here I sit...

[miriam_e]

Here I sit in darkened room, facing a glowing screen and surrounded by trance thud and sparkle... aaaah, beautiful music energises the core of my being. Here I sit, groping my way toward a glorious future borne on the backs of those geniuses who labor for love of knowledge... better beings than I, by far. Here I sit trying to help in some small way... here in my darkened room before a glowing portal immersed in cascades of trance... beautiful music. Here I sit, illuminating, painfully and slowly, corners of the wondrous architecture, intricate and self-evolving under clever hands guided by many scintillating minds. Surely it is not far now... will I see? Will I feel? Will I live? and live... and live... and live? and grow... and learn... and love? Will this be the time? So many ones, better than I, have passed before, the gift denied. Will we be the ones who hold it? Born to us in the hands of those shining ones -- those who labor for love of knowledge. Here I sit in dark comfort, daylight outside, but here I sit in my enfolding burrow... words dribble from crawling cursor. Here I sit. I wait... building and learning while I wait, hoping I have time. Having tasted the pale shadow of godlike realities in the worlds I visit while I sit here... here I sit wanting more... the hunger... the ache... appalled at the thought that it could be snatched away at the last moment... like so many before... many before... better people than I. They could not even hope. At least I can have the hope. So here I sit in my warm dark room, hoping, bathed in music and the glow from the strange window before me -- window to many worlds. Here I sit... hoping that soon I'll not be here, nor sitting, not in light or dark... hoping to be a god among gods with endless worlds of my own creating... with endless time for my living... endless knowledge for my exploring... Here I sit... learning... creating... feeling... hoping... waiting... Here I sit

Comments

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

You don't really need a particular break time. Just seeing objectively that consciousness is not a single unbroken line is all that is required. Contrast that with the subjective perception of a single continuous existence, and the stage is set.

I have an interesting day, then mulling over the day's exploits I go to sleep. During the night my consciousness disappears for a while every 20 minutes or so. The next day 2 Miriams wake up; one inside a virtual world, and the other in the bed where she went to sleep. They are both me. As they wake they both remember what a cool day yesterday was. They both have the same illusion of an unbroken consciousness stretching back into the past, but they are both wrong... and at the same time both are correct. My own subjective consciousness is what is important, so to say that one is the "real" me and the other merely a clone is meaningless. Subjectively they are both really me.

I'm aware that this is a weird concept and how it seems absurdly at odds with first thoughts. I have been familiar with this question for about the last 37 years so it seems fairly easy to me, but I remember how puzzling and insoluble it was when I first found it.