/sci/ - Science & Math

>>11227683
But anon...
The concept of self is intrinsically contradictory in nature. One experiences the world exclusively across intervals of time as all perception and response to stimuli requires mental processing and all processing requires some duration. However, at the same time, we as beings with a concept of self never truly exist at any more than one point in time. We experience the present and never anything else. Our memories, the fundamental basis of our self concept, exist in the physical realm as electrochemical signals and synaptic connections. All the memories you are capable of accessing in the now must also exist in at this moment. As the need to exist exclusively across an interval of time and need to only ever exist at only one point in time are incompatible, we must conclude that consciousness as we typically think of it does not exist. Instead we experience a very convincing illusion of continuity maintained through the existence of imperfect neural records.