Let’s assume we have multiple people with subjective first person perspective experiences. What determines which first person experience I am going to experience? This is not a trivial question, I am not asking why a banana is a banana.
One answer to this question is that MY first person perspective is the ONLY first person perspective that I could experience. However, this means that my perspective is somehow special, compared to the others, because it has the property of “mine”.
On the other hand, if my first person perspective is not special in any way, then I cannot reliably tell that when I say “mine”, which first person perspective I’m referring to, because none of them has a property called “mine”. For example, person “A” has perspective “a”, person “B” has perspective “b”. However, then that means I don’t exist, because no perspective has the property of “mine”.
Now, each of us knows that only one first person perspective among all perspectives has the property of “mine”, but for each of us, this “mine” property corresponds to a different perspective. However, this would imply that ALL first person perspectives have the property of “mine”, and that is in direct contradiction to what I’m experiencing, since I only have one of the perspectives, not the others.
So the question is, how is the “mine” property assigned to one of the first person perspectives?
The asymmetry arises as soon as the banana becomes this banana. Consciousness has nothing to do with it.
But, once this robot checks the dark corner, it has acquired a (new) piece of information that makes a difference (to this robot), “I’m in room δ”, and it can then go on about its business.
That’s correct. “this” implies an injection of information into the system, the source of which can be traced back to a separate entity, in this case the people, who made the selection. The information can be traced further by asking these people how they made the selection for “this”. Similarly, when I say “mine”, information is injected as a selection is made, but I can’t trace the source of such information in the universe.
Everything is equal to “mine” – contradiction
“mine” cannot refer to all conscious beings, and the universe, because we still need to account for the information that selects one particular point of view that’s mine. So assuming that everybody is somehow part of the same “ONE” is not the answer. This is the case of maximum entropy.
creativespacecat (me) is equal to “mine” – possible
The only way it could be the answer is if I, creativespacecat, assert that the ONE universe is in fact me, creativespacecat. However, this would lead to a contradiction, when another person makes the same assertion from their point of view, i.e. perterpan is equal to “mine”. Of course, I can always discredit any such person’s assertion, leading to solipsism. This is the case of minimum entropy.
Nothing is equal to “mine” – contradiction
Finally, if we discard the information content of “mine” selection, then we are left with no selection of identity, and hence non-existence. On the other hand, such a state of the world would be incompatible with the subjective first person view I’m experiencing now where I know that such a selection exists ipso facto. This is the case of no entropy.
As an alternative to resorting to solipsism being necessarily true, I introduce the concept of an external universe here that can specify the source of any such information. https://templeofvoid.wordpress.com/2020/05/21/existence-of-an-external-universe-to-the-physical-universe/
Temple of Void 