Try flying at 30,000 feet and looking down.
This is a nice way to try to avoid being cornered re the irreality of the self if you're a reductionist, for you can assert that a pattern obtains at the microscopic level that is not all that unlike the pattern found at the societal level. No need for the one self that does it all: instead, you have many sub-selfs that compete for dominance or take turns guiding the whole. The problem with this is, however, that the voters/officials are all zombies. None of them thinks about the whole as such. And perhaps none of them thinks even about themselves (unless one is a panzoist). None of them makes a comparison of alternatives. The more this proposed democracy seems like a zombocracy, the more consciousness will be seem to be epiphenomenal. Furthermore, if the oneness of the self is less real than the multiplicity of explanatory neural parts, then why can't each of these neural parts be conceived of as democracy as well? And why not parts of these parts, et...
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Again, I leave for a few days, and THQ has doubled!
I've never bought the idea that science taught us our physical insignificance. I think what happened is that in the 19th century, people moved to cities, and started to have that primordial fear before nature exclusively through science, and as a result falsely credited it for showing that man is small. Ever been to Death Valley?
Worthwhile point about city life and insignificance and viewing it through science... I think your entry is missing a word or two, but my take is that when we look at self through eyes of science, we can seem to be a glorified puddle of water plus other chemicals: looking at the ourselves through the eyes of cosmology, makes us look like an incredibly small puddle of water and other chemicals.
It would seem to me that since we're the only part of the universe that SEEMS to be looking at the universe... the greater the size of the universe, the greater the show that is being put on for us by God.
If your rich uncle took you to see a dog jump through a hoop, you might say "big whoop, but thanks anyways." But if your rich uncle took you to India to see the elephants parade in front of the Taj Mahal, etc., you would say, "Wow, awesome uncle: you must really want to make me feel special, and you did!" So the bigger and more beautiful/mysterious the universe is, the better the show God has put on for us.
Hey, I kinda like that... so much that I'll post it separately too.