Kevin comments on It's not like anything to be a bat - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (189)
I'm sorry, but I'm a bit shocked how people on this site can seriously entertain ideas like "why am I me?" or "why do I live in the present?" except as early april's fool jokes. I am of course necessarily me because I call whoever I am me. And I live necessarily in the present because I call the time I live in the present. The question "Why am I not somebody else?" is nonsensical because for almost anybody I am somebody else. I think the confusion stems from treating your own consciousness at the same time as something special and not.
Out of all of the questions we can ask, "why am I me?" is one of the most interesting, especially if done with the goal of being able to concisely explain it to other people. Your post is confusing to me, because I think "why am I me?" is not a nonsense question but "Why am I not somebody else" is a nonsense question.
Does anyone here think that "why am I me?" is actually a really easy question? What's the answer then, or how do I dissolve the question? I do not claim to understand the mystery of subjective experience. Where I stop understanding is something mysterious connected to the Born probabilities.
If "Why am I me?" is nonsense it does not follow that all discussions of subjective experience or even anthropic reasoning are nonsense.
Sure. I edited my post to try to make my thoughts on Tordmor's post more clear.