3 ms·

"Muddle-headed confusion" is harsh. I'd prefer something like "human intuition not being particularly reliable on questions it wasn't evolved for". If preservi

by mrec 8y ago

"Muddle-headed confusion" is harsh. I'd prefer something like "human intuition not being particularly reliable on questions it wasn't evolved for". If preserving a sense of profound mystery is your goal then... honestly, that mindset is sufficiently alien to me that I can't really think of anything useful to say on the subject. I can understand and share it as an aesthetic choice - mysteries are cool! - but not as a philosophical one. Philosophy by definition is the love of knowledge, not the love of not-knowledge. And if you want your mystery to be something you solve, rather than something you live with, I do think you should be able to explain what your mysterious question means.

skissane 8y ago
Maybe "Why am I I?" is an expression of dissatisfaction at being trapped in the prison of the self. That I only get to experience my experiences, and not other people's. Maybe the answer to the question then is not a proposition, but a liberation from that prison. If one is a religious believer, one might hope for that liberation after death. If one is a transhumanist (which is maybe just a different sort of religion), one might hope that future technologies like telepathy implants or mind uploading might make such a liberation possible.
- goatlover 8y ago
  Or just do enough drugs and meditation. I sort of kid, but there have been groups very committed to escaping the self, via asceticism, visions, meditation, disciplining the mind and what not with the belief that it's possible in some way. There's even Christian versions of it, although it's couched in union with God language instead of waking up from the illusion of being separate from everything else (union with the universe).
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  Here's an answer: You experience your own experience because it is the only way to understand what it is to be you. If you also experienced the experiences of others, you would understand instead what it means to be that amalgamation of experience. We know that a human being can survive with large portions of their brain missing. Entire hemispheres in fact. You understand what it is to be the amalgamation of experiences from both hemispheres, but the hemispheres don't understand what it is to be that experience, they only know the experience of being a hemisphere.

by mrec 8y ago

skissane 8y ago

Maybe "Why am I I?" is an expression of dissatisfaction at being trapped in the prison of the self. That I only get to experience my experiences, and not other people's. Maybe the answer to the question then is not a proposition, but a liberation from that prison. If one is a religious believer, one might hope for that liberation after death. If one is a transhumanist (which is maybe just a different sort of religion), one might hope that future technologies like telepathy implants or mind uploading might make such a liberation possible.

goatlover 8y ago
Or just do enough drugs and meditation. I sort of kid, but there have been groups very committed to escaping the self, via asceticism, visions, meditation, disciplining the mind and what not with the belief that it's possible in some way. There's even Christian versions of it, although it's couched in union with God language instead of waking up from the illusion of being separate from everything else (union with the universe).
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
Here's an answer: You experience your own experience because it is the only way to understand what it is to be you. If you also experienced the experiences of others, you would understand instead what it means to be that amalgamation of experience. We know that a human being can survive with large portions of their brain missing. Entire hemispheres in fact. You understand what it is to be the amalgamation of experiences from both hemispheres, but the hemispheres don't understand what it is to be that experience, they only know the experience of being a hemisphere.