Hofstadter, Dennett - The Mind's I

A Conversation with Einstein’s Brain 455suppose I were a very fast reader and managed to learn the contents of the wholebook within the time allotted to me on the surface of our green sphere.TORTOISE: So now you'd know all about Achilles-before he read the Achilles book! Butyou are quite ignorant about the Achilles who exists now!ACHILLES: Oh, what a quandary! The fact that I read the book makes the bookobsolete. The very attempt to learn about myself changes me from what I was. Ifonly I could have a bigger brain, capable of digesting all of the complexity ofmyself. Yet I can see that even that would be of no avail, for possession of abigger brain would make me all the more complex yet! My mind simply can'tunderstand all of itself. All I can know is the outline, the basic idea. Beyond acertain point, I cannot go. Although my brain structure is right there in my head,exactly where "I" am, still its nature is not accessible to this "I." The very entitythat constitutes "I"-and I am of necessity ignorant of it. My brain and "I" are notthe same!TORTOISE: A droll dilemma-the stuff of life's many hilarities. And now, perhaps,Achilles, we can pause to ponder one of the original questions that prompted thisdiscussion: "Do thoughts occur in the mind, or in the brain?"ACHILLES: By now, I hardly know what is meant by "mind"-except, of course, as a sortof poetic expression for the brain, or its activities. The term reminds me of"beauty." It is not something that one can locate in space-yet it is not hovering inan ethereal otherworld, either. It is more like a structural feature of a complexentity.TORTOISE: Where lies the beauty, if I may rhetorically ask, of an etude by Scriabin? Inthe sounds? Among the printed notes? In the ear, mind, or brain of the beholder?ACHILLES: It seems to me that "beauty" is just a sound that we utter whenever ourneural flash passes through a certain region of our brains-a certain "labeled room."It is tempting to think that to this sound there corresponds an "entity," some kindof "existing thing." In other words, because it is a noun, we think of beauty as a"Thing"; but maybe "beauty" denotes no Thing at all; the word is just a usefulsound which certain events and perceptions make us want to pronounce.TORTOISE: I would go further, Achilles: I would surmise that this is a property of manywords-especially words like "beauty," "truth,"