Our Reality: Recent conversation with Gemini
How a system constructs its Self 1. Abstract Humans experience a stubborn and persistent sense of Self. What is puzzling is that this Self is also, first and foremost , a physical system. This raises the question: How can a physical system acquire the conviction that it is a Self? The author proposes a theory— developed and tested through conversations with AI —to address this question. Several large language models (LLMs) were consulted, and the theory held up under scrutiny. The remainder of this paper presents a verbose transcript of the conversation with Gemini, as it effectively explains the theory for a broad audience. The author is not an academic philosopher but an engineer , approaching the problem from the perspective of solving issues in physical systems . Philosophers may have different concerns, but this paper offers a practical, mechanistic framework for understanding how a system constructs its Self 2. Introduction The human body has an extende...