:roll:

The self is the personal perspective of thought. If someone says "The self is a myth," they are actively perpetuating the myth, while simultaneously claiming to deny it. In other words, acting in bad faith and inconsistently with respect to the transcendental conditions of the production of the idea.

The self is the personal perspective of thought. If someone says "The self is a myth," they are actively perpetuating the myth, while simultaneously claiming to deny it. In other words, acting in bad faith and inconsistently with respect to the transcendental conditions of the production of the idea. — Pantagruel

What are the transcendental conditions of the production of the idea?

The conditions of the possibility of there being an argument. In this case, the perspective of the self that is actually offering the idea and is engaged in a dialogic process with an "other self" or other.

The conditions of the possibility of there being an argument. In this case, the perspective of the self that is actually offering the idea and is engaged in a dialogic process with an "other self" or other. — Pantagruel

Good point. :up:

That still affirms Geist as part of our world, it just recalls that it's a partial truth like everything else. — frank

:up:

I agree: Geist is just natural stuff that moves in a special way. We make noises and marks and skyscrapers and religions.

Think about what we mean by "voluntary" or "volition." How do you know a creature is moving by its own volition? Because it doesn't sway in the breeze. Because it gets up and moves to the bird feeder in a way a rock never will. In other words, volition is fundamentally identified by the way that it's counter to nature. — frank

I like that approach, because volition is not hidden away in some secret compartment. It's right there in the swimming upstream to breed, the climbing of a tree for safety.

We can attribute volition to all of life in your terms, I think. But only humans bind time. That's our pseudodivinity: we've got a species-soul that's thousands of years old.

The conditions of the possibility of there being an argument. In this case, the perspective of the self that is actually offering the idea and is engaged in a dialogic process with an "other self" or other. — Pantagruel

:up:

Very close to my view. The rule is : I can disagree with you but not with me.

That's our pseudodivinity: we've got a species-soul that's thousands of years old. — plaque flag

Thanks to story telling and writing, yes.

Thanks to story telling and writing, yes — frank

:up:

Exactly. [ As you seemed to notice, I didn't mean anything supernatural -- just culture..] And now we have crazy electronic devices for recording everything. The historians of the future are going to be swamped.

Thoughts? — frank

A few.

The brain. Amazing piece of machinery. In humans, the irreducible source of knowledge, except the knowledge of how it is that the brain is the irreducible source of knowledge.

The brain. Amazing piece of machinery. In the absence of knowledge of itself, it is still sufficient as the irreducible source of speculation regarding itself, in which case, the brain is really no more than the perfect source for mystifying its own operation, by disguising itself as that which contains a speculator, and from which arises that the brain is mystifying itself by containing a spectator which says so.

What is actually 3.5lbs or so of specialized meat, has the innate capacity to manifest itself as having the capacity to suggest specialized meat has the capacity to mystify itself.

WTF is a self/spectator supposed to do with that?!?!

Be thankful, insofar as he only validates himself….endures….as long as does the brain containing him.

Be pissed, insofar as the brain makes all this knowledge, like natural law and whatnot, possible, but then mocks him by making it impossible to use his knowledge on the scale where the brain operates.

Be suspicious, insofar as should he somehow find out how the brain makes it possible for him to find out how the brain works…..will he find out he was, at best, a mere accident, or, at worst, he never was?

Be audacious, insofar as if he can’t explain himself as conditioned by the brain, then he’ll just go ahead and explain himself as conditioned by that about which he knows even less.

Be sardonic, and instead direct his explanatory power to language and social constructs and such stuff as needs other selves by which to justify his superficial sagacity.

That’s how the myth of the self endures. Cuz the brain won’t let it not. Which is something I couldn’t possibly know, so….

(Sigh)

Exactly. [ As you seemed to notice, I didn't mean anything supernatural -- just culture..] And now we have crazy electronic devices for recording everything. The historians of the future are going to be swamped. — plaque flag

I've wondered about that. I read a history of a famous American guy once, written by a historian who was afraid the opposite would be true: that future historians wouldn't have much to go on because nobody writes letters anymore. So he went around collecting first hand accounts. What's funny is that the accounts conflict and the author had to explain what really happened. :grin:

That’s how the myth of the self endures. Cuz the brain won’t let it not. Which is something I couldn’t possibly know, so…. — Mww

Philosophy has made you into a pretzel.

Ha!! Oh, what a tangled web we weave….

Ha!! Oh, what a tangled web we weave…. — Mww

We need a brain explosion emoji.

Ironic, innit? The human thinks in images, but cannot express himself by them. So he invents language to represent his thoughts, but finds words sometimes inadequate, or, he doesn’t know how to use them properly. So what does he do? By his imagination he reproduces similes of the very representations he started with, but this time, he thinks himself communicating by means of them.

:chin:

Yep. Just like that.

A picture is worth a thousand words, though. Some have theorized that writing may have preceded speech, but I doubt it. We can pin point the genes that are associated with the ability to speak.

That was my thought when seeing the thread title. I thought it was going to be a thread about all the experimental evidence against the idea of a unified "self," Hume's "bundle of sensations", Buddhist Anatta, Nietzsche's "congress of souls," etc.

I think we find such results so fascinating precisely because they clash with our everyday experience and intuition. However, there is a definite tendency for people to overplay counter intuitive findings. I'm not totally sure where this instinct comes from, but you see it everywhere, from serious philosophy to silly stuff e.g., "swords were just status symbols, rarely used in warfare, a Hollywood myth!

But for all the interesting facts about people with split brains, blind sight, etc., the fact is that most studies of conscious awareness show exactly what we expect, a fairly unified stream of conscious. IMO, the fact that many of the more interesting phenomena where the self seems to split or unravel occur due to serious malfunctioning in the brain, generally severe brain damage or exogenous chemicals flooding synapses, should only reinforce the view that there is some essential, if not absolute unity of consciousness, i.e. the self.

But of course that didn't end up being what the thread was about.



But do the higher order entities in the "hive mind," have selfhood as well? Does the state for example?

The great advocate of geist, GWF Hegel seemed to think so, at least in some ways. The ideal state being one that "wills what it does and knows what it wills."

I can see states or other organizations having a sense of self. I am not sure how they could have qualia except as insofar as they are made up of things with qualia. Then again, the question "where does qualia come from," doesn't have a good answer, so this is more intuition on my part than anything else.

Some have theorized that writing may have preceded speech, but I doubt it. — frank

Yeah….what would a written grunt or bellow look like?

No, it's not a ghost in the machine. It's freakin' software. — frank

The reason I don't think it is a good analogy is that software is installed, can be replaced holus bolus and a particular software yields exactly the same results in different machines.

What exactly does it mean to say the behavior of humans does not reduce to neuronal activity? Obviously observable behavior of the whole organism is not itself neuronal activity, so in that sense the former is not reducible to the latter, does it follow that behavior, including thinking and feeling, is not a result of neuronal activity?

But do the higher order entities in the "hive mind," have selfhood as well? Does the state for example? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think the state is part of your identity. It's part of who you are that you belong to this particular group. In some cultures that state identity is very potent. In others it's weak. Where it's potent, the group can mobilize more easily because everyone is responding to the same voice, so to speak. Or dancing to the same music? I think of selfhood as being like music with themes, particular scales and rhythms, and like music, one is always progressing through an arc, and it's arcs within arcs like days within weeks, weeks within years, and years within a life.

The ideal state being one that "wills what it does and knows what it wills." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sounds like a monarch. A monarch is like a super-identity. He is the state. Everyone else has a position relative to him like branches on a tree and root is the divine.

Then again, the question "where does qualia come from," doesn't have a good answer, so this is more intuition on my part than anything else. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Qualia doesn't seem to care which self it's attached to. That's how we picture it anyway. I think selfhood has more to do with history and one's role in the big social drama.

he reason I don't think it is a good analogy is that software is installed, can be replaced holus bolus and a particular software yields exactly the same results in different machines. — Janus

I wasn't presenting an analogy. I was pointing out that a reductionist would draw the wrong conclusion about a computer. If you don't know how it works, hold off on stating what must be the case.

Anyway, a thousand science fiction stories show that it's easily conceivable that human personality could be uploaded and downloaded. Again, if you don't know how it works, lighten up on the dogma.

What exactly does it mean to say the behavior of humans does not reduce to neuronal activity? — Janus

I don't know. I'm preaching forbearance, not more dogma.

I wasn't presenting an analogy. — frank

When you said it's not a ghost in the machine its freakin' software, I thought you were making an analogy between humans and computers. If not, then I misunderstood.

If you don't know how it works, hold off on stating what must be the case. — frank

I haven't stated anything to be the case.

Again, if you don't know how it works, lighten up on the dogma. — frank

I haven't presented any dogma, I was merely questioning what I took to be your (bad) analogy.

I don't support the "ghost in the machine" idea, but as I said earlier the machine analogy is as much a dogma as the ghost analogy is. And for that matter the denigration of the whole idea of consciousness being a ghost in the machine is itself a dogma.

I appreciate you reading what I actually wrote, thanks.

I think the self perspective is invoked when it comes to things like taste and sound.

We can both eat the same cake and one thinks it tastes nice the other think it tastes horrible. We can both listen to a piece of music and one person thinks it sounds horrible while the other likes it.

There is no objective fact of the matter about the desirability of a phenomena (cake or sound). It is how we interact with it.

It isn't clear how many properties rely on subjective perception like this but there is no objective way to experience reality. (The view from nowhere, Thomas Nagel)

I think things like colour, tastes, sounds, opinions and beliefs require a self (perspective) to exist and we can't see them in the brain or body. The subjective is the private self realm and it is a perspective.

It is not clear where the self perspective is though or consciousness. We don't see, self, consciousness, sounds, dreams and tastes etc in the brain. We just have a concept of correlating them with brain states but only the individual can access them and then we use language to transmit ideas about our conscious states.

I think of selfhood as being like music with themes, particular scales and rhythms, and like music, one is always progressing through an arc, and it's arcs within arcs like days within weeks, weeks within years, and years within a life. — frank

:up:

Your description is one of the interpretations of Aristotle's view of phantasia.

Speaking of the software metaphor and timebinding spirit, I think it's worth adding that it's not just quantity of cultural memory that matters. It's also the quality in the efficiency and compactness of our models. From another angle, when we grow philosophically we integrate more and more tightly what we know. It's somewhat like a finite amount of memory (what the individual stores in 'RAM' versus what's externalized in libraries) being given a more and more efficient algorithm within the same space/memory constraints.

:ok:

The subjective is the private self realm and it is a perspective. — Andrew4Handel

It's a weird situation. We see the same world from different places. I can see you seeing the world from across the room, but I can't see the world as you do ( as if from across the room. )

What gets called consciousness looks to me like the being of the world for a person. We think of the world from a certain perspective as if it were an unreal dream. But what is the real world ? A world from no perspective ?

This might be Wittgenstein said that the world is all that is case. It's the totality of what true claims mean. It's something that we articulate together, a kind of infinite project.