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bigjeff5 comments on Hand vs. Fingers - Less Wrong
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People interested in the discussion between Eliezer and Richard might find this Wikipedia article interesting: Depersonalization Disorder
Essentially, people behave as they otherwise would, except they don't have a sense of "self-awareness". That is, they did something, and they know they did something, but it doesn't feel as though it was them who did the thing. Often people feel as though they are automata, pre-programmed to respond to certain stimuli, but that there is no "self" driving them.
The disorder also tends to cause its inverse, which is derealization. That is, the individual perceives himself to be real, but nothing external is real.
This effect can be generated with drugs, and it can also be treated with drugs. This suggests to me that the entire "sense of self" is caused by a chemical interaction within the brain.
Ayup. I experienced a limited form of this a couple of years ago... it was creepy.
Not wanting to open a possibly long article: is that the same thing as dissociation? Is dissociation the symptom and depersonalization a cluster of symptoms that includes it?
Depersonalization is a type of dissociation disorder, yes. It's in the same class of disorder as multiple personalities - or Dissociative Identity Disorder.
And I think the discussions between Richard, Eliezer, and Robin, among others, are worth reading. Richard argues, in a nutshell, that the mind is more than just the brain, that there is something else that creates the mind. Eliezer and Robin argue that he his making the same mistakes that he has been describing in the Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions sequence. That's what the "zombie world" is all about - if a world consists of humans who are in every way exactly the same as ours minus whatever ephemeral thing it is that Richard says completes "consciousness", Richard argues these zombies will not be conscious, and Eliezer argues that they will be, because they are made of all the same things that we are.