> I _have_ a body, I _am_ a soul.
Maybe what they're identifying is the first half of that statement, how we interpret the former, through the presence of the latter.
I heard Michal Levin talk about dualism recently. He has an interesting point: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Qp0rCU49lMs&t=6210
Whether personality is entirely based on laws of physics or not - is a separate question.
That we have first-person experiences shows the soul is definitely not "a process your body runs" : it's where your whole experience "registers".
That we are not flesh robots is also why we have free will. You could coherently argue that free-will is an illusion, but you can't argue that first-person experience is an illusion, as you need something to perceive the illusion.
Yes, with an advanced version on an LLM on top that makes it seem like you is you. As of so far we've found zero external magical devices that cause our body to act like it does other than the cells and electrical signals they produce.
>we have first-person experiences
Do you? You say you do, much like an LLM says it knows things. But all these things you say about you are actually effects many orders separated from the cause. Your idea of first-person is something you're experiencing many filters later. Which is what the article is somewhat about. Messing with the input signals to your brain via physical mechanism changes what you feel about who you are. There is not magic, just electron flows.
>but you can't argue that first-person experience is an illusion, as you need something to perceive the illusion.
A computer can generate and play it's own video game. This can be entirely virtualized like a dream, or it could be more like AR where it's getting inputs from the world around us. "But, but, but, that's totally different in ways I cannot explain nor do I want to because I'm special"
Our improvements in AI will never lead to AI being proven smart. It will just lead to humans being proven dumb.
singularity, described by The Swans: https://youtu.be/Wn7xv6SNSUc?list=PLUcXHQ7VorrWZwLE5j2m89ltg...
But once you carry that reasoning to its full conclusion, the original argument for a "soul" or "self" that can even be meaningfully called "I" vanishes entirely. There still is some sort of underlying "true" subjective awareness that's felt to be ontologically basic in some sense (just like the "soul") but now it's entirely impersonal (the traditional term is "spirit", or "the absolute") since anything that's still personal is no longer comprised in it: an ongoing phenomenon and perhaps an inherent feature of existence itself, not a "thing".
You better always feel like you otherwise you may not help this non-you survive, hence the non-you's went extinct quickly.
Person me = new Person {
body: { ... },
personality/soul: { ... },
emotionalState: { ... },
memories: { ... }
}