If the soul is everlasting and never dies, then the third law of thermodynamics necessitates an outcome equal to the state you herebysowell described.

Is this also what madness is, to be only aware of yourself?

Is this also what madness is, to be only aware of yourself? — Brett

Madness, insanity, can take on many forms and feelings. What you said is like saying that "if you break a bone in your body, randomly selected of all bones in your body, is it not like to break only your leg?"

I don’t understand that?

I don’t understand that? — Brett

I'm sorry... was that a rhetorical question, expressing incredulity over my giving you too little credit of understanding mental illness, or else was it a statement with a mistaken question mark? Now I don't understand you.

Ha, I was just talking about something similar with a mate today - we figured the worst torture would be taking something you enjoyed and turning it against you. Like an infinite forced degustation sitting; or being forced to only listen to your favourite album for all eternity.

or else was it a statement with a mistaken question mark? — god must be atheist

Mistaken question mark. I’ve no idea why I did that.

Hell is not other people.

Mistaken question mark. I’ve no idea why I did that. — Brett

Madness, madness, madness. (-:

Why would we not be content in a dark room with ourselves? I understand that we crave experience, but still. I remember reading the book ‘Future Shock’ about a monkey’s brain, removed from the monkey, being kept alive for a short time and Toffler ruminating about what the brain (monkey) would be experiencing

But I still need to know what you meant.

degustation sitting — StreetlightX

is that like lap-dancing? I have never heard of "degustation". Degas, yes, I've heard of him, he was a painter; Gus, too; station, too; but the whole thing just does not congeal for me.

I must consult Miss Congeniality to make it congeal.

Why would we not be content in a dark room with ourselves? — Brett

The assumption is that you are not allowed to play with yourself. No food sensation, no touch, no hearing, no seeing, no tasting, no defacating, no peeing, no itching, no scratching, no stretching, no bugyborekolas, no gurgling, no singing, no talking, no nothing.

is that like lap-dancing? — god must be atheist

Haha, no, it's a multi-course meal. From the Latin word gustus meaning taste. The same root word from which dis-gusting comes from.

The assumption is that you are not allowed to play with yourself. No food sensation, no touch, no hearing, no seeing, no tasting, no defacating, no peeing, no itching, no scratching, no stretching, no bugyborekolas, no gurgling, no singing, no talking, no nothing. — god must be atheist

Is that who we are then?

But I still need to know what you meant. — Brett

Insanity, madness, can take on many forms. "Being aware of only one's own self" is one form. Being aware of the world, other people, life, animal welfare, etc. can be part of many other forms of mental illness.

A good read about what mental illness is, and its diverse forms, is called DSM -- diagnostic statistical manual. It has had many editions with constant revisions of the contents. I recommend it if you want to learn about madness, and how to become mad. It's sort of a "Dummies' Book on How To Identify Mental Illnesses".

Is that who we are then? — Brett

Yes, some of us. I, personally, prefer scratching my back to talking about it. Same with having sex (with or without a partner.) Show me the food! and let me eat it.

That's of course not what we are. What we need is perfectly depicted by Maslow's Pyramid of Needs. If you are not familiar with it, the Internet is full of references.

The idea is that in a dark room not only don't you have access to scratching, but you don't have access to all other things in life as well.

Why would we not be content in a dark room with ourselves? — Brett

There is no "ourselves" without others. That's where we get ourselves from. The self is a social phenomenon. Remove the social and you remove the self.

There is no "ourselves" without others. That's where we get ourselves from. The self is a social phenomenon. Remove the social and you remove the self. — Baden

Are you presenting a thought experiment of someone born alone and never having his self developed due to a lifetime of isolation or you suggesting the dissolution of the self when someone is removed from society? Also, don't you think a newborn has a sense of self prior to his having any conception of society?

And what is meant precisely of "social"? If I'm raised by a pack of wolves, can they give me a sense of self? What if I raise a dog? Can her sense of self come from a non-dog? Can the "other" be a tree, where my society of trees offers me an sense of self?

I'm not saying that a person born alone won't be terribly confused and likely incapable of survival, but I wonder if he wouldn't know of his own independent self.

Once I was in New Orleans and I paid $2 to see a wild scantily clad Cajun woman, supposedly captured in the bayou, maybe raised by gators. She seemed unstable from her mannerisms, but, at the same time looked no different than an average college girl with a really terrible solution to paying her rent. I think she had a sense of self, but maybe a diminished sense of self worth, likely from the way the gators treated her.

suggesting the dissolution of the self when someone is removed from society? — Hanover

That one re the OP (the other is true too though).

Also, don't you think a newborn has a sense of self prior to his having any conception of society? — Hanover

A "sense" of self vs a "conception" of society is an asymmetric comparison. Developmentally, senses come before conceptions by definition as concepts are linguistic. Anyhow, a sense of self can't develop without some form of social contact. In fact, babies just die without social contact (even for newborn monkeys, experiments have shown that social contact is prioritised above food, for example). So, the way I see it, following Vygotsky, the social world the child experiences happening around it becomes gradually internalised and that becomes the basis of the self and self-consciousness. The child internalises interpersonal interactions, which gradually become intrapersonal self-relations.

And what is meant precisely of "social"? — Hanover

Contact with others.

If I'm raised by a pack of wolves, can they give me a sense of self? — Hanover

Not in the sense we understand it. But you might conceivably live at least.

What if I raise a dog? Can her sense of self come from a non-dog? — Hanover

I guess, but again, it wouldn't be a "self" as we understand it. Our world, including much of our self-relation, is defined linguistically. A dog can't have the concept of self.

Can the "other" be a tree, where my society of trees offers me an sense of self? — Hanover

No. Although I recommend a long-term experiment involving you and the local maples to fully verify this.

I'm not saying that a person born alone won't be terribly confused and likely incapable of survival, but I wonder if he wouldn't know of his own independent self. — Hanover

What would there be to know? The self only makes sense in the context of the other. For a start, no other, no language, no self concept. So, you're left with some kind of awareness maybe but no construction of the self.

Once I was in New Orleans and I paid $2 to see a wild scantily clad Cajun woman, supposedly captured in the bayou, maybe raised by gators. She seemed unstable from her mannerisms, but, at the same time looked no different than an average college girl with a really terrible solution to paying her rent. I think she had a sense of self, but maybe a diminished sense of self worth, likely from the way the gators treated her. — Hanover

You should probably write a paper on that. Maybe use toilet paper, so that when your study gets rejected you still have some use for it.

We didn't really get to why the self would dissolve without any social contact. Usually, it's simply put that people go nuts. But that sort of amounts to the same thing.

Developmentally, senses come before conceptions by definition as concepts are linguistic. — Baden

I'll concede your empirical claims: senses come before concepts and socialization in humans is necessary for survival. Concepts being linguistic is not an empirical claim, but a philosophical one, and likely one that demands strained definitions. I don't buy into the claim that concepts are linguistic as an empirical claim because I don't know why it's biologically required that I be able to linguistically articulate my concepts in order for them to exist. I often grasp issues and then spend some amount of time trying to precisely articulate them. I've always felt this equation of langauge with knowledge to be a Wittgensteinian demand regardless of whether it is true. Anyway, that language must precede concepts defies my experience so I reject it.

What would there be to know? The self only makes sense in the context of the other. For a start, no other, no language, no self concept. So, you're left with some kind of awareness maybe but no construction of the self. — Baden

What is the empirical evidence for this assertion? I'd think a dog understands what is his and what is not, which means he knows himself from the other and he has no langauge to say "get away from my food" other than his bark and bite, which is langauge in a broad sense I guess.

We didn't really get to why the self would dissolve without any social contact. Usually, it's simply put that people go nuts. But that sort of amounts to the same thing. — Baden

Going nuts isn't the same as losing one's sense of self. Loss of self isn't a reported symptom of isolation.
https://www.sciencealert.com/isolation-has-profound-effects-on-the-human-body-and-brain-here-s-what-happens

I'll concede your empirical claims: senses come before concepts and socialization in humans is necessary for survival. Concepts being linguistic is not an empirical claim, but a philosophical one, and likely one that demands strained definitions. — Hanover

Fair enough. The ontology of concepts is thorny.

I often grasp issues and then spend some amount of time trying to precisely articulate them. — Hanover

My claim regarded early cognitive and linguistic development. You've already developed beyond that stage, so you have a linguistic and conceptual background that provides an explanatory basis for your articulations. Newborns don't. So, your personal experience isn't necessarily relevant.

What is the empirical evidence for this assertion? I'd think a dog understands what is his and what is not, which means he knows himself from the other and he has no langauge to say "get away from my food" other than his bark and bite, which is langauge in a broad sense I guess. — Hanover

To get the claim straight, I don't deny all forms of self-awareness in animals. Some (not dogs though) pass the mirror test. What I deny is a self-construction, a self-consciousness, that is an ability to conceptualise a self, that, for example, one can imagine taking different courses of action etc. As for the self only making sense in context of the other, I consider that be a matter of definition. I can't make any sense of the idea of a self without an other any more than I can make sense of "North" without "South". The concepts are semantically interdependent.

Going nuts isn't the same as losing one's sense of self. — Hanover

Maybe I should have said "losing one's mind". If you lose your mind, you're not yourself are you? In fact, we even say of people that "they're not themselves" when they're suffering from relatively mild cases of mental illness. To put some more bones on this, there have been actual scientific experiments putting people through the "ultimate torture" described in the OP and they've had to be stopped very quickly due to the participants suffering severe hallucinations and other reality-distorting effects. As our sense of self is strongly correlated with and arguably completely dependent on our sense of reality, I consider that to be strong evidence of dissolution of the self due to social deprivation.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140514-how-extreme-isolation-warps-minds

"... the most alarming effects were the hallucinations. They would start with points of light, lines or shapes, eventually evolving into bizarre scenes, such as squirrels marching with sacks over their shoulders or processions of eyeglasses filing down a street. They had no control over what they saw: one man saw only dogs; another, babies.

Some of them experienced sound hallucinations as well: a music box or a choir, for instance. Others imagined sensations of touch: one man had the sense he had been hit in the arm by pellets fired from guns. Another, reaching out to touch a doorknob, felt an electric shock.

When they emerged from the experiment they found it hard to shake this altered sense of reality, convinced that the whole room was in motion, or that objects were constantly changing shape and size.

...

The researchers had hoped to observe their subjects over several weeks, but the trial was cut short because they became too distressed to carry on. Few lasted beyond two days, and none as long as a week."

The worst form of torture is to become a quadriplegic with schizoaffective disorder and claustrophobia with her tongue cut out in a sensory deprivation chamber for a very, very long time. Not being able to talk to oneself would be the worst part for the quadriplegic schizoaffective disorder sufferer.

:scream: :up: