From: rhinoceros (rhinoceros@freemail.gr)
Date: Wed Nov 26 2003 - 12:32:49 MST
[rhinoceros]
Think of it: You are sitting over there reading this, with *your own* self forged in a complex process. The probabilities that the person who experiences this "illusion of the self" would be someone else and not "you" are overwhelming. Still, it is "you" sitting there and experiencing "the illusion of the self", on planet Earth, in the 21st century of all centuries. The lottery is back, along with Descartes' "I think therefore I am".
[Lucifer]
You lost me there. The probability of me sitting here reading this is 1.0. The odds of me being in another century are zero because if I was it wouldn't be me. I know I must be misunderstanding your intent so perhaps you could explain?
[rhinoceros]
I'll take the question of what probabilility means (in this case and in other cases) to another thread. I did give some clarification of how it depends on the "sample space" (discrete or continuous, finite or infinite) we are drawing from in my first post in this thread.
I also do not think I can explain much better the asymmetry which comes from the fact that the one who has those perceptions is "I" and not anyone else. I was not talking about what "self" means but about what my own "self" means. I can easily imagine myself living in the middle ages and having very different worldview and perceptions, and still be"I". But "I" might not exist at all to perceive anything at all, and yet "I" exist -- this is what I find mind boggling.
In my first post, I explained that the probability for this to have happened whould be rather small in a world where a finite "repository of souls" would be the sample space, but even this model is very conservative if "selves" are being forged in a complex process involving all kinds of "cosmic details".
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