Hi again Horace,
...
> Everything eventually changes.
All true. Yet ... I still have to wonder, if you are not conscious,
where are *you*.
Regards,
Horace Heffner
Yes, indeed. Grist for the philosophers. ...and I have no definitive
answer, other than to reply with the tried and true answer of "42."
I shall share an amusing story on this very subject, administered at
my own expense:
I recently had minor surgery where I was administered a unique drug to
knock me out, well, sort of knock me out. It occurred during dental
surgery where the doctor administered a drug, a derivative of Valium I
am told. This particular drug's advantage was that it doesn't render
the patient unconscious, only makes him, well, docile, obedient, and
very forgetful. That way the doctor can continue administering orders,
such as to open my mouth wider. It was as if your memory cells are
placed in a 10 second tape loop device where every single short-term
memory older than 10 seconds will immediately be erased. (I often
think our two cats work on the same principal, but that's another
story.) The nurse began administrating the drug and within seconds I
expressed the fact that I was beginning to feel dizzy. They said that
was fine - just go with the flow. The next memory I had was me sitting
up in the recovery room with a mouthful of bloody gauze stuffed
between my gums and cheeks like a squirrel with its cheek pouches
stuffed to the max with nuts. I can not emphasize how odd it was to
find myself sitting upright in a chair WITH MY EYES ALREADY OPEN in a
different room - as if I had magically transported myself, all within
a split second. I had never fallen asleep or felt as if I had lost
consciousness during the experience. I just "magically" found myself
in a different room. A true story of "missing time"! After surgery, I
was told, they simply ordered me to get up out of the dentist chair
and walk over to the recovery room and sit in a chair, which
apparently I did. And there I eventually rediscovered "me" again as
the drug began to leave my system.
So, philosophically speaking. Where was the real "me" when my
seemingly conscious body was in the dentist chair obediently complying
to the dentist's every whim, to "open wider please."
Perhaps this is just one of many reasons why I have found profound
comfort in the awareness that the true "I"ness of "me" is really not
bound to passing thoughts and feelings, for ultimately they are all
ephemeral, and in some interesting situations completely erasable.
I suspect the honorable PKD sensed this seemingly troublesome issue,
as had been visualized in the classic film "Blade runner", aka, "Do
Androids Dream of Electric Sheep."
Regards,
Steven Vincent Johnson
www.OrionWorks.com
