JOHN ALLEN PAULOS
Professor of Mathematics, Temple University, Philadelphia; Author, A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market
The self is a conceptual chimera
Doubt that a supernatural being exists is banal, but the more radical doubt that we exist, at least as anything more than nominal, marginally integrated entities having convenient labels like "Myrtle" and "Oscar," is my candidate for Dangerous Idea. This is, of course, Hume's idea and Buddha's as well that the self is an ever-changing collection of beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes, that it is not an essential and persistent entity, but rather a conceptual chimera. If this belief ever became widely and viscerally felt throughout a society whether because of advances in neurobiology, cognitive science, philosophical insights, or whatever its effects on that society would be incalculable. (Or so this assemblage of beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes sometimes thinks.)
If this ratio of one real life to ten simulated lives turned out to be representative of human experience, this means that right now, you only have a one in ten chance of being alive on the actual date of today.
...but I'm not prepared for this kind of stuff this early in the day.
I've felt that many times, and the absoluteness of having that true feeling can be ovewhelmingly disconcerting because one feels like they no longer have any firm sense of self--no foundation of one's existence.
susannah_breslin
I'm lost
June 2005
JAN 04, 2006 10:54 AM