Has anybody else picked this up yet? It’s really done a number on me. Prior to reading it I would consider myself a Stoic. One of my central philosophies being that “The choices I make define who I am”.
So obviously being told that my choices were never even mine to begin with was kind of a slap in the face.
It rings true though. The choices we make at any given time are a result of our genetics, or environment, the media we’ve consumed, how tired we are…
I’m not a stranger to the concept of Ego death but it had been a hot minute since I thought about it.
I’ve been thinking about that kind of thing for a few years now, ever since I’ve read Blindsight from Peter Watts. It is weird indeed to kind of know that your whole conciusness is just a narrator, a story teller… retconning the narrative all the time to explain your own choices to you. Conciusness might indeed be maladaptive.
But then again, sometimes the story is just so beautiful it makes it all worth while.