How do I know I'm real?

        I've been reading "I Am A Strange Loop" by Douglas Hofstadter.  The development of his theme is slow, so I read the epilogue to find out if he was coming to anything other than where he seemed to be going.  The epilogue seems to be about the same as the first few chapters.  

        I skipped around the book a little and found this intriguing discussion on page 322 called 'Two Daves.' He presents a mental experiment of two universes, identical in every detail except that universe Q has the stuff of consciousness, and universe Z (zed, zombie) is missing the stuff of consciousness. In both universes Dave talks about his possession of consciousness but in universe Z he is lying without knowing it, (sound familiar?). His next section is titled 'The Nagging Worry that One May Be a Zombie."  This is a promising title but he detours into fluff on this issue and dismisses it. 

         I would suggest that with careful work, he could learn to observe both universes in his own life and experience. I know I do. I have occasional moments of consciousness that make me aware of the long intervals of unconsciousness that I suffer.  

         I suspect that Mr. Hofstasdter has not done the experiment, followed the procedures, practiced the practices, that allows one to approach an awareness of the Self.  Yet as a scientist he must have the habit of experimental verification of results.  Results have no meaning without the formula, procedure, recipe, for generating them.  In the index to his book the word 'meditation' is not listed, neither is 'yoga.'  On page 297 his characterization of Zen 'They resent words,...' sounds more like someone who read the lab report but didn't bother to do the experiment.  I would have been surprised to find Gurdjieff listed in his index. 

See: www.gurdjieff-legacy.org.

          I look forward to reading the remainder of the book and perhaps finding a few nuggets of value.  But I'm afraid it is too soon to go beyond Ayn Rand's statements of the fundamental axioms of philosophy: Existence exits, and I am conscious.  

See: www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_pobs

Communicating the Obvious?

12:02 PM 12/14/2005
Something has really shifted for me. It used to be that I could satisfy myself by retreating to a coffee shop and reading or writing.

Now that is not satisfying. I feel that reading and writing are all part of the dream.
I prefer an unpleasant reality to a pleasant dream.The problem is finding the reality, but I know that what I've been living isn't real.

Work is satisfying, but I want to do more realistic work, what ever that may be?

I had the 'sudden' insight today of my pattern of not asking about important facts, and assuming that managers/technical experts know them.

Examples were from the NATO Summit meeting where I discovered from the white paper about the expense of group calling (which much later came as a surprise to my boss)
& the value of denormalizing the directory database to take advantage of bulkloading of spreadsheets (which the developer thought was not important, but he later told me that he wished that he had listened to me on that issue.)

How much time and money could I be saving my organization if I made sure that my insights were communicated to the people who can do something about it? I could have made a big difference in the 5 month NATO project on only those 2 insights alone.

Why did this awareness hit me today? 6 years later.