Again, your words and psychotic-at-face-value perceptions. When there is a rational conversation that presents itself to be had, I’m ready to have it.
OK, here’s a serious line of questioning to @popobawa4u:
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Are there any people in your meatspace life who choose to carry on conversations with you over the course of weeks, months, or even years?
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Do you speak at them the way you speak at us?
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Do you see any physical indications that they are frustrated with you, but care enough about you as a person that they’re willing to put up with your behavior?
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Have you acted this way with an employer, and kept the job longer than a few days/weeks?
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Couldn’t you reword this as:
I don’t understand you, but since I’m a human, that is, a pattern seeking machine (and the pattern I seek at the moment is logical consistency), I could conceivably suggest contradictions if I make assumptions to fill in the gaps.
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Oh, a follow-up question:
Is Popobawa meant to be a troll name? (This is my assumption, but I’m willing to suspend disbelief long enough to see if there is an internally consistent answer to this question as well.)
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Ach, now you’ve done it! Didn’t you read this part of that page?
Villagers maintain that Popobawa becomes enraged if his existence is denied.
We’re in for it now, Bbs villagers!
(Actually, I’ve come to the conclusion that Popobawa is a trolley performance.)
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But, like with all Mel Brooks movies, there comes a time when it’s yawn boring and time for something new.
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Actually, if you observe your mind closely enough for long enough, there is. Experienced meditators see this directly all the time.
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Sure. But I was not talking about the mind.
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Finally. Sanity in explaining this (again).
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Double joke given his name! Gimme credit!
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Such a magnificent actor. I wonder if he thinks money is real 
?
#####(Sorry popo, it is just a tiny topical joke, and not an insult!)
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Since we are using “mind” as a short-hand for “(things which we perceive with our) mind”
…
what else is there?
a discontinuous state of no-mind?
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I decided to not pursue this.
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You’ll be back… but it will seem like you’ve never been gone.
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There are my offspring, who find me interesting. And my progenitors, who apparently feel obliged to make some vague pretense of being interested.
I am not sure how you would characterize what this way of speech might be, but I think it’s safe to say that yes - this is how I communicate.
People do fidget an awful lot, and make a point of engaging in divers affective displays. Sometimes I ask them to translate these for me, but many people complain about that. Too much of my interaction with people involves trying to encourage them to speak up and be more involved. Yes, people have gotten frustrated with me. It’s hard to deal with when they are people I care about. I can have a lot of patience for trying to relate to people, but they seem very evasive.
Sure, but more often then not, it prevents me from negotiating such an arrangement to begin with, as they assume an asymmetric relationship with me, rather than dealing in good faith like equals. My previous job lasted for six years. Usually I get hired for some completely menial tasks, but then they realize that I can solve quite difficult logistical problems, and try to exploit me in some greater capacity. But usually their formal basis for accounting for my responsibilities is lacking. Within a short time I am usually running the place, and later people fight over me, it becomes scandalous, and the job is over. I have never been fired, but I have been “weaseled” out of jobs.
It is, sort of! I make an effort to not use the same user names and passwords. A couple of years ago I was stuck for ideas, and was obsessed with Popobawa. So, despite - or perhaps because - I knew it was tacky and outrageous, I decided to use it. I changed my mind about it soon after (yuck!), but decided to commit to it instead of creating a new account. I did entertain using it as a performance name for my artwork, but no, my discussions here are not a form of driving trollies performance art! I guess I can appreciate it that some people might think so, but I would prefer if that wasn’t the case. I read bOING bOING starting around 1990 and thought that the BBS might be a fun place to meet people and engage in topical discussions of art, technology, social; issues, etc.
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I was half joking. I get that you enjoy arcane philosophical arguments. With a glass of Scotch and a nice fire going, I would too. But this is an in depth discussion that exceeds the amount of time I can goof off at work on BB. In discussions like this it’s almost worse to give it inadequate attention than none at all, as it usually leads to misunderstanding. This is why I normally ignore your comments, nothing personal. But I engaged and so I’ll give it a go at a succinct reply.
I’m a fan of Marvin Minsky’s Society of Mind as well. On this point we probably basically agree.
That was part of my point. A pattern is still a real thing, not an illusion. Fact is that most people probably never think about what their sense of self is or how it functions. And plenty who do will eventually wind up realizing it’s a relay race, not one runner. But it’s still there and it’s still real. The only question is what it is. But self was a concept before it was defined by philosophers. So certain definitions being erroneous doesn’t make the experience itself an illusion. For example, the Copernican revolution didn’t negate the existence of the celestial heavens. It simply gave a better model for how they function. The mechanics of how they moved around was an illusion born of perspective, but the lights were still there.
That doesn’t make it an illusion. That makes it transient. The person I self-perceived last week and the person I self-perceived today agree we’re in the same race, with some of the runners coming and some of them going. That doesn’t mean the pattern lacks continuity. Or, more accurately, that it isn’t part of the deeper mind/body’s system of continuity.
I must take my leave for now, but I’ll leave you with one last thought. Charlie Stross gave one of the best definitions of self-hood I’ve ever seen. Paraphrasing: The person known as I is a wave of continuity - occasionally aware of its self-pattern (I’m adding this bit) - bounded by the singularities of birth and death.
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No. It’s much, much simpler:
There is no discontinuity.
Correct. There is a bigger, much much much much bigger continuity. There is no discontinuity!!!
