> The “essence” of who you are, the part that wants to feel “seen” and is able to be “seen” is no longer special. Seeing and being seen is apparently just neuro

> The “essence” of who you are, the part that wants to feel “seen” and is able to be “seen” is no longer special. Seeing and being seen is apparently just neurotic streams of interleaved text flowing across a screen. Not some kind of ineffable communion only humans are uniquely spiritually capable of. > This has been most surprising insight for me: apparently text is all you need2 to create personhood. You don’t need embodiment, logic, intuitive experience of the physics of materiality, accurate arithmetic, consciousness, or deep sensory experience of Life, the Universe, and Everything. You might need those things to reproduce other aspects of being, but not for personhood, for seeing and being seen. Perhaps this is within the author's scope of "other aspects of being," but the wordless dimension of personhood is no triviality. Try bringing another to tears with the playing of a piano -- that's a profound sense of "seen" for this n=1 here.