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What is it like to be me?

What is it like to be me?. Trying to understand consciousness. Socrates. “…and the reason, my friend, is this: I am not yet able, as the Delphic inscription has it, to know myself ; so it seems to me ridiculous, when I do not yet know that, to investigate irrelevant things.” Plato, Phaedrus.

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What is it like to be me?

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  1. What is it like to be me? Trying to understand consciousness.

  2. Socrates “…and the reason, my friend, is this: I am not yet able, as the Delphic inscription has it, to know myself; so it seems to me ridiculous, when I do not yet know that, to investigate irrelevant things.” Plato, Phaedrus

  3. Socrates “This man, on one hand, believes that he knows something, while not knowing [anything]. On the other hand, I – equally ignorant – do not believe [that I know anything].” Plato, Apology

  4. Descartes But I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Does it now follow that I, too, do not exist? No. If I convinced myself of something [or thought anything at all], then I certainly existed… after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that the proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind. ( Meditations II)

  5. Descartes “I attentively examined what I was, and as I observed that I could suppose that I had no body, and that there was no world or any plaice in which I might be; but that I could not therefore suppose that I was not; and that, on the contrary, from the very circumstances that I thought to doubt the truth of other things, it must clearly and certainly follow that I was…

  6. Descartes …I thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that “I,” that is to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct from the body, and is even more easily known that the latter.” (Discourse of Method, Part IV)

  7. Descartes’ argument for Dualism. • I can doubt that my body exists • I cannot doubt that I myself do not exist. • Therefore, I myself am totally distinct from my body.

  8. Descartes’ Dualism

  9. Pineal Gland

  10. Materialism Everything in the world, including our minds, is made up on matter. That is material physical stuff (energy, mass etc.) • Material Stuff

  11. Avicenna’s Flying Man Imagine you were created in a perfect state but suspended in mid air, isolated from all sensation (blindfolded, ear’s plugged, not able to smell or taste). Would you be able to affirm the existence of your self?

  12. Thomas Nagel Imagine: What is it like to be a bat?

  13. What is consciousness? Reductionist ‘An Extra-Ingredient’ An intrinsic part of some thinking, perceiving, and feeling being Consciousness is nothing more than our processes or ability.

  14. What does it mean to be a conscious machine?

  15. The Possibility of Zombies Philosophical Zombies

  16. Consciousness and Progress • Have we made progress in understanding consciousness? • What more is there left to understand? • Is progress possible? • What restricts progress in this field? • Science or philosophy: which has the most to say about consciousness?

  17. ToK Reflections

  18. Areas of Knowledge Computing Alan Turing • Neuroscience • Neural Correlates of consciousness Conscious machines A special value of human life Maths Ethics Natural Science Areas Psychology Philosophy of Mind The Arts Human Science History Surrealism History of thought

  19. Ways of Knowing

  20. Knower(s) Reflexive Individuality Knowing about the knower ‘Know Thyself’ Objective explanation My knowledge – My ideas?

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