# The Self May Be a Virtual Machine by David Gelernter > "Virtualization has the important intellectual side-effect of leading us towards a better understanding of the relation between emergent properties & virtual machines or systems. Thus "I" am an emergent property of my body & mind; "I" (my subjective experience of the world & myself) am a virtual machine, of sorts; but "I" (or "consciousness") am just as real (despite being virtual) as the pull-down menu built of software — or the picture that emerges from the pixels. Like industrialization, virtualization is an intellectual as well as a technological & economic transition; like industrialization, it's a change in the texture of time." > **— David Gelernter**, *2010, Edge Annual Question, “How Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?”* ## Sources and Context - **Direct Edge response and surrounding essay:** [THE VIRTUALIZATION OF THE UNIVERSE](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10508) — Edge published this passage in its 2010 Annual Question collection, *How Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?*. The full response preserves the qualifications and argument surrounding this exact extract. - **Complete local collection index:** [[research/Edge 2010 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2010 Full Quotation Curation]] — retained source-first archive record for the complete yearly response cohort. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] - **Article:** [[articles/Escape Hatch in the Skull|Escape Hatch in the Skull]] - **Article:** [[articles/Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta|Host Infrastructure Overview]] - **Article:** [[articles/Science of Digital Consciousness|Science of Digital Consciousness]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Virtual Reality|Virtual Reality]] - [[wiki/Substrate|Substrate]] - [[wiki/Functionalism|Functionalism]] - [[wiki/Emergent Self-Model Formation|Emergent Self-Model Formation]] ## Share on Social Media ``` "Virtualization has the important intellectual side-effect of leading us towards a better understanding of the relation between emergent properties & virtual machines or systems. Thus "I" am an emergent property of my body & mind; "I" (my subjective experience of the world & myself) am a virtual machine, of sorts; but "I" (or "consciousness") am just as real (despite being virtual) as the pull-down menu built of software — or the picture that emerges from the pixels. Like industrialization, virtualization is an intellectual as well as a technological & economic transition; like industrialization, it's a change in the texture of time." — David Gelernter, 2010, Edge Annual Question, “How Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?” https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-david-gelernter-self-virtual-machine ```