Egonaut

The egonaut as that the base-level "you" that persists between selves.

The concept of "I" is something most learn from an early age. Our definition of what "I" means at any given moment is forced to expand or contract to fit situations as necessary. Without additional terms or degrees for "I" to provide gradation, we resort to phrases to describe how what we observe diverges from our understanding.

For instance, how do we convey "I" for someone whose "mind is gone" - perhaps a family member with Alzheimer's or dementia? Those around them may say "they're not there anymore" or that the person they knew "is already gone." This is said regarding people who can still talk, show emotion, and are clearly alive by all other metrics or criteria. Why are they "already gone?" What does that even mean?

The problem results from reducing all of oneself to simply "I" as this concept alone lacks degrees of nuance.

Instead of redefining "I" to fit additional scenarios that crop up like some game of whack-a-mole, let's define a certain type of "I" - the type that could be considered the most foundational, base-level "I" possible. Let's accomplish this by imagining three scenarios with our resident hypothetical scientist.

Imagine this: You are in the middle of a large field with the scientist and a dog. The scientist has a machine that switches this base-level, foundational version of "you" with the dog while allowing you to remember the experience after.

"This will allow you to experience first-hand what this version of "I" is, and what it is not." the scientist says, turning the machine on.

What happens?

You suddenly aren't looking through your eyes - you are seeing through the dogs eyes. You do not think the colors or the long snout in your view are different because you are the dog. You feel as though you've been this dog your entire life.

You smell a veritable cornucopia of scents. Again, none of this is unusual for you; you've smelt like this as long as you can remember.

You wag your tail while looking at the two people standing in front of you; they flank the lightly whirring machine teeming with little lights and mystery until - wait!

A smattering of moving shapes just fluttered in your periphery. Your head turns turns swiftly and instinctually and - yes, there it is! A squirrel! You dart after it, feeling your legs thrown forward and you lunge towards it - running as fast as you can to catch it!

The machine turns off. "What did you experience?" the scientist asks; what do you say?

"That was incredible! I was the dog! I felt like I had been the dog my entire life!"

What does "I" mean here? It's not your original body - that was the dog's body after the switch. It's not your personality or the memories you carry with you of your life - none of those were transferred to the dog. So what do you mean by "I" when you say "I was the dog!"?

While there are many terms for this "I" that you may reach for to describe what you meant - perhaps "soul" or the Hindu "Ātman" - these terms have thousands of years of cultural, religious, and philosophical interpretation and, as such, may not mean exactly what we are describing here depending on how these terms are defined to you.

Let's avoid redefining something here and create an entirely new word for this base-level "I" that is novel. Recall how we just observed a hypothetical scenario showcasing how this foundational "I" can persist even when traveling from one self to another.

As a result, let's create a term like how "astronaut" was coined from combining the Greek words "star" (astro) and "sailor" (naut) to mean "someone who sails among the stars."

This foundational "I" is like "that which sails among selves" or a "self sailer" and thus can be called the "egonaut," a compound word from the Greek words "ego-" (self) and "-naut" (sailor).

No matter what you remove from your being, whether it be your sight, or your memories, or your personality, or any other sense or trait, the egonaut is the one thing that remains the same. It is the foundation upon which everything else is built upon.

However, it is ultimately only a pointer: an index that defines the direction of perception, feeling, or experience. Let's test the egonaut out with another scenario.

Imagine you are again with the scientist in a research lab. There is a machine in the lab that will clone every detail about you down to the atomic and even quantum level to the absolute maximum extent possible - an even more of an exact replica than the villainous Maulers Twins use when cloning themselves in the animated superhero show Invincible.

You are blindfolded and moved onto an unknown spot. The machine turns on. Nothing seems to have happened? As you remove your blindfold, you abruptly stop in astonishment as you gaze across at an exact clone of you that is has also abruptly stopped removing their own blindfold in amazement.

The clone is an exact copy in every conceivable way - it doesn't think it's a clone, it is as certain as you that it is the original. It has all of your memories and they feel every bit as real for them as they do for you - despite the clone having never actually been there to experience any of it.

This clone is so exact, in fact, that there is now no way for you to know which of you is the clone and which is the original. Every possible aspect you can imagine is identical between you - everything except the egonaut.

To make the point as clear as possible, the scientist tells you they will flip a coin to determine which of you gets to live a life of luxury while the other will tortured relentlessly. Do you care what the outcome is?

Of course you do, because despite every conceivable detail between you being exactly the same, each of you has a different egonaut and you'd much prefer yours to inherit the life of luxury over one of pain.

This egonaut is our Magnus Ego, our Great "I" upon which we will build much more understanding later. It is paramount to understand this concept before moving forward and thus, you can find more examples in Appendix A if you need them.

Another concept I would like to briefly touch on related to Tempus Vitae is how long you have been "you." Put differently, how long has this body and mind been your home? How long has your current body and egonaut been paired?

You may think this would be since you were born or perhaps from your first experiential moment. You may not recall the first moment of visceral sensation that emerged from your body, but you know there must have been an earliest one even if it were earlier than your earliest memory.

However, all these memories and experiential moments may not have been experienced by your egonaut. How?

I will discuss possible mechanisms for how this could work in the next chapter, Part IX - Methodus Ad Aeternum, but for now consider the paradox of the Ship of Theseus.

All of your memories are just stored information; your egonaut didn't need to be the one to experience the moments, it just needs to have access to this stored memory now.

Likewise, this exact replica would feel everyday like it had been there being you for your entire life despite having only been created hours prior. Is this the answer to our concept of identity and the persistence of self? Does the ship of Theseus sail at day and port at night?

This is a question that we may not be able to definitively answer yet, but the concept of a shortest guaranteed slice of experiential existence (beyond just the present moment) could come in handy.

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Here is where I will put additional examples and scenarios to help you understand what the egonaut is. For now, I have added one that related to the TV show Severance:

Imagine there is a room. When you walk in to the room, you have many of the same issues as come from the later stages of Alzheimer's disease.

Entering this room makes you lose most of your memories including for your friends and family and even for your sense of self. You can't remember your name or what you did even minutes ago.

You can however remember procedural knowledge. You could perhaps go to the kitchen and make yourself lunch in this state, but you would say you had no idea where the kitchen was or how to do any of this.

When you leave the room, these issues go away.

This is similar to what severed individuals experience, at least at first, after they become severed in the television show Severance. This blank canvas void of memories becomes filled with history and an identity while at work which is inaccessible outside the workplace.

The show perhaps suggests, and I have seen it argued online, that severed individuals are wholly separate consciousnesses while at work as opposed to home.

While the show writers could declare this is the case, in reality this would be like our Alzheimer's-inducing room.

If you go into the room and I hit you, you will feel it. You won't remember why when you leave the room, but you will feel it.

If I hit you while you're outside the room, you will also be the one feeling it but you will forget what happened as soon as you reenter the room.

In other words, the egonaut is the same. Entering the room doesn't change that.

The room could mirror elements from Severance and allow you to form complex and intricate social connections and identities, but you would still be the one feeling and seeing the events on either side of the room. It would be the memories and sense of self your brain is accessing depending on if you are in the room or not that change.

To the best of our current knowledge, the universe we exist in is ultimately quantum in nature.

The experiences you have are emergent phenomena that stem from complex interactions and electrical signals in your brain and so therefore are most likely excitations of some quasi-particle field we termed the experion field.

At your core, the most base-level "you" we called the egonaut. This egonaut would essentially be a position in experience space; the experion field. When this position becomes excited by the underlying activity, "you" exist.

This "you" has many states and phases which can exist simultaneously corresponding to feelings, emotions, senses, thoughts, etc. These phases can be stacked or removed as is the case with bosons.

If all states are removed, the position is no longer excited, "you" cease to exist. However, your position still exists within the field.

While "you" do not exist, you do not experience the passage of time. Any expanse of time can go by before your position is again energized. Therefore, from your perspective, you never stop experiencing: you are on an infinite journey.

This will be the case after the body currently generating your existence dies and it was the case before you were born. You have been experiencing realities for years greater than all the computers on Earth working together could hold.

Egonaut

See Also