4 ms·
But that's exactly the thing: if I were claiming anything it would be that the mind is chaotic. But to arrive at that, like you said, I must use processes of ra
by creep 9y ago
But that's exactly the thing: if I were claiming anything it would be that the mind is chaotic. But to arrive at that, like you said, I must use processes of rationality. That doesn't mean the mind isn't chaotic, and it actually exemplifies what I'm trying to say quite well.
We exist in a reality that is inherently chaotic. We can approximate but never reach. But our approximations help us move around, because as we can see the chaos also has some kind of structure (think of the Lorenz attractor). We can't explicate the structure, but we can certainly create our own structure-- which is where rationality comes in. If we constantly re-evaluate the mind, we constantly build new structures which are adaptive to the energy of the era in which we conceptualize, and we are better suited to continue to create within this reality.
- kerkeslager 9y ago> We exist in a reality that is inherently chaotic. We can approximate but never reach. But our approximations help us move around, because as we can see the chaos also has some kind of structure Yes, obviously models can be useful approximations of reality. I'm not rejecting all models, I'm rejecting the models which do a poor job of approximating reality. But if they're too inaccurate, they aren't useful. The point here is that the coherent, singular "self" model of reality is too inaccurate to be useful any more. Neuroscience has demonstrated the idea of a coherent, singular self to be wrong. When we're asking questions like at the beginning of the article ("Did Anna Karenina really want to die?") the singular, coherent model of self isn't useful. This shouldn't be taken as a criticism of those who believed in the singular self before neuroscience. They created hypotheses, and the experiments which tested those hypotheses and resulted in our current understanding of the self would not have happened without their work. We can remember them as history. But we can't treat these disproven hypotheses as equally valid to more nuanced understandings of the self, out of some sort of nostalgia for philosophy. This isn't a rejection of the practice of modeling reality, it's a rejection of the models which our understanding has grown beyond, in favor of more accurate models.
- creep 9y agoOkay, but as you can see from my first post, I agreed with you (opinion, not fact) that the self is an illusion. What are you trying to say, exactly? It seems you are trying to argue with me but haven't found anything concrete to latch onto.
- kerkeslager 9y agoYou said, "That doesn't mean we should dispose of philosophy altogether." I am saying we should dispose of philosophy as it pertains to modeling the self, because the models of self which philosophy has given us have long outlived their usefulness.
- creep 9y agoNot really. I use my sense of self every day. So do you.
- kerkeslager 9y agoHow so?