Hofstadter, Dennett - The Mind's I

A Conversation with Einstein’s Brain 453until sensory input messages interfere; then the flash veers away from the path itwould have followed. And so it goes-room after room after labeled room isvisited. You are speaking.ACHILLES: I don't always speak. Sometimes I merely sit and think.TORTOISE: Granted. The labeled rooms may have their lights turned low -a sign fornon-utterance: you don't speak the words aloud. A "thought" occurs, silently. Thehot spot continues-depositing, at door after door, either a drop of oil on the hingeto loosen it, or a drop of water to corrode it. Some doors have such rusty hingesthey can't be opened. Others are so often oiled they nearly open by themselves.Thus traces of the present are deposited for the future: the "I" of now leavesmessages and memories for the "I" of a time to come. This neural dance is thedance of the soul; and the sole choreographer of the soul is physical law.ACHILLES: Normally, I think that I'm in control of what I think; but the way you put itturns it all around backward, so that it sounds like "I" am just what comes out ofall this neural structure and natural law. It makes what I consider myself sound atbest like a by-product of an organism governed by natural law and, at worst, likean artificial concept produced by my distorted perspective. In other words, youmake me feel as if I don't know who-or what-I am, if anything.TORTOISE: This is a very important matter to bring up. How can you "know" what youare? First of all, what does it mean to know something, anything, at all?ACHILLES: Well, I presume that when I know something-or when, should I say, mybrain knows something-there is a path that snakes through my brain, runningthrough rooms, many of which are labeled. If I ever think a thought about thesubject, my neural flash swishes along that path quite automatically, and if I amconversing, each time it passes through a labeled room, a sound of some typecomes out. But of course I don't need to think about my neural flash for it to dothis very competently. It seems as if I function quite well without me!TORTOISE: Well, it's true that the "path of least resistance" does take care of itself quitewell. But we can equate the result of all this functioning with you, Achilles. Youneedn't feel that your self is dispensed with in this analysis.ACHILLES: But the trouble with this picture is that my "self" is not in control of myself.