First, that sounds exhausting. — Antony Nickles

It's only exhausting in principle. I think the point still stands, if my existence is dependent on my being able to assert it, then I don't exist at some times and not others simply because I only assert my existence at certain times. The very idea seems absurd to me.

My view is that it is by virtue of having a sense of self (which I believe some animals also have) that I can be said to exist, and I don't believe that sense is operative only at the times that I am reflectively aware of articulating it as an assertion of self-existence.

It might be easier to read through my responses to other posts (say here) first for the sense of "assertion" here. I'll just say that this is not proposing an argument, it is asserting myself; as: claiming authority for me, against conformity (the social contract). — Antony Nickles

Why does one need to "assert" that he exists? I have never seen or heard anyone saying that in real life. Does it mean that when one is "not asserting", the one doesn't exist? That sounds nonsense.

Descartes wrote that to convince himself of the most ensuring knowledge with 100% doubt free. It was not as if he was "asserting" anything to anyone.

And this picture, here of "consciousness", is what I am claiming these authors are trying to get you to see past. "Consciousness" is a manufactured framework of the self as something that is mine, caused by the misconception that your "perception" is (perhaps) fundamentally different than mine (It might help to read this first). Now you will say, "but I feel this, and think, and am aware" and all that is true, but it is not the cause of the curfuffle. We are humans who have feelings and self-awareness and mental dialogue (which is not "thinking"; again, read the first post), but those are personal, not individual (we are not different by nature). The actual problem is that we sometimes just don't see eye-to-eye, but not that we can't. So if our "mental activities" are just there, without the need of their being "mine", as if special, than the need for the self as a constant thing goes away, replaced by the self as differentiated from our cultural expectations; i.e., I make myself me in relation to the past, our shared judgments, the implications of our activities and expressions, etc., or I am: a sheep, asleep, brainwashed, etc. (again, "existing" being a different matter). Good luck. — Antony Nickles

I am not understanding this paragraph. Could you please elaborate more?

Doesn't Consciousness cover all mental activities going on in the mind?  I am not sure why you are separating "personal" and "individual". How are they different in this context here?
Isn't consciousness private in nature, and by necessity, it has it's own bearer i.e. a conscious being? Isn't being conscious enough evidence of the self-knowledge for the conscious being?

Even when you tell yourself your internal story, you cannot deduce that you exist, because, whenever you make use of the idea of existence, you are making use of the mental structures of your brain. You can never take control of these structures, because you cannot think of them without using them again. If you think that this is evidence that your mind and your mental structures exist, it becomes automatically evidence that you are using them and, consequently, you have no control on what you are talking about. So, at the end, talking about existence, even our own existence while we are thinking about it, is completely meaningless: as soon as you think it has a meaning, you are automatically saying that you are a machine that is manoeuvred by that meaning, so that you cannot say anything meaningful about what you are talking about. — Angelo Cannata

Keep in mind, Angelo Cannata, that any talk about mental structures also belongs that personal narrative. Structures? What structures? You mean the ones that are at the causal foundation for any talk at all? This is the consequence of suggesting some physicalist bottom line: what is physical is first the narrative about what is physical. A brain is posited AS a brain, then it fits into a context of understanding.

It begins with the narrative, or story, if you like: language and culture are the historical dimension of knowledge claims. The only hope one has to go further than this lies with phenomenology (the one true view?).

I don't exist at some times and not others simply because I only assert my existence at certain times. — Janus

I am not asserting my "existence"; I am claiming what I will stand for in relation to how our community judges a part of our lives where we are at a loss as to the criteria (e.g., for what will count as being just). I "exist" in standing against (or for) our shared culture in a way that requires that I have to back it up.

The very idea seems absurd to me. — Janus

This may be getting in the way of your understanding.

My view is that it is by virtue of having a sense of self (which I believe some animals also have) that I can be said to exist, and I don't believe that sense is operative only at the times that I am reflectively aware of articulating it as an assertion of self-existence. — Janus

Your argument is duly noted. Let me know if you want any help understanding the claim I am making.

Why does one need to "assert" that he exists? Descartes wrote that to convince himself of the most ensuring knowledge with 100% doubt free. It was not as if he was "asserting" anything. — Corvus

You are thinking of "assert" as if he is arguing; this is the different sense that he is claiming authority apart from the social contract (our usual conformity)--that I am sticking myself out there and thus acting as the "maker of manners" as Shakespeare says. Of course, we are accountable for this and in relation to our shared ordinary criteria in judging whatever thing we are involved in.

I have never seen or heard anyone saying that in real life. — Corvus

No, we don't discuss it this way as if a reason why I am doing something. This kind of philosophy is an examination of the way we operate in relation to our situation as humans; here for insight into how the self is judged, how being someone (else) works (apart from our ordinary conformity).

Descartes wrote that to convince himself of the most ensuring knowledge with 100% doubt free. It was not as if he was "asserting" anything. — Corvus

And I am arguing that Descartes is not here "ensuring knowledge", he is trying to have certainty; and the only way to do that--in the case of not knowing what to do (who I am in this world), as I claim: "when" that is necessary--is to step into that gap as an authority apart from the social contract--proposing: me, what kind of person I will stand for. That my consent to our shared lives is not just withheld, but claimed as representative by my aversion to conformity.

It might help to read the responses to the other comments.

Doesn't Consciousness cover all mental activities going on in the mind? — Corvus

"Consciousness" is a made up placeholder to give feeling, seeing, thinking, awareness, understanding, the quality of being unique to me ("private"), that I can "know" them and communicate that (or not, but then that is blamed by projecting an "appearance" or complicating agreement, requiring our "experience" match). Personal is to record the fact that we can keep feelings secret, not express them. I believe I went over this elsewhere in this thread in more depth.

It might be a different conception that drives our view, I believe I follow what you are saying. But, my intuition is that there may be something there, which we cannot explain, but which could be explainable to creature with a more complex and sophisticated cognitive system.

Now, you could also be right, in that, there may be nothing there or nothing else to explain, just a confusion due to miscommunicating or misconstruing or thinking wrongly about the topic.

I can't comment to much on your reply to Corvus and frank, but I can mention that Galen Strawson makes a distinction between diachronic and episodic selves, one being the continuous perhaps more common idea that, I am the same person I was, five minutes ago or this morning. If I see a picture of me in the morning, I will (and many others) say that that person is me.

Strawson's a episodic, he does not think or feel himself being a continuing thing, so if he sees himself in the morning through a picture, he doesn't have the feeling that that is him. He recognizes the face, but doesn't feel a connection to that person. He cites a few other examples, Henry James, if I'm not misremembering, being another one.

It begins with the narrative — Astrophel

If this is true, it means, as a consequence, that what you said has a meaning exclusively inside your narrative, you are inside your narrative as soon as you think and talk. As such, what you said cannot be considered objectively true, because it is inevitably conditioned by itself. In other words, what you said is meaningless.
Consider that what I have written now, in this message, comes from agreeing with you: I started by saying “If this is true...”. As a consequence, you cannot object anything to what I have said, because objecting to what I have said would mean objecting to yourself.

language and culture are the historical dimension of knowledge claims. — Astrophel

This is true, but I am claiming that there is a crucial, essential part of the self that is different than a claim to knowledge, though also related to the "historical dimension" of "language and culture"--what I am calling our "conformity".

The only hope one has to go further than this lies with phenomenology (the one true view?). — Astrophel

This is also a very interesting point of comparison. My Husserl being basically non-existent, I looked through the "General Introduction of Pure Phenomenology" where he discusses the, as I read it, "effecting" of the self--his term: "Ego" (p. 273). I see a connection in that he takes an act "effecting" the ego as separate from an act that does not (analogous to conformity; when nothing unexpected is happening or we are not at a moral crisis). Of note for me, he also sees the assertion of the self as an event, not a constant (in our "self"); that its "existence" comes and goes, lives and dies he says.

Ego 'lives' exclusively in a new cogito. The earlier cogito 'fades away,' sinks into 'darkness'.... the Ego does not live in them as an “effecting subject.” With that the concept of act is extended in a determined and quite indispensable sense. ...the act-effectings make up the “position-takings” in the widest sense... [those] of negation or affirmation with respect to existential claims or the like would belong here. — Id.

Although Husserl is elsewhere stuck in the picture of us as an internal constant and cause (my intending etc.)--which I hope we can avoid getting mired in--I take him here to be touching on the self as "affirmed" in "taking" a "position", which I take as analogous to a position in relation to society's judgments and criteria.

Also note the image of "fades away", which is similar to Descartes slipping back into the "law of custom" and Rousseau's picture of silence as consent to the general will. This seems to match up with Husserl's "non-effecting" acts.

But this is a passing attempt to make a connection (I have more to read of his); I leave it to you to see if there is a ball to pick up in this regard. Thank you for widening the discussion.

The word "assert" gives the impression that it is an act of speech or statement forcefully and confidently made with noticeable psychological intent towards other people. But suppose it could also be used for being assertive or putting oneself forward, which are attitude words in nature. It was not very clear to me. Anyways, both case of the usage of the word "assert" seem involve other minds with the speaker or actor, which felt inappropriate in the context.

I am in a room with my books and the desk with a lamp, clock and computer. I am perceiving them without any thought or feelings or emotions. At that moment, I could perceive my existence because I could point my intentionality of consciousness to my own self without having to assert anything or thinking that I am existing.

I am seeing my hands, and hearing the clocking ticking, and looking at the books, I know I am here. This consciousness and experience of me was identical with my existence. Without the experiencer (me), the experience is impossible.

When I am unconscious by falling asleep tonight, I will not perceive my existence during the time of my unconsciousness. Maybe I will have dreams in the sleep, but my existence in the dreams will not be concrete or vivid. In some of my dreams, I am NOT in even present. I just see other people or scenes that I am unfamiliar with. What appears in my dreams are totally out of my control of my will and intentionality.

I must return to my own consciousness again when I wake up, to perceive my doubtless and concrete existence through the experience in the reality.

"Consciousness" is a made up placeholder to give feeling, seeing, thinking, awareness, understanding, the quality of being unique to me ("private"), that I can "know" them and communicate that (or not, but then that is blamed by projecting an "appearance" or complicating agreement, requiring our "experience" match). Personal is to record the fact that we can keep feelings secret, not express them. I believe I went over this elsewhere in this thread in more depth. — Antony Nickles

Sure. Good definition. :up:

I am not asserting my "existence"; I am claiming what I will stand for in relation to how our community judges a part of our lives where we are at a loss as to the criteria (e.g., for what will count as being just). I "exist" in standing against (or for) our shared culture in a way that requires that I have to back it up. — Antony Nickles

Your citing of Descartes had apparently led me to think you were addressing the ontological, not the political, question of your existence; a different question altogether, and one I'm not especially interested in, so...carry on.

It might be a different conception that drives our view — Manuel

I think it is different interests that are taken as competing, as I don't mean to eclipse your interest in, say, our brain's affect on our lives, only that the relation of that project to this issue in philosophy resulted from a pre-imposed requirement (for something certain).

my intuition is that there may be something there, which we cannot explain — Manuel

My point is that this "intuition" is a desire to have knowledge (what I take as "mine" that we simply know and explain) substitute for the fact that our judgments and criteria involve our interests, what matters to us. So, at times, we must re-assert ourselves into their maintenance or extension or change. This is where the self is asserting (claims authority) as a standard against our ordinary criteria, creating its duty and responsibility to be responsive for our making a particular stand.

[Our] diachronic... selves... being the continuous perhaps more common idea that, I am the same person I was, five minutes ago or this morning. If I see a picture of me in the morning, I will (and many others) say that that person is me. — Manuel

That the "diachronic" is the popular or commonsense picture, shows that philosophy not only involves making explicit the unexamined criteria and workings of our world, but also effects our popular sense of our relation to our world (that everyone thinks in terms of (what they think they understand as) "objective" and "subjective"--thus philosophy's power to change how we think).

The necessity for "me" as an agent, for example, for a vision of "intention", is also based on the terror that I may not continue; that Descartes' fear misinterprets the truth of the beginning of the issue--that there is no fact (in me) that ensures things won't fall apart; that we may not understand each other or agree (and not based on an inability to communicate the manufactured sense of "my" experience, perception). His attempt to "solve" this fact of our condition creates the requirement that it be certain, that I "exist", or something does, as "perfect", like math. Strawson seems to record the continuing theme here that the self is only asserted at a time, and is not a continuous thing; that the need or event of our differentiating ourselves from conformity is in response to particular needs of a situation or the interests that we are willing to stand up for, in contrast to philosophy's singular "need" (requirement) that this ongoing duty be relieved from us by knowledge of a fact in us (the metaphysical conception of "me").

Your citing of Descartes had apparently led me to think you were addressing the ontological, not the political, question of your existence; a different question altogether — Janus

I always respect that we all may have differing interests, but my claim is that the "political", as you call it, is the ontological--so not "different questions". The desire for unity, simplicity and continuity creates the ontological picture of the self as a constant which we know or cannot, whereas the way the creation of self works (is judged to be "you") involves our relationship to our culture's ordinary criteria. Though, as I said, I appreciate this may not be your cup of tea.

That's fair enough. I tend to think we have a political, social, cultural and historical as well as a basic physical and biological existence, and beyond all that, we simply exist. I think they are all different senses of existence.

The way I see it, the basic sense of existence or self is not a sense of existence in relation to others, but rather in distinction from everything other, and this is a quite different, simpler and yet more encompassing sense of self.

On the flipside of that existential self, there is also the even more comprehensive "spiritual" sense of self as being inseparable from the cosmos, but that comes with an entirely altered state of consciousness, not merely a different attitude.

...[a] statement... made with... intent ... or putting oneself forward... are attitude words in nature... [and are] both cases [which] involve other minds with the speaker or actor, which felt inappropriate in the context. — Corvus

The "problem of other minds" is related to the differentiation of the self, as we also imagine there is something to "know" about the other (in the same way I imagine I "know" my "self") thus the creation of "their" special: experience, perception, sensation, etc., as always different from "mine". However, as Wittgenstein will point out (PI 3rd. p. 225), we do not "know" the other's pain, we acknowledge them being in pain--we accept them or reject them, e.g., we react to their pain by helping them. This is what is meant by the limitation of knowledge, and that we have other relations to the world (and our self). Not everything works the same way (e.g., that there is a "self" that is either an object or based of the same pure requirement we want for objects; for, as you say: "[my] doubtless and concrete existence through the experience in the reality"--emphasis added to highlight the singular criteria for certainty we impose on everything).

"perceiving"
"perceive my existence"
"seeing"
"looking"
"know[ing] I am here"

All of these things have different, ordinary criteria of judgment for completion, appropriateness, etc.; and various expectations and implications in different contexts (they are not removed from a situation, abstracted, say, into: "me"). They are not all the same nor tied to "my experience" or "consciousness" (though that is not to say I don't have interests, focus, awareness, reflection, etc.). Another way to say it is that the conditions for these things (what makes them "possible") is not "me", but what we judge as seeing something (as something), looking for or at something, that I know where I am (I'm not lost), etc. As in these cases, the creation of the "self" works differently than imagining it as my self-awareness, inner dialogue; as with looking and understanding (which simply turn on my interest in different aspects of something than you).

p.s. - not sure what is meant by "attitude words in nature".

only that the relation of that project to this issue in philosophy resulted from a pre-imposed requirement (for something certain) — Antony Nickles

I mean, if you have Descartes in mind, as you did in the OP, then sure, certainty can arise in this topic. In such cases of looking for certainty, it's a kind of trap. There is some evidence that suggests that Descartes was in part motivated to write what he did to offer a defeating argument to the reawakening of Pyrrhonian skepticism during his time. Popkin writes about this.

Descartes went as far as is possible into skepticism and we know his results. Today, I think that's putting too much weight into something which has no answer: skepticism cannot be refuted, heck, not even solipsism can be.

Degrees of confidence is a more sensible approach on most topics.

that there is no fact (in me) that ensures things won't fall apart; that we may not understand each other or agree (and not based on an inability to communicate the manufactured sense of "my" experience, perception). His attempt to "solve" this fact of our condition creates the requirement that it be certain, that I "exist", or something does, as "perfect", like math. — Antony Nickles

There is no discernable fact in me. "I" cannot perceive it.

Yet, this stops short of a different issue, whether it (the self, or me or I) exists or not.

It could be a "fiction" of convenience, or it could be a real natural phenomenon, which need not introduce dualism.

that the need or event of our differentiating ourselves from conformity is in response to particular needs of a situation or the interests that we are willing to stand up for, in contrast to philosophy's singular "need" (requirement) that this ongoing duty be relieved from us by knowledge of a fact in us (the metaphysical conception of "me") — Antony Nickles

Sure. Of course, there are situations in which everybody thinks about this topic, and people tend to think about it when a particular situation arises: say you are praised or blamed for some big event. That often leads to an assessment of "oneself."

Philosophy's "need"... for some of them - this is one of those topics which fascinates the philosophers.

Invariably we are going to bring in temporality into the discussion because, it's necessary, almost by definition. We can't speak of anything absent temporality.

But now, I have the feeling that either we are in agreement, or I fail to see the problem you see. Which, if is the case, is all well and good. And if not, that's good too.

The "problem of other minds" is related to the differentiation of the self, as we also imagine there is something to "know" about the other (in the same way I imagine I "know" my "self") thus the creation of "their" special: experience, perception, sensation, etc., as always different from "mine". However, as Wittgenstein will point out (PI 3rd. p. 225), we do not "know" the other's pain, we acknowledge them being in pain--we accept them or reject them, e.g., we react to their pain by helping them. — Antony Nickles

Thinking about other minds in line with self perception sounds like a great idea. But as you say, it is impossible to see in the other minds internally. Only way we could know them is by facial expressions, language and behaviour. Maybe "knowing" other minds should be restricted to "guessing"?

"perceiving"
"perceive my existence"
"seeing"
"looking"
"know[ing] I am here"

All of these things have different, ordinary criteria of judgment for completion, appropriateness, etc.; and various expectations and implications in different contexts (they are not removed from a situation, abstracted, say, into: "me"). They are not all the same nor tied to "my experience" or "consciousness" (though that is not to say I don't have interests, focus, awareness, reflection, etc.). Another way to say it is that the conditions for these things (what makes them "possible") is not "me", but what we judge as seeing something (as something), looking for or at something, that I know where I am (I'm not lost), etc. As in these cases, the creation of the "self" works differently than imagining it as my self-awareness, inner dialogue; as with looking and understanding (which simply turn on my interest in different aspects of something than you). — Antony Nickles

I feel all those perceiving words prove the perceivers' self knowledge logically.  You see, perceive, know, look, imagine, experience, hear ... but whose perceptions are they if not the person who perceives, knows, looks, imagines, experiences and hears?

When Descartes said Cogito Ergo sum, I am sure it wasn't epistemological or ontological, but a logical reasoning.  A logical reasoning that he thinks, therefore he exists.  The thinking must have the thinker, who thinks, therefore the thinker must exist. It is not the conclusion he drew because he saw, sensed or perceived his existence visually, materially or spiritually.

Perceptions, thinking, knowing doesn't have to be tied to "my own experience" ostentatiously.  The self is already presupposed and based on all the mental events as far as I could see.

Imagine, you are told to come to the Health Centre for vaccination.  Your name, age, and all your details will be in the letter from the GP with the appointment time and date.  So you are heading to the place on the day for the time driving to the place.  Even that action is based on the self perception, that you are the one needing to go there, and get the vaccination. No one else.  So every action with motives and purposes are also embedded with self knowledge or perception.  In other words, the human consciousness is embedded with self perception.

p.s. - not sure what is meant by "attitude words in nature". — Antony Nickles

The word "assert" is an attitude describing type in nature. Because it describes the attitude of someone while speaking or putting oneself forward confidently and reassuringly. I just made-up the terminology out of my impromptu imagination. I am sure it is not an objective or accepted term.

If this is true, it means, as a consequence, that what you said has a meaning exclusively inside your narrative, you are inside your narrative as soon as you think and talk. As such, what you said cannot be considered objectively true, because it is inevitably conditioned by itself. In other words, what you said is meaningless.
Consider that what I have written now, in this message, comes from agreeing with you: I started by saying “If this is true...”. As a consequence, you cannot object anything to what I have said, because objecting to what I have said would mean objecting to yourself. — Angelo Cannata

You have put your finger on the pulse of the matter. Consider how a physicalist's reality falls apart instantly, for if experience yields to a physical reduction, then the saying that something is physical is also duly reduced! It IS absurd to think this way.

I did say the narrative is the starting place, the historical narrative that runs through all possible discussion and defines the "potentiality of of possibilities" as Heidegger put it, for each. Narratives are open hermeneutically, but then, IN this openness we have to deal with the givenness of the world that is not language and culture, like this sprained ankle I have and its pain, or the palpable encounter (as Michel Henry puts it) of living and experiencing. Language encounters what is not language IN the context of its own contingency. This is where Wittgenstein feared to go, this "world" of impossible presence. Levinas was not so afraid, for he rightly understood that this radical other and Other of the world is the intrusion of a palpable metaphysics, not merely a senseless abstract idea.

Phenomenology is the final resting place of philosophical inquiry, where it doesn't so much rest as it invites one to yield (Heidegger's version of gelassenheit) one's egoic totality in order to attend to what is there for meditative thought. What is revealed is not a finished matter at all. Quite the opposite.

skepticism cannot be refuted, heck, not even solipsism can be. Degrees of confidence is a more sensible approach on most topics. — Manuel

Yes, but even if we are not “refuting” skepticism (nor resolving it), to simple accept a lower judgment of still to impose a standard rather than see that each thing has its own criteria. So “degrees of confidence” is still an approach dictated by the desire to see the fallibility of the world as a problem which knowledge can answer (even if sorta), rather than as a truth that shows knowledge is not the only relation we have to the world, others, and ourselves. That, for example, the criteria for a self are different than we create, desire.

There is no discernible fact in me. "I" cannot perceive it. Yet, this stops short of a different issue, whether it (the self, or me or I) exists or not. It could be a "fiction" of convenience, or it could be a real natural phenomenon, which need not introduce dualism. — Manuel

The point is that there is nothing that rises to the level of factual certainty on which to base the self, but that we (might) find ourselves in the position where the only way to bridge a rift between us is for me to continue to try, to respond, rather than simply in succeeding or failing in “matching” the fantasy of a fact of (existence of) my “perception” or “experience” with yours. These are not “natural phenomena”, as vision and awareness and focus are, nor are they our ordinary criteria for judging. We both look at a tree and are aware of different things than each other, but I see it as a beautiful image, or as good firewood, and you see it as needing water. These are not individualized experiences or perceptions, but they may clash, though not as a matter of an internal something (even if not “perceived”). Our differences are be personal, matter to “me”, which may require me breaking with the judgments of our society, even reshaping the criteria or ordinary working of that judgment, but this is not a “‘fiction’ of convenience”.

I have the feeling that either we are in agreement, or I fail to see the problem you see. Which, if is the case, is all well and good. And if not, that's good too. — Manuel

Bit a this, bit of that; but I do feel I’ve been given ample opportunity to present my case, and have learned more in hearing your input, so thank you.

Thinking about other minds in line with self perception sounds like a great idea. But as you say, it is impossible to see in the other minds internally. Only way we could know them is by facial expressions, language and behaviour. Maybe "knowing" other minds should be restricted to "guessing"? — Corvus

I said that we imagine that. It might help to reread that paragraph in that light. It is not set up that we can’t “know” your “mind” “internally”, nor is it a matter that judgment is based on their expression (“behavior”) alone, but judged on the criteria of the activity happening in a particular context. And the self is differentiated not by a constant thing like “our perception” (which I have explained why we construct it this way, at least elsewhere here). As I have said, we don’t “know” the other (or don’t because there is something in them we could, but can’t), we “react” to their expression, as you don’t have a “self” by default, but in your differentiation (or defense of) the natural conformity to our culture.

I feel all those perceiving words prove the perceivers' self knowledge logically.  You see, perceive, know, look, imagine, experience, hear ... but whose perceptions are they if not the person who perceives, knows, looks, imagines, experiences and hears?

Imagining, hearing, vision, our self-awareness, mental dialogue, are all just part of being human, there does need to be a “self”. Everyone has these capabilities (except the notable exceptions). Our awareness of our internal dialogue is not demonstration (proof) of anything, because it is our culture (influenced by philosophy) who put together this picture for a specific reason (which I have discussed). Now, this isn’t to ignore the personal, my interests, which I demonstrate in standing up for me in relation to our cultural criteria for judgment, expectations, etc. for each situation or activity. This is reflected in the texts I have provided.
— Corvus

When Descartes said Cogito Ergo sum, I am sure it wasn't epistemological or ontological, but a logical reasoning. A logical reasoning that he thinks, therefore he exists. The thinking must have the thinker, who thinks, therefore the thinker must exist. — Corvus

This is a misconception of how thinking is judged and is recognized. “Nice thinking” as problem solving, “I am thinking I need to fight for this” which is a resolve to defy expectations. You are categorizing “think” as our self-awareness, our internal monologue, but these are just like everyone else. Descartes does desire certainty, which is why we project a requirement that this be rationally justifying or proving the conclusion that he wanted before it began (thus why we see it as logical), but he is still honest enough to recognize that the self does not work as a constant, thus the “when” of it. So we too are imposing that prerequisite which creates the picture polpularly taken from Descartes, which colors our interpretation of the workings of the self.

Imagine, you are told to come to the Health Centre for vaccination.  Your name, age, and all your details will be in the letter from the GP with the appointment time and date.  So you are heading to the place on the day for the time driving to the place.  Even that action is based on the self perception, that you are the one needing to go there, and get the vaccination. No one else.  So every action with motives and purposes are also embedded with self knowledge or perception.  In other words, the human consciousness is embedded with self perception. — Corvus

We don’t take into consideration, nor do others judge us, based on the presence of the human body’s self-reflection or internal monologue, etc; these are not the criteria for motive and purpose, which are activities just like resolve or a decision on a goal.

see[ing] that each thing has its own criteria. So “degrees of confidence” is still an approach dictated by the desire to see the fallibility of the world as a problem which knowledge can answer (even if sorta), rather than as a truth that shows knowledge is not the only relation we have to the world, others, and ourselves. — Antony Nickles

Now we are in deep waters: what would you say does not count as knowledge, which plays a role in our attempting to deal with or accept or deal with the issue of the self?

I have not thought about this deeply at this moment, but spontaneously, nothing comes to mind.

These are not “natural phenomena”, as vision and awareness and focus are, nor are they our ordinary criteria for judging. — Antony Nickles

How is this not natural?

These are not individualized experiences or perceptions, but they may clash, though not as a matter of an internal something (even if not “perceived”). Our differences are be personal, matter to “me”, which may require me breaking with the judgments of our society, even reshaping the criteria or ordinary working of that judgment, but this is not a “‘fiction’ of convenience”. — Antony Nickles

I agree that in the example provided, we can do away with the case of fictions of convenience. What's less clear is why are these differences not internal? What to me needs water, to you looks beautiful yet, it is by virtue of something internal that we recognize what we end up paying attention to.

I said that we imagine that. It might help to reread that paragraph in that light. It is not set up that we can’t “know” your “mind” “internally”, nor is it a matter that judgment is based on their expression (“behavior”) alone, but judged on the criteria of the activity happening in a particular context. And the self is differentiated not by a constant thing like “our perception” (which I have explained why we construct it this way, at least elsewhere here). As I have said, we don’t “know” the other (or don’t because there is something in them we could, but can’t), we “react” to their expression, as you don’t have a “self” by default, but in your differentiation (or defense of) the natural conformity to our culture. — Antony Nickles

I am not sure "Imagine" is the right word to describe what we do with other minds. Imagination sounds like free mind play on the mental objects when you don't have the physical object to perceive in front of you.

You imagine a beach in Brazil, when you are not in the beach of Brazil, somewhere in Europe in the winter months, when the weather gets horrible, rainy and windy. You imagine being somewhere on a Brazilian beach under the sunshine, lying down and drinking cold beer looking at the sea.

You don't imagine your friend's mind when she is sitting in front of you, talking to you in real life. You guess what she might be wanting for lunch, or what she might be wanting to do after dinner. Imagine doesn't have any reasoning or thinking involved, because it implies more free acts of the visual or auditory ideas in the mind.

Guessing is more mental activity which involves thinking and reasoning trying to find the hidden or underlying truths, answers, facts or contents.

This is a misconception of how thinking is judged and is recognized. “Nice thinking” as problem solving, “I am thinking I need to fight for this” which is a resolve to defy expectations. You are categorizing “think” as our self-awareness, our internal monologue, but these are just like everyone else. Descartes does desire certainty, which is why we project a requirement that this be rationally justifying or proving the conclusion that he wanted before it began (thus why we see it as logical), but he is still honest enough to recognize that the self does not work as a constant, thus the “when” of it. So we too are imposing that prerequisite which creates the picture polpularly taken from Descartes, which colors our interpretation of the workings of the self. — Antony Nickles

I don't quite understand this passage, what it is trying to say. Could you maybe reiterate just the main point only in the paragraph? Thanks.

We don’t take into consideration, nor do others judge us, based on the presence of the human body’s self-reflection or internal monologue, etc; these are not the criteria for motive and purpose, which are activities just like resolve or a decision on a goal. — Antony Nickles

Again, not sure what this quote is trying to say.

@Janus @Corvus @frank @Manuel

You have put your finger on the pulse of the matter. Consider how a physicalist's reality falls apart instantly, for if experience yields to a physical reduction, then the saying that something is physical is also duly reduced! — Astrophel

Well I was starting to think I was (ironically) alone in the universe.

the historical narrative that runs through all possible discussion and defines the "potentiality of possibilities" as Heidegger put it, for each. — Astrophel

And this I take as what Emerson is referring to as conformity, and Wittgenstein labels “grammar”(the ordinary criteria for judgment), and what Rousseau is calling the social contract, the general will.

Narratives are open hermeneutically, but then, IN this openness we have to deal with the givenness of the world that is not language and culture, like this sprained ankle I have and its pain, or the palpable encounter (as Michel Henry puts it) of living and experiencing. Language encounters what is not language IN the context of its own contingency.” — Astrophel

And of course, as there are similarities, there are divergences (though more interesting ones because sensible in being closer). In its openness to “interpretation”, I think it is important to note there is a “when” this happens (as not all the time), and forms, structures, “grammar”, rules, morals, etc. (what I take you to mean by “IN the context of its own contingency), in or from which a divergence is only even possible. However, each thing with its own structure, measures, considerations. Thus “the giveness of the world that is not language and culture” only enters into some situations, and those do not involve my interpretation (as science’s results are the same for anyone following its method), nor always my experience (neither the opportunity for it nor because I am always “experiencing”).

And so, the criteria and circumstances of the life of the self (which may not, or not continually, happen), work and are measured in totally different ways (as pain is important to us in my response to you being in pain). This is not in my interpretation of culture (though that is a thing), but in my relation to it: pushing against it, bringing it alive again (as it can be dead also). Thus the importance of this instant (go now! Emerson seems to say), and the “power” Rousseau claims it takes, to claim my self (my future responsiveness) as authority, for example, over what we are to call “right”, how to measure the (common) “good” (as Plato could not with knowledge, as Kant could not with logic).

This is where Wittgenstein feared to go, this "world" of impossible presence. Levinas was not so afraid, for he rightly understood that this radical other and Other of the world is the intrusion of a palpable metaphysics, not merely a senseless abstract idea. — Astrophel

I take it Wittgenstein is the one thought to be only describing “a senseless abstract idea”, which is the common misunderstanding that he is concerned with language, and not that he is looking at it—specifically: what we say, when… —as his method of understanding the world (and our interests in it, what is essential about it).

Nevertheless, the “radicalness” I claim as our self’s stance to the conformity to our culture (what Wittgenstein will see as the criteria for judging each different thing, the current possibilities of its “senses”, as in: versions). Some take Wittgenstein as defending common sense, or solving skepticism, but this misses his discussion of the extension of our concepts, the seeing aspects of a thing (as it were) with a force against the norm. Though not a “metaphysical” me, but constitutive of me (a new constitution); not a “presence” of the world, as if a quality, like an imposed “reality”. Derrida and Marx thought tearing down the ordinary would was necessary to reveal a new relation to the world. Nietszche says that our morals needed to be made alive again, or reconsidered, by a new human, a me in a new defining position to the world.

Phenomenology is the final resting place of philosophical inquiry, where it doesn't so much rest as invites one to yield (Heidegger's version of gelassenheit) one's egoistic totality in order to attend to what is there for meditative thought. What is revealed is not a finished matter at all. Quite the opposite. — Astrophel

I’ve read “What is called Thinking?”, in which I take Heidegger as examining that thinking is not the violent imposing of a set requirement (the “egoistic” idea of trapping the world in a word), but being drawn into, passively submitting (as you say, “yielding”) to, what he says “calls” to us about a thing, which I take as the difference Wittgenstein makes between explanation and description, or looking at our ordinary criteria as evidence of what is attractive about a thing, it’s “possibilities”, as what is essential. And when you say this is not a “finished matter” I take it as to the future of a thing, but also to the ability of our extending our practices, our judgment, etc., and that this is the true realm of the human, that we take up and thus which defines us.

I thought I had a general idea of what you had in mind, this last post leaves me unsure:

As I understand it, one of the things you are trying to say, maybe the most important one is that philosophers often fall into a trap of trying to force or impose on the self a kind of structure - a "this-is-me" moment, which may not happen, because we are forcing certain demands made by our knowledge onto something which either fails to meet these demands or because we overlook all those other situations in which reason cannot attain what it seeks, the demand of finding this moment of "this is my self" being one way, among many, in which such an issue can arise and be discussed:

"And so, the criteria and circumstances of the life of the self (which may not, or not continually, happen), work and are measured in totally different ways..."

If I am anywhere near what you are trying to say, then yeah, the issue of self arises in many circumstances, most of these circumstances being quite foreign to the usual philosophical obsession with trying to articulate what this phenomenon is, through reason.

What's the problem then?

I am not sure "Imagine" is the right word to describe what we do with other minds. Imagination sounds like free mind play on the mental objects when you don't have the physical object to perceive in front of you. — Corvus

That wasn’t clear, sorry. I meant imagine as in fabricate; we fantasize that there is something to “know” about the other. That is the picture we create in order to have the universal timeless certain knowledge we want (“pure” “logical”, like math). Yes, we don’t imagine people’s thoughts, but also hypothesizing about someone only applies in certain situations (guessing at thoughts, is Wittgenstein’s example, as luck would have it). If someone expresses something we don’t guess and then are “right” (now we “know”), like their expression matches my “perception” of it (that’s not how understanding or misunderstanding works). If they are in pain, I don’t guess or know, I accept or deny them, I help them.

This is a misconception of how thinking is judged and is recognized. “Nice thinking” as problem solving, “I am thinking I need to fight for this” which is a resolve to defy expectations. You are categorizing “think” as our self-awareness, our internal monologue, but these are just like everyone else. Descartes does desire certainty, which is why we project a requirement that this be rationally justifying or proving the conclusion that he wanted before it began (thus why we see it as logical), but he is still honest enough to recognize that the self does not work as a constant, thus the “when” of it. So we too are imposing that prerequisite which creates the picture polpularly taken from Descartes, which colors our interpretation of the workings of the self.
— Antony Nickles

I don't quite understand this passage, what it is trying to say. Could you maybe reiterate just the main point only in the paragraph? Thanks. — Corvus

This is hard to wrap one’s head around, particularly as I’m not that good at explaining it, but also because it is a radical refiguring of assumptions our whole culture has internalized, much less classic philosophy, which created the problem. Thinking does not work the way you (and classic philosophy) picture it, it is not judged as a mental activity. We manufacture looking at it this way because we want something certain, so we create a perpetual self that has and controls our constant individual “perceptions”—of “appearances” compared to an “objective” “reality”—or compared to someone else’s different “perceptions” that they have.

Now self-awareness and our internal dialogue are mine, but only like a secret, but they don’t lead to the picture of the self that philosophy created. Those things are just how humans are, a basis fact, no further conclusion to be had from it; it doesn’t mean or prove anything.

We don’t take into consideration, nor do others judge us, based on the presence of the human body’s self-reflection or internal monologue, etc; these are not the criteria for motive and purpose, which are activities just like resolve or a decision on a goal.
— Antony Nickles

Again, not sure what this quote is trying to say. — Corvus

Well I’ll just say that motive isn’t “internal”. The legal concept of mens rea (guilty mind) is not how we convict on 1st degree murder if the circumstances allow for only one reasonable explanation. We don’t infer whether they “meant to” or “intended to”. If they planned it, took steps beforehand, etc. there is no other criteria we use, or could, to judge—as we use other types of criteria to judge other things—but there is NOT a criteria that might ensure with certainty making it unnecessary that we be the judge**. And this is not the failure of knowledge, but why a juror must stand behind their decision (and why the law must absolve them). **The desire to avoid the responsibility of judging entirely is why people want something as certain as DNA, and why the success of science has cemented its standards in our culture for everything, creating this mistaken version of action and the self.

I thought I had a general idea of what you had in mind, this last post leaves me unsure: As I understand it, one of the things you are trying to say, maybe the most important one is that philosophers often fall into a trap of trying to force or impose on the self a kind of structure - a "this-is-me" moment, which may not happen, because we are forcing certain demands made by our knowledge onto something which either fails to meet these demands or because we overlook all those other situations in which reason cannot attain what it seeks, the demand of finding this moment of "this is my self" being one way, among many, in which such an issue can arise and be discussed — Manuel

No, that’s close. I think there is something you’re trying to wriggle free to keep, but I’m not sure I’ll land on it. Yes, doubt interpreted as radical skepticism creates a trap: the desire for something foundational (or the despair of any rationality), which is the demand that our knowledge do everything for us (or that there is nothing else). So we impose the standard of certainty, logic, purity, perfection (like math) on everything, beforehand, which causes us to overlook the diversity of our criteria for our many different activities, forcing us into a certain picture, among others, of the constant, causal self. But I wouldn’t say these are “situations in which reason cannot attain what it seeks”, as our various criteria express what is essential to us about things (their “essence”).

Nevertheless, knowledge can’t do everything and is not our only relation to the world; there is a truth to skepticism: that, yes, we are separate, but for no reason, and so everything that comes between us is our responsibility. (Cavell, Claim of Reason) We fail, make mistakes, will be wrong. What this means is that the self at times must go on from knowledge, and our various criteria for judgment. “This-is-me” in the sense of: making myself answerable for what will matter to me, what I will be the measure of, what I take as mine, as founding, constituting me in this situation.

then yeah, the issue of self arises in many circumstances, most of these circumstances being quite foreign to the usual philosophical obsession with trying to articulate what this phenomenon is, through reason. — Manuel

Well here I wouldn’t say these situations would be “foreign”, but are the meat of philosophy. What is right here? How do we continue when we are at a loss (morally)? how do I judge you? How shall we form a nation? The “usual philosophical obsession” is trying to know the unknown future; replace the need at times for us to extend beyond (or bring back to life) our morals, or rules, or knowledge. So I guess I just don’t know what sets what I am saying apart from trying to “articulate (through reason) what this phenomenon is”. What do we want, or need, to explain that we don’t think we can?

This is true, but I am claiming that there is a crucial, essential part of the self that is different than a claim to knowledge, though also related to the "historical dimension" of "language and culture"--what I am calling our "conformity". — Antony Nickles

Well, did you not just "say" this? There is no escaping this nature of language as an historically evolving and contingent phenomenon (and talk about such indeterminacy, Derrida brings it all to another level). It is not, of course, that that what you say about conformity and this essential part of the self is not true; it is no less true then, perhaps, some social theory of the self or evolution. I mean it has speculative merit. But out of context, it is not as if the world is speaking what it is outside of propositional possibilities.

This is also a very interesting point of comparison. My Husserl being basically non-existent, I looked through the "General Introduction of Pure Phenomenology" where he discusses the, as I read it, "effecting" of the self--his term: "Ego" (p. 273). I see a connection in that he takes an act "effecting" the ego as separate from an act that does not (analogous to conformity; when nothing unexpected is happening or we are not at a moral crisis). Of note for me, he also sees the assertion of the self as an event, not a constant (in our "self"); that its "existence" comes and goes, lives and dies he says. — Antony Nickles

Husserl's move is Cartesian and it is worth looking into because of the nwo Husserlians like Emanuel Levinas, Michel Henry, et al, and keeping in mind that Heidegger would not have been possible without Husserl. Anyway, you might find this interesting from the text you mentioned:

.....a new standpoint must be available which in spite of the switching off of this psycho-physical totality of nature leaves something over—the whole field of absolute consciousness. Thus, instead of living naively in experience (Erfahrung), and subjecting what we experience, transcendent nature, to theoretical inquiries, we perform the “phenomenological reduction”. In other words : instead of naïvely carrying out the acts proper to the nature-constituting consciousness with its transcendent theses and allowing ourselves to be led by motives that operate therein to still other transcendent theses, and so forth—we set all these theses “out of action”, we take no part in them ; we direct the glance of apprehension and theoretical inquiry to pure consciousness in its own absolute Being.

Yes, he really did say that. What he calls transcendent is the world of things "out there," essentially Descarte's world res extensa-- things that are not me, and so epistemically transcend my reach. His priority cannot be the transcendent natural world, for this cup, this fence post, and so on, are themselves only accessed through what it is that connects one to these things. The self? It is the stream of consciousness that is intuitively and irreducibly there. This is the foundation for any knowledge claim at all.

And he goes on about his "intentionality" of connectivity. Most analytic philosophers have little patience for this line of thinking mostly because they are fed up with any hint of Kantian thinking.

Ego 'lives' exclusively in a new cogito. The earlier cogito 'fades away,' sinks into 'darkness'.... the Ego does not live in them as an “effecting subject.” With that the concept of act is extended in a determined and quite indispensable sense. ...the act-effectings make up the “position-takings” in the widest sense... [those] of negation or affirmation with respect to existential claims or the like would belong here.
— Id.

Although Husserl is elsewhere stuck in the picture of us as an internal constant and cause (my intending etc.)--which I hope we can avoid getting mired in--I take him here to be touching on the self as "affirmed" in "taking" a "position", which I take as analogous to a position in relation to society's judgments and criteria. — Antony Nickles

Well, it is the phenomenological method. Sounds like his Phenomeology of the Consciousness of Time. The value of this kind of thinking is, for me, critical for an understanding of the world. This method takes inquiry to subjective time where presuppositions of time are examined, that is, at the actual genesis of the moment's content which is laid out fully in Fink's Sixth Meditation. This thinking takes the self at its generative beginning, The self here "is the transcendental existence [Existenz] of the egological stream of life in the full concreteness of its living present. Again, the first thing that can be laid hold of in this concreteness is the flowing life of experience in its flowing present actuality." (Fink p.6)

I think the analytical direction of this is right. It is not the kind of thing Anglo American philosophy likes to think about, much to its detriment, for all claims must begin with the source if it is going to be responsible to philosophy (which is really the point, this inquiring at the most basic level).

Also note the image of "fades away", which is similar to Descartes slipping back into the "law of custom" and Rousseau's picture of silence as consent to the general will. This seems to match up with Husserl's "non-effecting" acts. — Antony Nickles

Non effecting acts? I think Husserl is here referring to hyletic data, the actual perceptual experience of the pure intuition. Kenneth Williford puts it llike this:

These data are “immanent” in consciousness; they survive the phenomenological reduction. They
partly ground the intuitive or “in-the-flesh” aspect of perception, and they have a
determinacy of character that we do not create but can only discover

Do not create, that is, "effect".

But this is a passing attempt to make a connection (I have more to read of his); I leave it to you to see if there is a ball to pick up in this regard. Thank you for widening the discussion. — Antony Nickles

And thank you for that Rousseau connection. I will look into this.

Phenomenology rules!

Curiously, something as murky as the self, is crucial for things like criminal law, which depend on such notions. Also, our moral intuitions come into play, in terms of, if John hit Bob, if John is provably sleepwalking, we can't blame him for such an act. But if he merely angry, then we do penalize him, etc. — Manuel

I didn’t notice this before but I went briefly through the example of legal culpability at the end off here.

It has always seemed to me that when talking about the self, it is important to get clear about the difference between the subject, or that which is experiencing, and the content of experience. A story one tells oneself about oneself, or any conception or representation of oneself one might have, is not the subject, but rather content. It is a structure of thought, not the one that experiences having a thought.

What Descartes was saying, in my understanding, was that whatever I am thinking can be false, but I myself cannot be nonexistent and yet believe that I am. Whatever story I tell myself or that appears in my mind can be erroneous. Its claims might not correspond to reality. But I myself, the thinker itself, that which experiences having such possibly erroneous thoughts, cannot be an illusion. Everything I see might be a hallucination, including my own reflection in the mirror, but I myself, the subject, cannot be an illusion. Even if I am deceived, I am having an experience, and so I am. I might be wrong about my form, but I as long as there is experience, however false, there is an experiencer. It is inconceivable that a nonexistent entity might be fooled in any way whatsoever, and that includes being misled to believe that it exists.

A stage magician can lead an audience to believe all sorts of false things. But one thing the magician cannot do is convince a nonexistent audience that it is there watching the show.

So there are two things that people seem to be talking about when talking about the self. Communication often fails because people think they are talking about the same thing when they are not. One is the subject of experience. The other is some kind of structure of self-representation, or a form of experience. One is awareness, the other is content. One is seer, one is scene/seen. It is important to make clear what we are bringing into question then when we question the self. Is it the subject itself, or the self-idea? — petrichor

But the issue that moves further on from this is, why "I think"? Why not I believe, I feel, I care, I sense, and so on? And then there is the issue of thinking: Thinking is one thing, thinking about thinking is another. So when I am going about my usual business, I am not aware that I am thinking when I do my taxes or plan for an event or wait for a bus. I am simply doing my taxes, planning and waiting. The "I" only steps in when one stands apart from activities and posits itself. There is no "I" doing taxes, only the doing of the taxes. The I exists when it becomes an object of thought. The point is that this I never really makes an appearance at all in the analysis of everyday affairs. And when one pulls away from these to posit the I, one is no longer identified with any of this about taxes or planning something.

The real question is that when one makes this move toward the I affirmation, is this an existential move, or is it just an ordinary change of attention? It can be taken as a dramatic move toward the Real, for one thereby steps out of any possible particular object relation, and into an object free state, for the I is not presented as an object at all. It is the "presence behind" the inquiry. If such a presence is Real, it is NOT a typical case in the natural order of relating. It is a step into metaphysics.