I might be just a super advanced neural net (like a language model) with self-reflection and so many self-doubts.
I might be just a super advanced neural net (like a language model) with self-reflection and so many self-doubts.
When I was first starting my practice I found Thich Nhat Hanh's translation of the heart sutra [1], Thanissaro Bhikkhu's book on anatman [2], and the four thoughts from ngondro [3] to be the most insightful.
[1] https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/letters/thich-... [2] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/selve... [3] https://www.shambhala.com/videos/mingyur-rinpoche-on-the-fou...
I seem to be a conscious entity, and I have access to the physical memory store in my brain, but am "I" actually going to survive falling asleep tonight? Or am "I" like a fire that gets extinguished, with a new one to be lit in my place tomorrow morning, using the same pile of half burnt logs?
The old sci-fi/philosophy teleportation question addresses this with the concept of physically destroying and reconstructing a body, but I don't know if we need near magic tech to elicit the problem.
We turn our conscious selves off for periods of deep sleep every day (or two, or three... but there is a definite limit). Do we really survive this transition?
Well I knew that I shouldn’t have opened HN during my insomnia :D
But I also actually like this idea. It means that the death of the mind is actually calm and peaceful.
No, agreed, you’re like a neural net, it’s why they decided to call them “neural”, right? Because they resemble how brains work, correct if wrong.
I’ve wondered same thing. Hoping I haven’t said anything too stupid over the years.