Larry Clapp  <larry@theclapp.org> wrote:
+---------------
| Ken Tilton <kentilton@gmail.com> wrote:
| > The breakthru has happened when we tell the system what it is and it
| > says, OK, I see all that, the hardware, the software... but what
| > about /me/? Where is that?
| 
| I predict we will not be able to construct a self-aware program until
| we can answer this question.  :)
+---------------

Although perhaps the question is badly-formulated. That is,
the question presupposes that "me" is a "thing" that "exists".
What if that's wrong?

Buddhism (of the Madhyamika tradition, at least) would say
that you can never find such a "thing" as "me", no matter
how long you look, that the sense of "me" (or "I") is a false
identification of "thing"-ness to a perceived similarity in
the various patterns that arise, dwell, and dissolve in the
processes of the mind-body complex. We take a sense of awareness
from yesterday (or 5 minutes ago or 25 years ago) and incorrectly
declare it to be EQ (in the Lisp sense) to some sense of awareness
that is occuring in the moment (or more likely, that occurred a
moment ago), when in fact not only is it *not* EQ, it's not even
EQUALP!! Nevertheless, sentient beings have an incredibly strong
tendency to grab onto such fleeting similarities and identify
them all as EQ to "me, ME, *ME*"... which causes no end of grief.
In the Buddhist literature this tendency is called "Ego".

If you find this off-topic [I don't, but you may], feel free to
redirect followups to "alt.buddha.short.fat.guy"[1].


-Rob

[1] http://www.ansaman.com/absfgfaq.html#quotes
    ...
    "Maybe we are just how reality does introspection."

-----
Rob Warnock			<rpw3@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue			<URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403		(650)572-2607