In other words, can illusion really claim that the mind only "feels" like it exists, but does not really and that's the end of the story or does the "feels like" phenomena of illusion still have to be accounted for in some way? — schopenhauer1
Some people in both the idealist and the materialist camp (in much different fashions) want to claim that first person consciousness is an "illusion" of some sort. — schopenhauer1
I'm with Descartes on this one; that one can be deceived about anything and everything, except that there is a subject of deception. That said, I would also suggest that one commonly is deceived into identifying the subject as something distinct from other 'thinking things', rather than as no-thing, having no characteristics bar emptiness, which implies that it is not individual or personal. — unenlightened
The illusion itself has to be accounted for as something that "feels like" it is happening. — schopenhauer1
But in this case, the right answer, I believe, is 'fuck off with your meaningless question'. No thing, but not nothing. But I haven't the energy today to do the full Wittgensteinian exposition. — unenlightened
In fact, it can be argued the most intimate thing as it is the very "you" that all other things become some-thing. — schopenhauer1
It strikes me that there's a difference between the "I" that we might speak of as a transcendental condition, and the voice that one speaks in. — csalisbury
Not just all other things, but 'the very "you"' itself as well. In which voice one objectifies subjectivity, making consciousness an intimate thing. (Mumbles something about beetles in boxes...).
Or I could liken it to Kant's space and time, as a condition of talking meaningfully about thing-hood and therefore necessarily no-thing itself. One can talk of time being an illusion as well, but what is one saying? — unenlightened
No one (no-thing) is awake... Psychological time is the result of identification with the past and future, giving rise to fear and hope, suffering and pleasure. This is the sense of continuing, the stream of consciousness that is indeed the narrative voice. It is wrong perhaps to call it an illusion; it is real enough and fills one's life from day to day, yet it is a fabrication of thought endlessly reacting to itself. It is not a precondition of life. — unenlightened
I think Un's right to call it "no-thing." I mean, I know Schop calls will the 'thing-in-itself' but he's playing off Kant. There's no sense in which the will is a 'thing.' — csalisbury
Well, I doubt he's taking a Schopenhaueran approach, but it seems to me that Un's "no-thing" means simply that consciousness is not a 'thing.' It's not a homunculus or a pineal gland or a super-platinum soul-gem. Its a process, a verb, something that happens. It's not nothing, because it happens, but it's certainly not a thing. — csalisbury
The word mind usually connotes the brain functions that give rise to consciousness. To state that it is an illusion would be to state that one is conscious that one's own consciousness is illusory, which is absurd. — Thorongil
As to why the will affirms itself, Schopenhauer does not venture to say, preferring merely to speak of it metaphorically as the original sin. — Thorongil
In any case, there is another voice which seems to speak through us at the same time we speak in it. I mean voice literally here, since this usually happens when speaking to another of something important to one. The type of talk where you find yourself saying things you never knew you actually felt or believed, but which you recognize as having felt and believed all along. I feel most like myself when talking like this, in my own voice, but it happens very rarely for me. — csalisbury
So "where" is thought endlessly reacting with itself the aether? — schopenhauer1
Where is where-ness is not a better question than what is what-ness, or when is when-ness. I could point to a place in your experience where your experience happens - 'the human brain'. Or more poetically I could say 'It's behind you.' Or I could simply and more usefully say it happens in thought, which is to say that it is not an event in the world. But even this is wide open to misinterpretation, because thought is a physical process; it is however not the physical process that is the content of the thought. — unenlightened
If the affirming is "after" some more primary stage, then that is suspect as there is no causality that would have a before (primary ONLY WILL) and after (WILL AND AFFIRMING OF WILL). — schopenhauer1
Now, from the perspective of the affirmation of the will, we are obliged to say that the will has always affirmed itself, and thereby that the world as representation has always existed. But from the perspective of the denial of the will, we are obliged to admit that representation is illusory.
This is simply a feature of transcendental idealist philosophy. Two seemingly opposed positions might be simultaneously true depending on what perspective we take. From the perspective of time, we cannot but apply this category to all things, but from the perspective of the non-temporal, no such category exists. — Thorongil
My argument was that representation "always existing" comes with it the very odd notion that there was a representing organism that was always there as there was no "time" before "time" and "time" is only recognized in a representing organism according to Schop. — schopenhauer1
what is your answer to this besides that it is "no-thing"? — schopenhauer1
1) there has always been a subject, we might say, but not necessarily a representing-organism — Thorongil
time is not recognized but supplied by this subject. — Thorongil
'Mind is an illusion' is not a legitimate position in philosophy of mind. Or did you mean some other question? — unenlightened
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