Let's Read: The Ego Tunnel (Part 3)

Chapter 4: From Ownership to Agency to Free Will

Review

In chapter 3, Metzinger used OBE and other disruptions to self-consciousness to sketch out a 3-part model of consciousness:

• Physical body model. This is a model of the physical body, with joints, bones, meat, weight, velocity, shape, etc. It is put into a model of the physical world, and it cannot occupy the same volume as other solids. So for example, the arm of the body cannot sink into the desk.
• Astral body model. This model has the same shape as the physical body model. However, it has no weight, is not affected by gravity, has no organs, and though it has a volume, it cannot exclude anything else from the volume (it's like turning off collision in a game). It is basically a ghost in the shell of the physical body model. It is usually a bit smaller than the physical body model.
• Viewpoint model. A point in space augmented with a Cartesian frame, to represent the orientation of your viewpoint. It represents your "true location". It is perched between the eyes of the astral body model, facing straight forward. 
  It is used to model where the sound you are hearing is coming from. So for example, if you hear a noise on the left, that would be modeled as a sound source to the left of the viewpoint. 
  It is also used to model where what you are seeing is. So for example, if you see a ball straight ahead, that is modelled as a ball straight ahead of the viewpoint.
  Note that even in a blind-deaf person, there is still a viewpoint model. It is simply not used to assist in inference of audio and visual input. Even a blind-deaf person must feel like they are somewhere in spacetime. That "somewhere" is the location of the viewpoint model within the world model.

Metzinger further contends that to create a thing that feels, it is necessary and sufficient to make a "minimal phenomenal selfhood". A minimal phenomenal selfhood is made of these parts:

• A model of spacetime.
• A point in the spacetime model, indicating "here I am".
• A model of the body (usually humanoid) centered around the viewpoint.
• A global workspace, that is, a buffer memory unit like the RAM. 

And to augment a minimal phenomenal selfhood into a minimal subject, it is necessary and sufficient to add:

• A self-attention control module. The three components of the minimal phenomenal selfhood should appear in the global workspace, and the self-attention control module's function is to emphasize/deemphasize parts of the self-body-model into focus in the global workspace.

This whole system for making a minimal subject is called a phenomenal self-model. It is reasonably easy to construct even with today's technology. It is probable that the self-driving cars in 5 years will have phenomenal self-models.

Pointless Notes: Pretty Fractals in Your Brain!

Purkinje cells are pretty, neuron cells are pretty, the whole brain is pretty! The spinal cord, however, is ugly. Don't talk about that dumb slimy snake in your back.

All that glitters are Purkinje cells.

So let's measure the fractal dimensions!

News Aggregate: Moonshots!

So in the last post I mentioned that the BioGenome Project was called a "moonshot", turns out there's more moonshots. Quite a few! Makes me wonder how many moons do we have... Am I on Jupiter??

Chemistry

Martin Burke is moonshooting for automated chemistry synthesis. Most chemicals are made very inflexibly. Basically, chemists start with a chemical to synthesize, then do a bunch of trials and errors until they get a synthesis receipe that is just cheap and with a high enough yield to be useful.

Human chemists planning a synthesis tend to use a technique called retrosynthetic analysis. They draw the finished molecule and then pick it apart, erasing bonds that would be easy to form and leaving fragments of molecule that are stable or readily available. 

Example: synthesis of Ibuprofen

Conjoined twins, how boundless is nature's depravity!

This post is about all kinds of ways humans are born wrong. It's very disgusting and scary. Personally I powered through the study by listening Depressive Suicidal Death Metal. Here's the playlist I used. I won't show gory pictures but I would link them. Please don't click them unless you eat Cupcakes for breakfast at the Rainbow Factory. They really put the "gross" in "gross pathology".

But first, why do I bother with this? There's a philosophical point to be had here. Usual humans move about fully formed and independent, it's easy to imagine them to be naturally individuals. They aren't and looking at how grotesquely their individuality can fail is a great way to shock one into realizing the mess of reality.

And there's an even higher way to look at this. The body is not a sacred ONE thing, it's just a sack of meat... Similarly, the mind is not a sacred ONE thing either, it's just... a messy collection of things that a brain does, like in Inside Out (2015). Once this is appreciated, one might see that an indivisible individual "self" is an illusion.