(Sorry for the zombie undead thread. Flipped a coin about starting a new one.)
Relevant and interesting article from Aeon site linked below for your enjoyment and response. Of substantial length too, which is good. Some articles there are good, but are so short they seem like mere introductions. The author of the article (Derek Skillings) also joins in the discussion on the website.
https://aeon.co/essays/what-constitutes-an-individual-organism-in-biology — 0 thru 9
The skin is the parish boundary of the self. — unenlightened
The remote senses establish the existence of a world beyond the skin a world of things and others — unenlightened
Memory allows for learning, and the integration of the senses. — unenlightened
The normal version is 'you can't get an ought from an is', and it is usually used to deny the 'reality' of moral claims. My radical extension is to deny also the 'reality of identity claims:- — unenlightened
You can't even get a 'you' from an 'is' - the self is a naturalistic fallacy constructed from the limitations of the senses, which do not make any real boundary or change in the world. This means that there is no difference in substance between what one ought to do and what one wants to do, because the 'one' is fictional in both cases. — unenlightened
Whose senses?the self is a naturalistic fallacy constructed from the limitations of the senses, which do not make any real boundary or change in the world. — unenlightened
one can still say that the self is a psycho-social construct. It is as real as such constructs are - which I think are plenty real. — SophistiCat
So I'm having a hard time following the conclusion that we can't get a "you" out of that. — Philosophim
Then the distinction between victim and perpetrator is a feature of perception (whose perception?), and not real? If I took your posts and reposted them without crediting the source, then YOUR outrage would be just a result of YOU not understanding that the distinction is merely a feature of YOUR perception and not of reality as such.my intention was to convey that the distinction and identification we get is a feature of perception, not of reality as such. — unenlightened
I am obliged to use the language we have. Clearly we can and we do get a self and a sense of self from our sensual experiences and in describing how it happens, my intention was to convey that the distinction and identification we get is a feature of perception, not of reality as such. — unenlightened
There is a kind of materialistic presupposition here (for lack of a better word) that draws a hard boundary between impersonal physical facts like skin and light and neurons on the one side, and on the other - psychological and social facts that are sort of pretend, unreal. But are they, really? — SophistiCat
Yes, I am deliberately starting from a materialist standpoint, because it is materialism that leads to moral nihilism. — unenlightened
The language is always tricky around ontology and I want to say that horizons, like mirages, like like individuality, like desire, are not social constructs, not fantasies, and not material objects, but objective features of perception. — unenlightened
You can't even get a 'you' from an 'is' — unenlightened
I am obliged to use the language we have. — unenlightened
Ok, I think this explains your point better. So why do you believe that perception is separate from reality? If I see the color red, is the sight itself not real? When I taste an apple and find it delicious and another tastes an apple and finds it repulsive, is that not real too? What about my perception that though I wish to fly by my mind alone, I find that I cannot?my intention was to convey that the distinction and identification we get is a feature of perception, not of reality as such. — unenlightened
What? This is false. It is the projection of the ideal that poisons life and suffocates the creature. Man lived on this earth for thousands of years without Nihilism. It was the creation of a false dichotomy of super-worlds and super-beings that destroyed man's mind against existence. — JerseyFlight
This distinction doesn't counter the naturalistic fallacy though: you are still attempting to derive normative from non-normative. — SophistiCat
why do you believe that perception is separate from reality? If I see the color red, is the sight itself not real? When I taste an apple and find it delicious and another tastes an apple and finds it repulsive, is that not real too? What about my perception that though I wish to fly by my mind alone, I find that I cannot? — Philosophim
The boundary is purely perceptual, a horizon-like edge. — unenlightened
until religion came along and before that there was no moral nihilism? — unenlightened
So finally, what I experience as the boundary of my self is simply the horizon of my sensitivity, or of my understanding, or of my memory. So to condense this to a one line meme:
Your skin doesn't separate you from the world, it joins you to it. You are the world. — unenlightened
Are you trying to say we are defined not apart from reality, but by our limits in relation to it? I don't think anyone would have a problem with that. — Philosophim
As the world surges in, we surge out into it. The consequence being that in addition to what is always already there, we add ourselves to it, it to us, and we a unity that ceases when we no longer are. Or another way: being in the world, we also find ourselves there. And we bring wants and desires, shoulds and oughts, and they are parts of our lived world. I find in this a ground; what we do with who we are and what we find, a different topic. — tim wood
The transcendent metaphysic and their priests have a far longer history than just Christanity. — TheWillowOfDarkness
In fact, all the sensitivities, understandings and memories are all the world's. But it compartmentalizes them -- because I don't have your memories, and you don't have my aches.
Is that an illusion too, or does the world really keep them separate? — Srap Tasmaner
You can't even get a 'you' from an 'is' - the self is a naturalistic fallacy constructed from the limitations of the senses, which do not make any real boundary or change in the world. This means that there is no difference in substance between what one ought to do and what one wants to do, because the 'one' is fictional in both cases — unenlightened
Since I don't have your memories and you don't feel my aches, I suggest that even if we are parts of a whole, we are very separate parts, and that separation is no illusion at all, perspectival or otherwise. — Srap Tasmaner
It reminds me of a recent thread on cyncism, nihilism, and buddhism. — TheMadFool
I was just looking at that. Forgive me, but I don't think it is illuminating to go further down the road of isms and religions. I would get further entangled with folks' identifications, which are another kind of myopia, that I have explored here in other threads. There may well be a connection with certain strands of Buddhist thought, but I prefer to stand alone, as it were, and not be assumed to say any more than I have actually said. — unenlightened
The horizon is not an illusion, it's how far one can see. And the self is how far one can feel and remember. But that's all it is. — unenlightened
It seems to me that in light of this, it makes perfect practical sense for me to be concerned with feeding myself, and allow you to worry about feeding yourself - we each know our own needs. But it makes no sense at all for me to think that feeding myself is more important than feeding yourself. — unenlightened
I thought the point was that an horizon looks like a boundary but isn't — Srap Tasmaner
Instead you're saying there's a sort of functional boundary — Srap Tasmaner
I don't have your memories and you don't feel my aches, I suggest that even if we are parts of a whole, we are very separate parts, and that separation is no illusion at all — Srap Tasmaner
I get a feeling that you are working within a rationalist framework where you believe that you can't take even such an elementary action as feeding without first rationally justifying it from first principles. — SophistiCat
The view that I am contradicting is the one that claims that self-interest is rational, whereas altruism is irrational. — unenlightened
the founding principle of game theory — unenlightened
A horizon is a real feature of vision on a round world, not a real feature of a round world.
A self is a real feature of awareness in a human body, not a real feature of a human body. — unenlightened
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.