Extended Mind

Usually we assume that our minds are inside our body. Almost goes without saying. Where am I, if I am not in here?

Have you heard that scientists can now put a helmet-like thingy on someone's head and get that person to operate a computer -- just with their thoughts? Inside the helmet are sensors that read electrical signals right through the top of the head. It's a great invention that's inevitably going to make life a lot easier for paraplegics. To say the least.

I can't wait. Imagine just thinking you'd like to type this or that and having the words appear on the screen! Or, just changing the channel with a thought. Or ordering dinner in, while you're blind folded and your hands are tied. You'd have to pay for things using your credit card, but many delivery web sites can handle that. And you'd have to let the delivery person in, but many intercom systems can handle that too.

In fact, that's all rinky dink. How about you're at your desk, you use your thoughts to visit a web site that has a web cam in some hut deep in the jungle of who knows where--you bought some property there--the web cam reveals a tse tse fly buzzing around the lens of the camera. You think, "I should release my pet bird again; he's gotta be hungry." And bingo, a little cage opens, out flies the birdie, and it starts dinner. You're 10,000 miles away and you're addressing killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. With nothing but your thoughts.

Where is your mind now? Inside your body? I don't think so.

So, if that's your mind, extended way past the boundaries of your body, where exactly is your you? Are you still in that bag of mostly water?