Here is an interesting thought experiment that is useful when trying to understand the point of view of someone very different to yourself…or someone who you just don’t get. And perhaps experience some empathy and appreciation for the difference even when it is seemingly vast.¹.

Read through each phase and then take a few moments to try to imagine how the experience actually feels to you as it unfolds.
Lets go.

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You are sitting in a chair connected to the new Miller Labs ‘Neural-link Pro Max’. It connects to you via 3D video goggles, a few sensors placed on your head and sensor/actuators within the chair.

You enter the name of the person you are trying to understand/empathise with.
Let’s pick someone for this exercise….oh let’s say, Donald J Trump.
The machine begins…

Phase 1. The goggles activate and you can now see everything live as if looking through Donald Trumps eyes. Wow, this is cool. Of course you are still you…you are just seeing everything Trump is looking at. Exactly as he sees it.

Phase 2. The actuators in the chair engage. You can now feel everything Trump is feeling through his body. Everything he is touching as well as experiencing… how his body feels to him (its heaviness, a bloating feeling in the belly etc).
You are still you and you can reflect on how different this feels to your own body.

Phase 3. Now Trumps entire memory bank is downloaded into your brain. All his memories and experiences.
Of course you still have all your own memories as well.
The you that is you is able to recall his memories at will and examine them.

…

And now it gets interesting.

…

Phase 4. The device now makes you completely amnesic.
But only to your memories and experiences.
The you that is you is still there (just as it would still be there if you were to hit your head, and in a concussed state not remember who you are) but the only memories experiences and sensations that it can now experience is that of Donald J Trump.
You are still you, but you can only access the experience of being Trump.

How does this feel?
If someone were now to ask you who you are, you will answer with complete certainty that you are Trump.
His complete persona is now the only thing you can access.

But, and this is the part worth exploring, do you see that even though you can no longer remember the original you, the you that is you (the bare awareness or phenomenal consciousness) is still there?
You are Trump.
Yet you are you.

Now, how will you answer if I ask you for your political views?