Hofstadter, Dennett - The Mind's I

A Conversation with Einstein’s Brain 442page, wherever we were led, either by the previous pages or by t tones that wewere feeding in, via the auditory conversion tables'TORTOISE: Right. And now, once the utterance is finished, neurons continue to firefromone to the next, the cascade continues-so w perform a strange and elaborate"dance," shuffling back and forth between pages, round after round, withouthaving any auditory input to bother with.ACHILLES: I can see that something strange is about to happen. Afte another few"seconds" (if we are to stick to that somewhat ridiculous' underestimate) of pageturning and number changing, certain of the' "speech neurons" will begin to fire.And we would then do well to consult the tables indicating shape of mouth ortension in vocal cords.TORTOISE: You have caught wind of what is happening, Achilles. The way to read thebook is not from page 1, but according to th directions in the preface, which tellabout all the changes that must be effected and give all the rules for how toproceed.ACHILLES: I suppose that given mouth shape and condition of vocal cords, it would bewithin grasp to determine what Einstein is "say ing," wouldn't it? Especially giventhe level of technical advancement we've presupposed, that seems only a minortask. So I suppose he would say something to me.TORTOISE: I presume so-such as, "Oh, hello. Did you come to visit me Have I died?"ACHILLES: That is a strange question. Of course he did. TORTOISE: Well, then who'sasking you the question?ACHILLES: Oh, just some silly book. It's not Einstein, of course! You can' trap me intosaying that! .TORTOISE: I wouldn't dream of it. But perhaps you'd like to address some morequestions to the book. You could conduct a whole conversation, if you had thepatience.ACHILLES: That is an exciting prospect-I could see just what Einstein would have saidin conversations with me, if I'd ever really met him!TORTOISE: Yes, you could begin by asking how he felt; then proceeding to adescription of how glad you were to meet him, since you'd never had the chanceduring his lifetime-proceeding just as if he were the "real" Einstein, which, ofcourse, you've already decided was out of the question. How do you suppose hewould react, when you told him he's not the real Einstein?