About half a year ago, people got excited about consciousness, and I realized that I knew nothing about this concept (something that is only slightly less true today). I did realize, however, that consciousness can be used to bridge all of my special interests, and I set out to write an essay that tries to connect everything I care about. I ended up reading a lot more than writing, and eventually had to leave the essay unfinished (looking back at my notes, and comparing the ideas that I integrated into this essay, to those that are still undeveloped, a completed version of this essay would be at least twenty-two times longer).
I have uploaded the essay, to keep the tacit promise that I made in the previous post.
The essay is linked below, and is unchanged since September or October, except for an additional reference to a Peter Naur paper, and the removal of a few blind alleys.
The style of prose, because the essay spans domains and time, is quasi-mythic (for lack of a better term). The sections never got proper titles, and were there to remind me what to write about.
Note that the word "rationalist" is not used to describe members of the modern rationalist movement (in fact, as far as I can tell, the movement itself is primarily filled with empiricists).