Hofstadter, Dennett - The Mind's I

A Conversation with Einstein’s Brain 444TORTOISE: A book doesn't feel any way. A book just is. It's like a chair. It's just there.ACHILLES: Well, this isn't just a book-it's a book plus a whole process. How does abook plus a process feel?TORTOISE: How should I know? But you can ask it that question yourself.ACHILLES: And I know what it'll say: "I'm feeling very weak and my legs ache," orsome such thing. And a book, or a book-plus-process, has no legs!TORTOISE: But its neural structure has incorporated a very, strong memory of legs andleg-aching. Why don't you tell it that it's now no longer a person, but a book-plusprocess?Maybe after you've explained that fact in about as much detail as youknow it, it would start to understand that and forget about its leg-aching. or whatit took for legaching. After all, it has no vested interest in feeling its leg, which itdoesn't have, aching. It might as well ignore such things and concentrate on whatit does have, such as the ability to communicate with you, Achilles, and to think.ACHILLES: There is something frightfully sad about this whole process. One of thesadder things is that it would take so much time to get messages in and out of thebrain, that before I'd completed many exchanges, I'd be an old man.TORTOISE: Well, you could be turned into a catalogue too.ACHILLES: Ugh! And not have any legs left, to run footraces? No thank you!TORTOISE: You could be turned into a catalogue and continue your thought-provokingconversation with Einstein, as long as someone were managing your book,flipping pages and writing numbers in it. Even better, you could conduct severalconversations at once. All we need do is make several copies of the Achillescatalogue, including directions for use, and send it around to whomever youdesired. You'd enjoy that.ACHILLES: Ah, now, that's more exciting. Let's see-Homer, Zeno, Lewis Carroll ...provided that catalogues had been made of their brains, as well. But wait aminute. How am I going to keep track of all those conversations at once?TORTOISE: No trouble-each one's independent of the others.ACHILLES: Yes, I know-but I've still got to keep them in my head all at once.