has been “fooled” into believing that it is experiencing. Experience does not distinguish between reality and illusion; It always experiences, regardless. An experience of an illusion is just as much an experience as an experience of a reality; It makes no matter. So it is impossible to state that an awareness has been fooled into experiencing awareness. It is completely absurd. As attractive as H is to many scientists, we can clearly take the big black felt pen to it, and cross out H.
Which leaves us with only D: The Dream hypothesis. Clearly, this world must be a dream.
This is where I stand.
Now: There is wiggle room here, for all possibilities but H. As counter-intuitive as they may be, they are plausible. There’s also a problem with D, which lends me to give more credit to E, F, and G.
The problem with D, is that we are talking about Self right now. Specificly, we are talking about the concept of Object B. Somehow, knowledge of Object B has entered a world that should only rightly know about Object C’s. (That is: If observers do not affect the world, how is it that there is knowledge of it in the Object C world?) Ravi, I think that you were alluding to this dilemma in your response.
It is indeed strange. In defense of D, I suggest that perhaps the dreamer only picks dreams where the existence of the dreamer is acknowledged, even if it is a strangely warped system that happens to imagine such things. But this proposition is clearly a metaphysical band-aid, a hack, an absurdity introduced from necessity, right? Nobody would be proud of such an idea. Yes, there it is, and it may be true.
But we’ve already seen the problems with E, F, and G as well.
We can revisit E, the magical world hypothesis, which I believe Ravi agrees with. The magical world hypothesis’ account for our knowledge of Object B (the Soul) in an Object C world (the brain, the mind) is clear: Object B put the thought there. Since the Soul is responsible for thought (or at least some of it; I’m reluctant to say all thinking comes from the Soul, when we know that the eye does pre-processing on vision, before sending data through the optic nerve, for example,) the Soul can then obviously think about itself, which means injecting the notion of itself into the brain. Problem solved.
You just have that very pesky problem of having put magic into the universe.
Very well then; I can accept that there may be magic in the universe. We haven’t seen it, at least not in a way that is accepted by mainstream science. We haven’t seen enough convincing evidence of such a thing. But I can accept that it may be true: Consciousnesses may manipulate matter.
Very well then: Where does this leave the EgoBug?
I now have two impressions of what the EgoBug is supposed to mean, taken from Brandon and Ravi respectively.
My impressions from the two of you:
Both of you seem to share the idea that clearing the EgoBug (whatever it may be) is the essential beginning of liberation.
Okay. Here are my thoughts.
Brandon: I cannot agree with my understanding of what you said. Souls are clearly distinct, because I’m not seeing through you (and everyone elses) eyes right now. Soul is the observer. For two Souls to be identical, they must be observing the same thing, if they are occupying the same time. Since that is clearly not the case, (assuming we occupy the “same time,”) Souls are distinct from one another.
Ravi: I can agree with my understanding of what you mean by the EgoBug. I frequently wish people were more discriminating about their sense of Self. I have met people who are very confused about the meaning of the word “Consciousness” or “Self,” and they equate processing (the brain’s calculations and responses to stimuli, Object C) with experience (the experience of the Soul, the experience of light and sound, subjective experience, Object B). It is irritating to argue with such people, and I wish I could simply step on the EgoBug.
The reason I believe Ravi matches my thinking, is because of the following phrases:
As for the final question: “Is squashing the EgoBug the most important, most fundamental crux of liberation that we can imagine?”
…I am somewhat sympathetic, but I actually do not agree.
Why I am sympathetic:
But here is why I disagree:
Okay. That was a lot of words. I hope it was all clear!
Hmm, this is getting complicated
I was expected we’d end up talking about Zombies (Lion, I had read the stuff on that on the old taoriver wiki … not that I had much to say about it)
I don’t know which of the explanations of consciousness (“The Dream”, “It’s just an illusion”, etc.) I’d adopt. However, I don’t think that Ravi is adopting the “magical world” explanation - at least, that’s not how I understood him. I don’t know what my answer would be, but I suspect that “having a consciousness” (or, a Soul ?) is something similar to “being Turing-complete”. I tend to be more comfortable with the “geeky/AI” language than the language of philosophy. I like the “Multiple Self” description of how we work - we’re just a recently-added plugin who thinks it’s producing the data being piped through it. (“Soul is not mind. Soul is not body. Soul is not emotion. Soul is just a tiny script running in the background that thinks it’s in charge.”)
Also, I don’t see ethics and consciousness as that strongly related. Rational self-interest (and social contracts, and the iterated prisonner’s dilemna, and the golden rule, etc.) can explain a lot in ethics. I’m not saying we base our moral decisions on cold calculation, but that many of our ethics were evolved by our brain and our culture and our education because they were the best for us. Things like “don’t kill another consciousness” are heuristics that work pretty well, but I don’t think it’s something fundamental to the concept of consciousness.
(About the “killing other consciousnesses” question - imagine a robot that’s conscious (well, apparently), and that has the ability to copy it’s “mind” as any computer program. How “bad” would it be to kill such a robot, considering that it has a lot of “brothers” running around ?)
It’s not enough to suspect that having a consciousness is “something similar” to “being Turing-complete.” You have to have some clear concept of why it should be the case. What you are describing is basically a combination of F and H. F is the one where: “If I write a program that notes it’s own motion, then it is aware,” and H is the one “Awareness is being fooled; it’s not really aware.” The argument in rejection of those two possibilities applies.
I agree that they are more convincing (on the surface) to a scientificly minded person: There is nothing spooky about them. However, they are both false, and easily thwarted. Unless you have a good argument to undercut the arguments against them.
It’s not legitimate to say that “Soul is just a tiny script running in the background that thinks it’s in charge,” because we’ve defined Soul by now, and this script does not address the definition. There’s nothing about this script that necessitates that it result in an actual experience. What I am saying is that there is no need for experience. Everything could have happened, just as well, in a closed box, that nobody ever saw. All the processing that occurs requires zero experience. That we do experience introduces an explanatory gap. Your job now is to cross the explanatory gap, and explain why your proposed little script can produce awareness. This is a magical action, in my book, just as spooky as the concept that awareness manipulates physics. That it goes in the other direction (physical to awareness, rather than awareness to physical) makes it no less spooky.
This makes scientists uncomfortable. The scientist sincerely believes that everything can be understood in terms of the four laws of physics alone. But there is simply no account of experience. Scientists play ignorant, as if they didn’t know what experience was- because either simple ignorance (unlikely,) or, more likely (to me
because if they did, they couldn’t explain it.
When you talk with Zombie scientists, they suddenly express dumbfoundment at the concept “what is awareness? what is experience? what is this nonsense you speak of?” And yet we are all very clearly aware. There is no waking someone who is pretending to be asleep. Rare but valueable are the scientists that admit their own awareness. They all (necessarily) recognize the mystery of it, because they see the explanatory gap.
Hm, don’t have very strong opinions about this; I’m fairly unsure of what I’m saying.
About the “script running in the background” - agreed, it doesn’t do much to address the question of “consciousness”, but rather the relationship between “consciousness” and the rest of our mind (Which is where I see the EgoBug).
Anyway, where do I place “experience” ? I’ll probably go for something along the lines of possibility F - the “self-reference births consciousness” hypothesis, but with a bit stricter conditions. I’d say something like “self-knowledge births consciousness”, to have consciousness a system would need some kind of symbolic knowledge representation that includes a concept for itself. And I don’t mean an XL spreadsheet with “XL” (or “this program”) written in one of the fields - I mean a system that really knows about itself, that “understands” itself. I’d suspect quite a few animals have ideas about “things”, but there probably aren’t that many who classify themselves and their peers in the same category. A chicken can recognize a worm, a human, etc, and generally knows how to deal with those. SO, inside the chicken’s mind there’s probably a category “worm”, a category “checken”, etc. But I don’t think it places itself in the cateogy “chicken”. Something like a cockroach may not even have that kind of fancy stuff, the receptor for “light” is probably almost directly connected to the trigger for “turn around and run away”. More important animals (humans, probably monkeys and dolphins and the like) also have “symbols” and “tags” for things, but are also capable of fitting themselves in that structure.
You may say, yeah but I can program the artificial intelligence of this goblin in this video game so that he also has a category for “himself” and knows that he’s in the category “goblin” like those other green things running around - but that doesn’t mean he has consciousness ! - well, I don’t know, but I’d say the goblin doesn’t “really” know about itself - it was “told” that it “is” that goblin with the red hat (In a sense, it was given the “ego bug”), but that’s not very different from it being told to control that goblin with the red hat. It knows about goblins, that they will die if they fall in the water and that they have a +2 bonus when attacking faeries, but it doesn’t place the “real” itself (that is, the program) in the picture. It would also need to know that it can perceive, it can think, etc. It’s probably possible to make a “conscious” program in a toy world, but it’s not as simple as just plugging an expert system to a video game.
So, something like self-reference. But, it has to know that it’s self-reference.
Things are easier with animals than with computer programs, because the “inert - conscious” range is fairly linear in animals, but in the things we can imagine in Artificial Intelligence, there are a whole lot of possible configurations - symbolic systems, systems that learn or not, deterministic or random stuff, lots of ways of building and storing knowledge - neural networks, genetic algorithms, etc. In life, things always work basically the same way - everything is in one animal and firmly focused on that animal’s interest, low-level neuron mechanics aren’t that accurate but it works on the long run. Higher level stuff (consciousness, knowing you should pull worms out of the ground with your beak) is always built on the same bases. In AI, we can built the higher-level stuff on different bases, self-interest is entirely optional, etc. So I’d expect the range of possibilities to be more subtle than “stupid - conscious”; there may be different ways of being conscious. (Which brings us back to the “Does the Hive Mind have a Soul ? Are poets it’s trains of thought ?” thingy)
(OK, I’m rambling now, I’ll go program a bit
)
We are beginning to get a sense of the conceptual nodes and links in the Lion Emile and Ravi conceptual networks.
Let’s find a common foundational fact, so we can build upon step by step.
Do we all agree that OBSERVATION is taking place? Like the observation right now as these words are being read. What words would you use to refer to what or who is observing these words, observing some apparent “meaning” of these words, observing some other conceptual stuff that arises in apparent response to the preceding observings?
The Ravi answers to these questions are: Observation is definitely taking place.
There are:
a) observation of lines of text on this computer screen;
b) observation of possible “meanings” that arise as the specific result of a specific line of text being read;
c) observation of notions that arise as a specific result of these meanings being observed;
d) observation of feelings that arise as a result of these notions; and
e) observation of notions that seem to be intended for typing in response.
Please let’s have Lion’s and Emile’s and Brandon’s, and anyone else’s response to observing the above questions as to whether observation is taking place.
Emile, you keep hopping back and forth over the explanatory gap, without bridging it.
Okay, let’s expand F, and call it “F-prime.” F-prime is like F, except that it requires that the system be capable of learning new things. And you’re saying, “If we have F-prime, if it can learn and also recognizes itself, then it is conscious.”
Okay, so let’s suppose we have F-prime. I have hardly any doubts that we will achieve it within 40 years, quite plausibly within 20 years.
You still have two problems:
If you redefine consciousness to mean “Anything that fit’s F-prime,” then you’ve haven’t answered the question. You’ve just said, “Here, let’s solve this simpler problem, and then switch back the words, and declare we’ve solved the hard problem, as well.”
Basically, you’ve just said: “I believe that things that match F-prime are conscious.” It’s a fair assumption, and I believe that way as well. But it does not explain why they would be conscious.
Do you understand why you still haven’t answered the problem of consciousness?
The understanding I find in my mind wrt Ravi’s questions: Observation IS taking place. (Life == awareness) is what is doing the observing.
To try and address Lion’s questions: The existence of stuff is a fundamental mystery. Included in that mystery is why (Life == awareness) ever emerges. I’m going to start by using the name PanPsychism for option G. PanPsychism is the interpretation of existence that I find most compelling.
To paraphrase Lion: PanPsychism is incredibly unlikely because there would be a gadjillion awarenesses
The existence of matter and energy is incredibly unlikely because there would be a gadjillion bits of the stuff. And yet I experience matter and energy, and furthermore … I experience experiencing. Given PanPsychism, self awareness (F) is simply one phase transition along the continuum of (life == awareness).
I realize that I’m not answering “why does life happen?” because I can’t answer it any more than I can answer the question “why is there something instead of nothing?”
I do believe in the legitimacy of PanPyschism? (G). We could propose a modification of PanPsychism, “G-prime.” It ascribes awareness to any field of information that is tightly coupled. We could account for the atomicity of awareness by saying that any “stray bits of awareness” within a given inter-connected region actually become one single experience. When stray bits depart, they actually birth a new awareness. I could imagine such a thing, though I don’t believe it; I am SelectivelyOpenMinded about it.
Trillions of awarenesses appearing when I touch my hand to the door, though, is simply too much.
We know that there are trillions of atoms; Why not trillions of awarenesses?
Simply because I see only one awareness. My intuition, shaped by communication with others, tells me that there are at least as many awarenesses as there are people. My intuition also tells me that animals are aware.
But recall that we are still talking about things that we cannot know except by intuition. To say that the subset of all arrangements of matter in my hand and the doorknob is simply too much for my intuition. My intuition explodes.
It is not large numbers themselves that my recoils at; It’s the proposed existance of large numbers of invisible things that causes me to jump back: OccamsRazor takes over.
To answer Ravi’s questions:
Do we all agree that observation is taking place?
I think it’s useful to distinguish three sorts of observation:
I believe that all three observations happen. I’m primarily interested in Object B’s & it’s ability to observe.
A physicalist (a believer in possibility H, the “illusion” hypothesis, “there is no such thing as consciousness,”) does not believe in Object B. That is, a physicalist will only mean by “observation” the activity of Object C & I, and will never confess to understanding what observation could mean otherwise.
My preferred words for object B is “Soul” or “Awareness.”
I would explicitly discriminate the concept of Soul from the following ideas:
While these are all things that can be connected with the idea of “Soul,” when I use it here, I mean to talk purely about Awareness, the observer, regardless of whether the other things exist or not, and have a bearing on the Soul or not.
I learned a word that I think is neat and useful in these conversations- the word is Phenomenology.” It means the study of what can be observed. It is one of the few sciences that very hapilly relies on internally reported subjective experience. Phenomenologists work on mapping out sensations, whether physical, emotional, mental, or subtle. Musical, colorful, whatever. The do it basically by sitting around and asking themselves what they see and notice!
So I agree that not only is processing happening within the brain, but also that there is an unnecessary (from the perspective of the processing) observation going on, as well.
Lion: Yes, ok, I’m saying something more on the lines of “I believe that things that match F-prime are conscious”. Which I admit doesn’t do much when it comes to explaining why and how.
I don’t see experience as “spooky” the way magical action is. I don’t expect to see it explained through the four laws of physics. (I’d rather expect an explanation on the lines of simulation, emulation, etc.) Weird, not easy to explain or to describe, but not really “spooky”. The question of “experience” doesn’t bug me.
How do we know it’s conscious ? I don’t know if we can. We generally accept that other people are conscious, but that’s because we figure out they were made the same way as us, and behave like us. But for computers and animals, it seems that it’s mostly unverifiable guesswork.
I’d say the difference between a zombie and someone with a soul is like the difference between a bag of marbles, and a pile of marbles that contains a definite number of marbles. The property “has experience” is (in my mind) necessary. All bags of marbles have a definite number of marbles inside, but, I don’t think that makes things more complicated, even if the behaviour of the bag of marbles does not require that number in any way.
(And no, I don’t claim that this explains the question fo consciousness.)
Wait, wait, wait.
An explanation that is on the lines of simulation, emulation, where the simulation itself is based on (or a simplification of) the four laws of physics, is still based on the four laws of physics. It is irrelevant if there are layers of complexity in between. A computer program is still based on the instruction set of the computer it runs on, regardless of how many abstractions are layered atop of it.
Saying that you expect experience to be explained by simulation simply means that you have faith that the information found in interaction between the four laws of physics will produce an explanation for experience. And I’m saying, “No way, no how.” Not unless you introduce another element into the equation; Not without something like PanPsychism, or some other explaining factor.
When you say: “The question of “experience” doesn’t bug me.” – do you mean: “I’m just not curious about experience?” or do you mean: “I can’t explain experience, but it’s not going to detract my faith that experience isn’t anything that the four fources can’t handle?” or do you mean: “I am fully confident that experience will be explained in terms of information transfers?”
I want to make sure you understand, experience is not a behavior. If you show me any behavior, and say, “See, that’s consciousness,” I’m going to say, “No, it’s not consciousness. It may be a mechanical correlate of consciousness, but it is not, itself, consciousness. And further, you’ve said that you can’t tell whether anything is conscious or not- so why the certainty in your expression?”
A bag encasing marbles, in a universe made entirely of marbles, would be a fascinating thing to discover. Sadly, the bags are all invisible, and known only to ourselves. It seems that we are the bags, at the most basic level.
Having received Lion’s confirmation that observation does take place, and not having received any comment to the contrary from Emile and Brandon, I am going to assume that all four of us acknowledge that observation does take place.
Lion, my use of the term ‘percept’ is for a unit of observed content; a sensory or conceptual or emotional datum; not any entity “that experiences light & sound & what not.” Indeed, I would say that the entity “that experiences light & sound & what not” any and all percepts, is what is observing, namely an observer.
Let us agree to defer the issue of whether there is one or many observers for the time being. Let us instead focus on the issue of the relationship between the observer and yourself.
Let me ask us all another question as a next step. What is more constant in each of us, the observer that observes (experiences) our respective lives, or any percept that gets observed by oneself?
I hold that the only constant in my existence that the only constant in each of our lives is whatever or whoever is observing the entire content of experience of our respective lives.
I therefore refer to one’s observer as ‘oneself’, which carries out the observing function, regardless of the word I may use to refer to the observer function, soul or spirit, or any other term.
Do let me know if we can agree that the observer is the only constant in my existence, and for this reason, is more truly my self than any of the perpetually changing content of observation, like elements in our sensory experience, our minds, or our bodies, or our feelings.
If any of you don’t agree with my position on this second step, please post accordingly.
Observer = Awareness = Soul.
I am a Soul, I am an Observer.
I am not a particular mind, brain, or body. I am not any particular piece that could be changed and replaced with something else.
I accept deferment on the question of the number of souls, as long as that number is agreed to be greater than zero.
As for “percept”: My understanding was that “percept” refers to an experience, meaning a momentary relationship between an observer and a sensory object. Now based on what you just said, I think you mean that a percept is not the happening of the experience between an observer and a sensory object, but the sensory object itself. That is, it is the object that is a perception. (Not to be confused with the object behind the sensory device. IE: The visage of a chair before an observer is a percept, but not the chair itself.) Correct me if this is a wrong interpretation.
I use the term “Spirit” to refer to something other than Observer, and would prefer not to use the term synonymously.
Next step in the logic?
Ravi: Yup, I think the “observer” is the “most constant” part - but I wouldn’t say the “only” constant part, since the mind and the body are pretty damn constant too, though they do change. “Self” for the “observer” makes sense. I don’t know if we can cleanly seperate the observer from what is observed. A lot of what goes on in our head (emotions, self-talk, memory, etc.) is pretty fuzzy, it’s not clear what’s “observer” and what’s “mind”. It’s easier to distinguish between what’s inside and what’s outside; the senses are a pretty straightforward interface.
Lion: I agree that “experience” is not a behaviour. Behaviour is all we can examine to determine if there’s experience or not, and I suspect that certain classes of systems “automatically” produce experience, but, experience is not the behaviour.
>> you have faith that the information found in interaction between the >> four laws of physics will produce an explanation for experience
No - that’s a statement I’d also disagree with ( … I think). I don’t think experience has much to do with low-level physics. I believe you could have consciousness in Conway’s Game of Life (though that it would be very hard for us to notice clues of it), and we know there’s no spooky action in there. In some sense, the explanation of our consciousness might depend on physics (how neurons work, time, etc.), but I think the biggest part of the explanation would have to do with more abstract stuff - maths, complex systems, computation, raw philosophy … (I don’t know !). The same as, say, a demonstration that a given computer program will terminate does not depend much on the four laws of physics either.
By “it doesn’t bug me”, I mean that I’m not excessively curious about it, and that I don’t see it as “against the order of nature”. Seeing someone levitate in front of me would bug me, because that would put quite a few things into question. The question of the existence of the universe does bug me, because it can lead to some interesting explanations. Experience is hard to describe and explain, but not paranormal. I guess I’d say experience is something that “just is”. I’m suspicious of any paranormal explanation, because I suspect they’re just a cheap way out that doesn’t really explain anything, and I don’t see it as very worthwhile to look for better explanations because they’d be unverifiable anyway, and wouldn’t be of that much use (no insights or applications).
Ravi: I partly agree with Emile’s partial rejection: If PanPsychism is true, then it is not fair to separate our concept of our true self from the mechanical correlate of our consciousness. I do not believe PanPsychism, as I stated before, but I am sympathetic to it, and SelectivelyOpenMinded about it. I do not believe it, but it could be true. And if it’s true, then that means that self in inextricably intertwined with matter, energy.
Emile: Okay– It’s not the 4 laws that we are particularly concerned with, but an information processing system called “the universe.” The 4 laws and the contents of the universe are one particular universe that could be running on an information processing system that I would like to call “the Matrix.” (In reference to the movie.)
Emile, I think surely you must have another reason for rejecting paranormal explanations, such as D (“dream hypothesis”) & E (“magical universe”). You wrote that the reason you reject paranormal explanations, is because they don’t explain anything. (I assume you mean “don’t make any predictions,” rather than “don’t explain anything,” because they do each provide a narrative/story/fable that bridges the explanatory gap.) If that were the case, you would have to reject all the other explanations as well, including F (self-reference), F-prime (learning system + self-reference) & G (PanPsychism). Those systems do not make any predictions either. And they share the same limitations. So there must be: some other reason that you reject paranormal explanations.
I can tell you the reasons I am fascinated by the problem of Awareness:
I apologize for mischaracterizing your argument. I see that you distinguish between experience, and the mechanical correlate of experience. (Or, in more traditional language, but unfortunately tied to material brains in this material universe: “Neural Correlate of Consciousness,” or “NCC” for short.)
One of the problems that arise in any discussion in which each of us respond thoroughly to one another, is the large number of points being made in each post.
It is very difficult for any of us to do justice to all of the points expressed by another, let alone all the others when the discussion is addressing fundamental issues like: What are we? How do we function? How does the whole shebang work?
This is why we are proceeding on a step by step process. For the time being, I am going to be responding only to those points that are essential to our step by step progress toward an ever stronger body of agreed (shared) points among us.
To recap, so far, we seem to have made one and some part of a step:
1. Observation takes place. There is an observer.
On this we all agree. On the next point we have some doubts.
2. The observer is the only constant in each of our existences. The observer is accordingly the true self in each of us.
Let us address the doubts, also one by one, before proceeding any further:
a) “the mind and the body are pretty damn constant too, though they do change” (Emile).
Emile, when we use the term constant, we mean constant. We don’t tolerate any absence of constancy in anything we would consider to be constant. Any degree of change is the absence of constancy. The question relating both mind and body is:
Is there any part of mind or body that does not change at all? If so, please identify that/those part/s of mind or body that don’t change at all. If there are no such parts, this will mean that “the observer is the only constant in each of our existences. And as we seem to agree that our ‘self’ must only identified with what is constant, then we must agree that our ‘self’ is what is observing.
b) “it’s not clear what’s ‘observer’ and what’s ‘mind’. It’s easier to distinguish between what’s inside and what’s outside; the senses are a pretty straightforward interface.” (Emile)
c) “If PanPsychism is true, then it is not fair to separate our concept of our true self from the mechanical correlate of our consciousness.” (Lion)
I will address both these points together. Given that we are observers, we each have an observational field. The observational field is the entire field of ‘whatever’ that can be observed by each of us.
Emile, when we agree that there is the ‘observer’, that is a foundational point that can help define other terms. If ‘mind’ is identical to ‘observer’ for you – as ‘soul’ and ‘awareness’ are for Lion, there is no disagreement among us on this point.
However, if there is anything that you understand under ‘mind’ that cannot be included under your understanding of ‘observer’, or vice versa, then ‘mind’ and ‘observer’ are somewhat different from your perspective.
If this is the case, It is up to you to demarcate the boundaries of these two concepts ‘observer’ and ‘mind’ in such a way that you know what part of each concept is excluded in the other. You may even call up a separate concept to refer to the each such exclusion.
One of the reasons it appears that a lot of what goes on in our head (emotions, self-talk, memory, etc.) is pretty fuzzy is because we haven’t yet deliberately identified what we mean by the words with which we refer to them.
When you say, “it’s easier to distinguish between what’s inside and what’s outside; the senses are a pretty straightforward interface.” You are revealing critical divisions in your observational field.
You are indicating that your observational field is already divided into two: an inside and an outside, with your skin serving as the boundary between the two. Of course, this is a very widespread phenomenon.
However it also imposes a limitation upon the scope of your observation. By dividing your observational field into an inside and an outside, and by assuming the senses to be a pretty straightforward interface, you are inadvertently limiting the focus of your observation to what is outside the skin, thereby tending inadvertently to neglecting what exists and occurs inside the skin.
When we are each the observer, everything else, for each of us, is part of one’s observational field. If we want to understand how everything works together, we must begin by becoming aware of such inadvertent divisions such as inside/outside, if only to become free to let ourself, the observer to range freely across the entire field of one’s observational capability.
Similarly, Lion, if you hold that ‘the mechanical correlate of our consciousness’ is part of our ‘true self’, you might consider a separate term than ‘self’ to distinguish the observable parts of your true self (parts of your self extant in your observational field – from the observer.
Even if everything were the self, we still distinguish parts of this self from other parts of the selfsame self. But only some part of this self is the subject. The rest is subject. The observer is pure subject, and all the rest of the self is object, or observables.
In such a case of everthing being the self, or anything more than the observer being also the self, the part of the self that is not observer is object, and doesn’t qualify to be the self who is having this life. You become the self, having mechanical corrleates that you can observe and perhaps even use.
Lion, Brandon, let us, for the time being, defer the issue of Pan Psychism, unless either of you feels it necessary in this step of the process. We must seek to advance with what we can all be certain of.
To conclude, please let’s address points a, b, and c, respectively, which currently keep us from agreeing that the observer is our self, if only because the observer is the only constant in our existence. After all, everything that constitutes life for any of us, arises only from what is observed.
I agree to defer the discussion of PanPsychism.
1. I agree that observation takes place (in other words, awareness exists), and I am willing to call that which does the observing “the observer”
2. The observer is the only constant in each of our existences. The observer is accordingly the true self in each of us.
I do not agree to 2 yet. I believe that our consensus on 1 is still a false consensus derived from differing meanings ascribed to “observation” and “awareness”. I would like to see us agree on the following before we tackle 2.
1a. I observe
1b. I grant that you observe
1c. I grant that chimps, dolphins, and orangutans observe
1d. I grant that human infants observe
1e. I grant that mice observe
1f. I grant that ants observe
1g. I grant that individual cells observe
1h. I grant that proteins observe
1i. I grant that molecules observe
1j. The observation of molecules are already so pathetically limited and straightforward that I consent to drawing the line at molecules. Even though atoms and sub-atomic particles have decreasing amounts of observational capacity, they are so relatively weak that we can treat them as not existing for the purposes of our discussion.
I’ve started an Agree/Disagree section at the very top of this page to serve as an evolving repository for our consensus as it emerges. Please feel warmly welcomed to add questions and responses there.
I think that this page and the idea of EgoBug leads nowhere. It is typical for similar tries in philosophy and abstract thinking to create definitions and derive knowledge by formal reasoning from that on. The problem is: it never worked and it never will. Language is just a rough tool to cope with reality but it is not identical with reality. Therefore operations and transformations on language symbols will not yield results that naturally correspond to reality. One has to check results with common sense. – HelmutLeitner
Brandon, you raise many interesting issues. I will have to consider them more carefully before I respond. In the meantime, let me address Helmut’s outright challenge to our engagement on this page.
Helmut, you say: “This page and the idea of Egobug leads nowhere.”
You expand on this: “It is typical for similar tries in philosophy and abstract thinking to create definitions and derive knowledge by formal reasoning from that on. The problem is: it never worked and it never will.”
And then you support this assertion with: “Language is just a rough tool to cope with reality but it is not identical with reality. One has to check results with common sense.”
Let me address your support, as it is the foundation of your implied suggestion that this page and this subject is useless.
You make two points in this support. Let me first address your issue of the roughness of language, making it unable to be identical with reality, and then the issue of checking results with common sense.
Yes, language is not identical with physical reality. Language is a rough tool for representing physical reality because physical reality is fluid, and the perceptual, conceptual and linguistic mechanisms with which we experience, store, and communicate physcical forms and relationships are granular.
Absolute representation of fluid forms with granular forms is impossible to the extent of the integrity of the fluidity of physical forms and their apparent boundaries. Even the most finely granular percepts, concepts and words are still separated from perfect correspondence with a fluid reality.
Language cannot represent physical reality directly. It is at least thrice removed from physical reality with granular mechanisms.
First removal: Language is our granular means of communicating concepts that are stored in us.
Second removal: Concepts are copies we store of the percepts we experience of physical reality.
Third removal: Percepts are the granular facets of physical reality that our senses allow to be distinguished from the rest of physical reality.
Nevertheless, the impossibility of such perfect correspondence between language and physical reality has not rendered language so rough as to be useless to us. This tri-layered representational mechanism with which we cope with physical reality has not prevented us from achieving all the scientific and technological advances of the last few centuries. This is why we trust ourselves to go to the moon, to fly in planes, to live in tall buildings, and drive under rivers.
Also, phyiscal reality is not the only reality we have to contend with. There is the conceptual reality with which we store our experiences of physical reality, and the linguistic realities with which we communicate these concepts. Both these kinds of reality are granular, and allow accurate uses of language. So language can be even more useful in such uses.
This is not an insignificant issue. There is much in our observational field that is not fluid. Functions like observation, emotions, facts, ideas, actions and motions can be distinguished from one another simply through clarity of definition. Consider the fields of mathematics and logic as merely a start in such deliberations.
Now to your point about checking results with commonsense. While I agree that we must check results of our deliberations with commonsense, let me suggest that commonsense must be regared with even greater suspicion than language by those who are using language with a some awareness of language’s limitations.
Any commonsense we can apply toward checking anything is the product of the existing conceptual configuration available to the one doing the checking. Most of the concepts available to us don’t originate in us. They are uploaded (communicated) into us by others through speech and actions in our presence during our formative years, when we were not even aware that this process was taking place. This was because we then possessed no perceptual or conceptual means for distinguishing the conditioning process from the rest of our experiences at the time.
Most of us are not even aware of the large numbers of assumptions and beliefs we possess, and which put forth prejudices and biases that seem so self-evidently true, like the earth is flat, or that the sun revolves around the earth.
Hence commonsense can be an even more grossly imperfect instrument than language. Commonsense can actually distort our perception.
So, Helmut, I agree we must check results of our deliberations with commonsense. But let us not consider the results of such checks to be absolute. Commonsense is just another sounding board, and a very unreliable one at that.
We can only trust the commonsense of an individual who has purged oneself of all the inaccurate assumptions and beliefs that were pumped into one before one was even aware that this invasion was occuring. And in our time, it is extremely unlikely that there are any such people, if only because most of us are not even aware of the conceptual content, in order to be able to begin the process of reviewing or edititng this stuff, let alone purge much of the obvious errors in it.
Helmut, I hope you might see enough value in our process to stay with our page and join in our effort. The term EgoBug is only a linguistic term. There are many terms that might serve the purpose better. The term Egobug refers to a specific conceptual reality that we might discover to actually exist, if we allow ourselves to focus on conceptual reality with the instrument of language, which, like concepts, is also granular.
I didn’t intend to offend anyone. Of course this page isn’t useless (I said “it leads nowhere” that’s different) because the search for truth or knowledge always makes sense, even if some attempt should turn out a dead end. The success of rational thinking in a field (e. g. science and technology) does neither mean that s&t can solve any problem, nor that rational thinking can be just as successful in any other field. I’m so quick to oppose because I’m deep in a discussion about Hegel’s philosophy at CoForum and he is the master of juggling with words, going nowhere. Of course commonsense isn’t reliable too, but if philosophy and commonsense agree, this gives a good feeling. If they disagree, I go with commonsense, or with simple empirical thinking. For example, if you go down the steps of evolution towards the molecules, I would not agree that all systems observe. Perhaps it’s important that an observer is changed by his observation, that he has a kind of memory, a way to recall or “re”-present (Glasersfeld) experiences. Without this, learning seems impossible and the idea of a “self” probably won’t work without learning. This is just a hypothesis. But if it holds, then 1c..1j is just the wrong way to start looking at the problem. Just as EgoBug assumes a result before starting the work.
Brandon, as you have already noticed, there is a tendency, especially in written discussions, among most of us to first notice what is different in a message from one’s own understanding, and to orient ourselves to respond to this difference or differences, often at the expense of what we might agree with in the rest of the message. This imposes a centrifugal force upon our discussions, diverting our respective attentions from the intended trajectory of our discussion.
For this reason, I strive, often unsuccessfully, to avoid making assertions that are unlikely to contribute to the purpose of a discussion.
As the one who ‘coined ’ the term ‘Egobug’ here is how I relate to it.
First of all, I am someone who considers myself and all others to be observers, all possessing an observational field that is made up of several different dimensions of substance, such as physical objects and processes (matter/energy), human behaviors and actions (intentional), conceptual objects and processes (informational), and emotional events (evaluational). I have devoted several decades focusing on the contents of these four dimensions, and the interaction both among them, and between each of them and the observer.
Along these investigations, I came upon a conceptual object that appeared to me to be the driver of most behaviors of mine that I disliked, and which seemed likewise to generate behavior in others that they themselves would find to be undesirable.
This object is what I today call the Egobug, as it both exists in the human software dimension of concepts, and in order to evoke associations of selfhood, software, and dysfunction in software in those who heard or read the term.
At your invitation, I am attempting here in this discussion, to have Lion and Emile, who were already in discussion with you on the subject - journey along with me across the phyiscal, interventional, conceptual and emotional territory I had covered, in order to enable them to discover this conceptual object I call Egobug.
I would like to encourage us to avoid all questions, comments, and assertions that are not necessary to advance on this journey, if only because each of these tend to divert attention from the specific journey at hand. And as the journey is across non-physical terrain, it is already difficult enough.
As you hold that our consensus on point 1 is false, please step back to point 1 and redefine observation and awareness. But in doing so please confine yourself to the FUNCTIONS of observation and awareness, instead of the forms of the sources that might be carrying out the function. At this stage we don’t need to consider a variety of other creatures to observe or be aware in order to agree that observation exists, and that there are observers.
My own position on point 1 remains as follows: anything at all getting noticed is a case of observation. And wherever there is a case of observation, we postulate that whatever or whoever may be carrying out this observation is an observer, regardless of its form, if any.
Helmut, No offence taken at all. Thank you also for your reassurance.
Observation is a loose word that admits many meanings. If we define observation as the act of noticing or perceiving something we are still left with the loose words noticing and perceiving. For me, each of the following words connotes awareness to a greater or lesser degree. Each of these actions is a sort of observation even if very primitive (in the case of the reaction of an atom). If you want me to use a different meaning for the word “observation” please spell out the crucial distinctions.
Ravi … I couldn’t resist dropping in a few forms (atoms, bees, mice) to serve as exemplars to illustrate what I mean by observation.
React - change state in response to environmental stimuli
Perceive - store a sensual correlate (percept) in memory (recept)
Learn - maintain a dynamic dictionary of recepts and responses keyed by those recepts
1. observation takes place (in other words, awareness exists) by some observer (the observer)
2. The observer is the only constant in each of our existences. The observer is accordingly the true self in each of us.
As it stands now, EgoBug seem a simplified rational argument for a religious cause: observer = abstract real self = “unified cosmic spirit”. While I also feel as a religious being, seeking not to be selfsih or materialistic - so I can identify with the vision of spiritual unification - I do not think that the rational arguments put forward work. It is a noble cause, but the arguments are bad.
The question is, what to do in this situation. Oppose, knowing that this could be misunderstood as arguing for egotism. Or just being silent, knowing that the arguments are in vain - religious people won’t need this type of arguments, materialistic people won’t be moved by the arguments anyway.
As far as I see, the ego itself or the boundary of self-identification is not the problem. “self” is not a concept of observing, but of living. We identify with items that give us sensations or experience, that we produce or control. This is our senso-motorical body, but also our family, the communities we participate, or ideas we produce or share. The solution is not to reduce the “self” to an abstract observer, but to increase the “self” step by step in an unfolding process. The larger the “self” becomes, the smaller the percentage of “body/mind” issues becomes. The happyness of being accepted, respected and loved means more than the happyness from a new car. The concept of a “growing self” seems more fruitful than the concept of a “shrinking self” which means fighting against one-self. The effect may be much the same, but the view of “ego” is different. Evolution has brought us the “ego” together with advantages and problems. W