The linguistic tradition is testament to the fact that we don’t usually reason about the objects.
StepVheN
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Kaj_Sotala
My reading of the meaning of “no-self” is quite like yours. Personally I came to these conclusions through the phenomenological frame you summarize here. A phenomenological understanding of the phenomena described by the term “no-self” is crucial in getting to the true meaning of that term, in my opinion. The mediated understanding we can glean through conversation on this topic, though valuable, does not really get us closer to the meaning of that phrase. This is probably due to the structure of our language and it’s assumption of a self/actor, that has and does things. I don’t really think it’s possible to grasp the concept outside of phenomenological investigation.
I’d like to add also something you braced with the “lack of continuity” of self. Lack of essential nature to self. When we consider all the things we think of as constituting “self” as relative phenomena devoid of essential nature, the argument for self is harder to buttress.
I had some friends in college who would drink heavily before attacking programming problems.
I tried the same on a music piece I was working on one night, worked a charm. It felt very wrong morally speaking, probably due to my own prejudices, but I got the thing done and done well.
To be totally honest, with the current cognitive models most AI research is based off, we’ll never have to worry about a scenario of this type.
You know the way people say “be in the moment” and all your worries will disappear?
That’s utter insanity.
But.
There is a case to be made for thinking in the moment. Think about what you can do right now, to alleviate your worry. Putting some kind of Plan B in place maybe?
People seem to crave direction and purpose. If you can put in place a plan that you can begin working on right now that will lend some greater direction to your life regardless of this new change, you may alleviate the worry.