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Wednesday, 4 October 2017



If consciousness such as ours is instatiated via the connectome then it is almost certain that it could be simulated in another medium. If the latter is the case then according to a hypothetical polling argument the probability that we are living in a simulation is very close to one. Now we learn that we are almost certainly not living in a simulation. Therefore, our minds are either not simulatable or else the physical substrate is far more complex than the connectome. There are plenty of other reasons not to believe in the simplistic naturalistic explanations for experienced reality, but this one is pleasingly brief. It does away with Laplacian demons as well, and naturalists are left with the position that the cosmos is itself the only computation capable of yielding itself. One cannot say the same of any individual mind, but only because boundaries for such a mind do not exist, so that in a practical sense there is no individual mind. But the mind as you experience it is a project for the attainment of individuality, and there is no reason think that this is in vain. It is just that the only way there can be complete individuality is by way of the individuality of the totality, the cosmic individuality, or its non-duality if you wish. So while you experience yourself as a process in meaning, what you ultimately are, the telos of all such meaning, is without meaning, is in the absolute and ever-present experiencing free of any object.

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