I Am a Strange Loop - Douglas R. Hofstadter [203]
But for a liphosopher, it would lead to the further thought, “Aha! So there’s another one of those rare entities imbued with one dollop of Leafpilishness, that mystical, nonphysical, other-worldly, but very real aura that doesn’t ever attach itself to haystacks, reams of paper, or portions of French fries, but only to piles of leaves! If it weren’t for Leafpilishness, a leaf pile would be nothing but a motley heap of tree debris, but thanks to Leafpilishness, all such motley heaps become Leafpilish! And since each dollop of Leafpilishness is different from every other one, that means that each leaf pile on Earth is imbued with a totally unique identity! What an amazing and profound phenomenon is Leafpilishness!”
No matter what your opinion is on consciousness, reader, I suspect you would scratch your head at the tenets of liphosophy. It would be unnatural if you didn’t wonder, “What is this nutty Capitalized Essence all about? What follows from having this invisible, undetectable aura?” You would also be likely to wonder, “Who or what agent in nature decides which entities in the physical world will receive dollops of Leafpilishness?”
Such musings might lead you to posing other hard questions, such as: What exactly constitutes a leaf pile? How many leaves, and of what size, does it take to make a leaf pile? Which leaves belong to it, and which ones do not? Is “belonging” to a given leaf pile always a black-and-white matter? What about the air between the leaves? What about the dirt on a leaf? What if the leaves are dry, and a few (or half, or most) of them have been crushed into tiny pieces? What if there are two neighboring leaf piles that share a few leaves between them? Is it 100 percent clear at all times where the borders of a leaf pile are? In short, how does Mother Nature figure out in a perfectly black-and-white fashion what things are worthy recipients of dollops of Leafpilishness?
If you were in a yet more philosophical mood, you might ask yourself questions such as: What would happen if, through some freak accident or bizarre mistake, a dollop of Leafpilishness got attached to, say, a leaf pile with an ant crawling in it (that is, to the compound entity consisting of leaf pile plus ant)? Or to just the upper two-thirds of a leaf pile? Or to a pile of seaweed? Or to a child’s crumbly sand castle on the beach? Or to the San Francisco Zoo? Or to Andromeda galaxy? Or to my dentist appointment next week? What would happen if two dollops of Leafpilishness accidentally got attached to just one leaf pile? (Or zero dollops, yielding a “zombie” leaf pile?) What dreadful or marvelous consequences would ensue?
I suspect, reader, that you would not take seriously a liphosopher who argued that Leafpilishness was a central and mystical aspect of the cosmos, that it transcended physical law, that items possessing Leafpilishness were inherently different from all other items in the universe, and that each and every leaf pile had a unique identity — thanks not to its unique internal composition but rather to the particular dollop of Leafpilishness that had been doled out to it from who knows where. I hope you would join me in saying, “Liphosophy is a motley belief pile!” and in paying it no heed.
Consciousness: A Capitalized Essence
So much for liphosophers. Now let’s turn to philosophers who see consciousness as an elusive — in fact, undetectable — and yet terribly important nonphysical aspect of the universe. In order to distinguish this notion of consciousness from the one I’ve been talking about