A reader asks me a philosophy question. I’m not a philosopher, and if I were, I’d probably be a bad one.

I am aware from your blog Pharyngula that you are a materialist when it comes to the issue of consciousness, and that you feel that neuroscience and physIcal processes are enough to explain consciousness. But I have a question for you about your views regarding this.

There is one very puzzling aspect of consciousness which I have always puzzled over; and that is the very perplexing question of why, out of the numerous consciousnesses existing in the universe at all places and all time periods, the consciousness of this particular individual is the only one that is actually ME. A common way this question is often phrased is “Why am I me and not someone else?” The philosopher Benj Hellie calls it the vertiginous question, and he puts it like this: “Of all the subjects of experience out there, why is this one — the one corresponding to the human being referred to as Benj Hellie (substitute yourself for him) — the one whose experiences are actually live (i.e., present, or available, or currently being experienced).

It seems to me like this is a perplexing question regardless of whether materialism or dualism is true, because either way, it seems equally irresolvable. If materialism is true, you can ask “Why am I this brain and not some other brain?”, and if dualism is true, you can ask “Why am I this soul and not some other soul?” Neither option provides any more of an answer than the other. So it seems this question is separate from, and neutral with regard to, the whole materialism vs. dualism question.

So do you have any ideas on how this very puzzling mystery could possibly be explained?

Thank you, and good luck with your blog and everything else!

I know nothing of Benj Hellie and have never read anything by him. I don’t even understand the question, which may be why I don’t find it “puzzling” or “perplexing”. As a materialist, my consciousness and sense of self is entirely local, a product of the physical properties of my brain. I wouldn’t hold up a rock and ask, “Why is this rock this rock, and not that other rock?” I don’t think objects are interchangeable, therefore selves are not interchangeable.

I must be missing something, because the question just looks stupid to a materialist and doesn’t seem to resolve anything about dualism. Maybe someone out there can find something that makes sense of it.

After making a bunch of spider cages, I spent the rest of the day slackin’. The sun was shining! There was a nice breeze! We looked for spiders! Also, I dusted off the ol’ drone and tried to remember how to fly the stupid thing, so I threw together a few clips of Pomme de Terre park. Yes, it’s a real river. Yes, it’s French for “potato”. It’s pretty!

It’s centered on the Gazebo, and I buzzed a few pelicans. Mainly, you can see what my part of the country looks like.

We’re in the midst of spider season, and Mary has been finding every Parasteatoda that pokes its adorable little fangs out in the garage, so I’m running out of spider cages. I’m going to have to spend a few hours this morning with a glue gun building more, so I guess I’m going to have to go into work for a while this morning executing my weirdly specific and not at all marketable skills building happy wooden climbing structures for spiders. I’ll be back later this morning!

Over the years, I’ve noticed something: there are some subjects that instantly draw in the trolls. The two biggest ones are feminism and trans rights, which leads me to suspect that it’s the same subpopulation of self-righteous conservative assholes who abhor them both. The latest instance is in the thread about JK Rowling, in which a commenter named “coldhardrealist”, who’d been stirring up the thread for a while, is recognized as a previously banned commenter named “thirdmill” who had also been banned for their repeated trolling of threads about trans issues. He made a stunningly oblivious confession once caught out.

Over the last ten years or so, I’ve been posting here under probably a dozen different names, all but one of which have been banned. I’ve said a great many things that I don’t really believe, a few things that I partially believe, and some things that I really do believe, mostly to see what the reactions from others would be. (More about that in a minute.)

Does that make me a dishonest person? No more so than any other experimenter who doesn’t completely level with the subjects in advance that they’re part of an experiment.

In this incarnation, I’m a recently returned Iraq war veteran, who started life as a political conservative, has become greatly disillusioned with conservatism, is moving left, but isn’t quite there yet. He’s basically an honest person who sees holes in his previous world view, sees both sides to a lot of issues he once thought were cut and dried, and is really wrestling with difficult issues. Would someone like that be welcome here? Answer: No.

Yes, that makes him a dishonest person. This is not a laboratory, he is not a qualified experimenter, his “experiment” was badly thought out and incompetently run. He doesn’t seem aware that in social settings, people are often pretty good at spotting inconsistencies and feigned behavior, and it makes them suspicious and untrusting, especially when you’re as bad at lying as coldhardrealist/thirdmill. The reason he gets consistently caught out and banned isn’t because the people here are intolerant of differences of opinion, or are unaware of the complexities of the real world, it’s because he’s consistently an asshole.

Oh, and the conceit of pretending to be “a recently returned Iraq war veteran”! That his phony persona was detected and rejected does not mean that a real person like that would be unwelcome here — it just means he’s a terrible actor and is caught out every time. And every time, it seems that his overt transphobia is what exposes him.

He’s been banned, and claims he won’t be back. He will be. Because he’s an asshole. Any other transphobes who barge in here will also be banned, because they’re assholes.

I’ve been laid up for almost a week with a bad knee (very bad knee! It shall be punished!), so I’ve been doubly-confined by the stupid virus and the stupid knee. Today I’m feeling well enough to trek across the street and get some work done — boring work. I have to shuffle microscopes and balances around to get them ready for a maintenance visit. But! I also get to check in and feed the spiders, who were left last week with possible mates, and set up some new spiders recently caught, and check on some wild spiders around the science building. It will be a better day than usual, I hope.

I also have big plans for some more elaborate spidering expeditions next week, so I’m going to be careful of this obnoxious knee now, so that it will be even stronger then.

Further goodness: I’m expecting a present for myself from myself in the mail today. I’ll show you later.

I’m uploading a new video right now which will be posted first to Patreon, and tomorrow to everyone else, and it chewed up my whole day. I futzed around way too long trying to do the editing under Linux, and was tearing my hair out — I’m not exactly skilled at the video editing thing at the best of times, but trying to use all new software which was full of Linux geekiness was just too much. So I gave up and did it on my Mac. The whole workflow is so much simpler and more comfortable there for an amateur.

I’ll continue to try and master my Linux-fu, but I’m not quite there yet on the video front.

It’s a plan suggested by our board of regents, I guess.

We recommend the resumption of in-person instruction and opening of residence halls, dining facilities and other campus services in a manner consistent with public health guidance. This will include adjusting capacity levels for classroom occupancy, residence halls and dining capacity, and other inperson experiences.

While faculty retain the autonomy to determine the modality of their teaching, and how to best achieve their learning objectives, classroom capacity constraints will limit how many classes may be offered inperson and when. Faculty will be strongly encouraged to develop courses that are multi-modal, to accommodate the flexibility described above, and will be provided support to aid in this development.

Labs and other experiential learning components of classes may be “front-loaded” in order to ensure they can be completed in-person in case of an outbreak or an early pivot. We have developed, and are committed to offering, a fully-distanced first-year curriculum for international students who might not be able to arrive on campus in the Fall, or for other incoming students who prefer to advance their education in that manner.

So we assume everything is normal, but we have to stand ready to shut down labs and switch to online teaching at a moment’s notice. I’ll probably enforce distancing in seating in the lecture hall, and request that students wear masks in lab (I’ll wear one too), though. I’ll prepare online lectures, just in case.

I have a feeling this whole plan might fall apart even before the start of the term, but we’ll see. The board is more confident than I am.

They’re also planning to adjust the academic calendar so the semester is over by Thanksgiving. I’ll have to see what that looks like — we have a fall break (2 days) and Labor Day (1 day), but turning those into work days won’t quite get us to the end. Finishing by 25 November leaves us 10 teaching days short of the scheduled end of classes on 11 December. We’re going to have to find an extra week and a half in the calendar, I guess. Start classes a week early? Add in some teaching on Saturday? Steal the Time-Turner from Hermione? It’s going to get interesting.

I’ve got plans. Big spider plans, involving day trips to rough country. Unfortunately, one of my knees has decided to rebel and flatten me out. My right knee, you know, the sneaky one as opposed to the left knee, which is the wicked one, is all swollen and sore and gimpy. So no tromping about the rolling hills and lakes of Western Minnesota is on hold until maybe next week.

Stupid joints.