I enjoyed the essay. It doesn't make a lot of claims, so it is easy to agree.
I have some attachment to the "consciousness is an illusion" idea, but I prefer to think of it as an emergent process.
It is an illusion in the sense that the mind is presenting it to us a some sort of whole. Our "self". That presentation hides the complex underpinnings of what the mind is doing, and how our consciousness is a narrow filtered view of the actions of the mind.
The brain does what it does. It needs the conscious mind to make decisions and game what-if scenarios. The mind filters the noise down to those things it needs "us" to be aware of.
I think that the "self" is an evolutionary construct that our survival relies on, and consciousness is a high-level emergent process. As the essay says, we will know more when we probe the limits of AI, and our knowledge of neuro-biology. There will always be a place for philosophers as "story tellers", but science is the tool that will best inform religion and mysticism.
I have some attachment to the "consciousness is an illusion" idea, but I prefer to think of it as an emergent process.
It is an illusion in the sense that the mind is presenting it to us a some sort of whole. Our "self". That presentation hides the complex underpinnings of what the mind is doing, and how our consciousness is a narrow filtered view of the actions of the mind.
The brain does what it does. It needs the conscious mind to make decisions and game what-if scenarios. The mind filters the noise down to those things it needs "us" to be aware of.
I think that the "self" is an evolutionary construct that our survival relies on, and consciousness is a high-level emergent process. As the essay says, we will know more when we probe the limits of AI, and our knowledge of neuro-biology. There will always be a place for philosophers as "story tellers", but science is the tool that will best inform religion and mysticism.
