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> we build a model of what we are based off of data we gather from introspection and from people who are close to us. But this model is constantly in flux, and
by smhost 9y ago
> we build a model of what we are based off of data we gather from introspection and from people who are close to us. But this model is constantly in flux, and can never be said to actually reach the true self (if there is a true self-- and perhaps there is, but maybe it is always changing).
There's another argument (which I think your parent is referring to) which says that the thing that's doing the modeling is the very thing that's being modeled, so it's impossible to separate the data from the model. The radical conclusion people have come up with is that therefore there is no difference between the model and the data. What we perceive to be the model is actually the data, that there is nothing outside of the data because there can't be.
I haven't been able to decide if this is profound or incoherent.
- creep 9y agoThat makes sense too, and can also be argued for or against!
- dgreensp 9y agoI disagree with this argument. I think some portion of our brain is devoted to “modeling,” and the things being modeled include other parts of our brain; other parts of our body; phenomena that include certain parts of the brain and non-brain body parts (eg emotions); other times and places; other people; our environment; and so on and so forth. Certain modes of thinking, like abstract thought and reasoning, can only draw on these models, so in that limited scope, the only a available data is the models — which there are more of than we could ever attend to exhaustively. In other states of mind, there is all kinds of other data.