From: brent.allsop@attbi.com
Date: Thu Sep 19 2002 - 15:51:29 MDT
> I'd ask if you know what I mean, but what would be the
point? :)
Yes!
Philosophers have called this the "veil of perception"
right? We can't yet eff the ineffable. It's the idea
behind the Turing Test, "What is it like to be a bat"
the "Problem of other minds" and so on.
The phenomenal world of our conscious awareness is
subjectively trapped and isolated within our brain
inside of our skull. It's a very low-resolution virtual
world representing a space a few miles in diameter
(That's why the mountains on the horizon, stars and moon
seem flat and pasted at the edge of this world a few
miles away.) Our conscious knowledge of ourselves is
stuck at the center of this limited conscious knowledge
of this world. Though magically phenomenal, the worlds
of our conscious awareness are very isolated and
subjectively lonely.
I definitely look forward to the day when we can start
to eff feelings and sensations (as in: "oh THAT's what
salt tastes like!") This will be the beginning of a
time in which, through augmentation of our brains, the
conscious worlds of our awareness will finally start to
grow and eventually be able to escape from the bounds of
our skulls. It will be a time when we can bring other's
conscious awareness of themselves into our own conscious
worlds and so on. As one small simple example: I look
forward to experiencing more than half of the sensations
that occur when I'm being intimate withy my partner and
so on. She certainly can't eff to me what it is like
today but this will not always be true.
Brent Allsop
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