A Vanishing Dot - That's Our Existence!

Yes, "Ghost in the Machine" isn't only a really good Police album. It's a phrase that was coined by philosopher Gilbert Ryle. Good old Gilbert takes on body/mind dualism. He tells us that mind is a ghost, invisible, lurking in the machinery, rising from the machinery, not different than the machinery. 

The more you look, the more you see that you don't know what is what. Memory, self, consciousness, mind, even, as Cecil Adams explains it, "the present," is sort of a chimerical creature.

We are told that we should "live in the present," but it turns out it doesn't really exist. It's a dot, a vanishing dot. You can't really live there at all! It's getting pretty lonely around here. Just what illusions can we cling to?