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> Grimm observes that this rambling dialectical inquiry yields a result that coincides with Schopenhauer’s opinion that the self is a point whose immobility is
by Sakos 4y ago
> Grimm observes that this rambling dialectical inquiry yields a result that coincides with Schopenhauer’s opinion that the self is a point whose immobility is useful for discerning, by contrast, the heavy-laden flight of time. This opinion translates the self into a mere logical imperative, without qualities of its own or distinctions from individual to individual.
I find it difficult to reconcile this with a modern understanding of neurobiology and psychology.
> Are desire, thought, happiness, and distress my true self? The answer, in accordance with the precept, is clearly in the negative, since those conditions expire without annulling me with them. Consciousness – the final hideout where we might track down the self – also proves unqualified. Once the emotions, the extraneous perceptions, and even ever-shifting thought are dismissed, consciousness is a barren thing, without any appearance reflected in it to make it exist.
I would in fact go in the opposite direction. The self is an amalgamation of all these things, layered upon each other and infinitely interwoven over time. In the same way an electron can be seen as more as a "cloud" with no definite position until measurement, we are a cloud of experiences and thoughts and emotions that happens to take one configuration or another based on external "measurements".
There is no thought or emotion I can have right now that isn't in some way influenced or shaped by what I may have experienced a few minutes ago, or an hour ago, or a week ago, or a year ago, or a decade ago. If I strip away the emotions, the thoughts, the perceptions, all I have is a functionless mirror.
- argentinian 4y ago> we are a cloud of experiences and thoughts and emotions that happens to take one configuration or another based on external "measurements". > There is no thought or emotion I can have right now that... I'm confused now. ARE you thoughts and emotions, or do you HAVE thougths and emotions? > If I strip away the emotions, the thoughts, the perceptions, all I have is a functionless mirror. Have you done that to be able to reach that conclussion, or is that speculation?
- Sakos 4y ago> Have you done that to be able to reach that conclussion, or is that speculation? It's based on the rest of what I said and by extension my current understanding of cognition and neurobiology.
- argentinian 4y agoWhat is your current understanding about awareness? Can it be like what you call the 'functionless mirror'? What place do you assign to awareness in that equation? I mean, the layering and modifications of thoughts, emotions and perceptions, may occur without awareness, as the functioning of a machine.
- IIAOPSW 4y agoDepending on how you feel about recursion, I have a fairly elegant definition of self. "You are whatever you get in return when you ask yourself who you are." In the most syntactically literal sense of tracing back referent objects it is true. But its true in a deeper sense as well. Human reasoning and consciousness seems to be hacked out of a system for signalling others. There's always a presumed speaker and listener (you/me), even when its the voice in your head talking to yourself. The way we reason by self-dialog is like a strange form of coding where everything has been implemented as a server making requests, but most of the requests are bound for localhost anyway. There is no implementation, its API calls all the way down! So to rephrase less obtusely, "you" are the source of whatever it is you're hearing which isn't attributed to me or anyone else. The easiest way to hear such things is to ask yourself, for in the process of asking yourself you get the thing you were asking for. In a most literal physical sense, "you" are the standing wave of electrical patterns that echo around in your skull, simulating a conversation as if it were echoing around in an acoustic medium.
- Sakos 4y agoThat's an interesting perspective, thanks.
- Ebree 4y agoWhat if the query returns a Boolean? We build who we are as a process of elimination of who we aren't. Most of life it can be a fluid set of things that aren't definitive. I would even claim the less someone ask the question the less he is him/her. And it doesn't collide in living. All identity problems or divorces start when people ask basic questions too late...