So specifically, I am searching for arguments, preferrably complete, even more preferrably in syllogistic form, for the belief that the self persists. Otherwise, I will remain in doubt, and in absence of any evidence of permanence, I will default to the position that it does not stay at all, and that we are constantly as always dying, as the comic posted in the first page depicts. — Lionino
If one gets into the mindset outlined, and if, for example, here tersely outlined, one chooses to understand space as distance-between identities and time as a duration-between a) causes produced by identities and b) their effects/consequences—further deeming that space and time when thus understood are logically inseparable—then, spatiotemporal continuity is part and parcel of there being coexistent identities (in the plural). No coexistent identities—as is said of Moksha or of Nirvana without remainder or, in the West, of the notion of “the One”—then, and only then, one would derive there being no spacetime. — javra
Here isn’t an issue of which came first or of which is more important but, rather, that coexistent identities logically necessitate spacetime (when understood as just outlined, and not necessarily in a physicalist sense) — javra
In parallel, if one as a conscious being experiences a new percept, one as the conscious being addressed will itself continue through time unchanged — javra
This instead of identity consisting of individualized quanta-of-identity that are perpetually obliterated and (re)created over the course of time. — javra
Did you have something else in mind other than the bifurcation of possibilities just specified? — javra
My affinities are with process philosophy, so to me it is a continuation of ontic being as regards both the ship and one’s consciousness. — javra
I’d cite the abundance of veridical near death experiences as evidence of the soul and an afterlife. — Captain Homicide
Anyway, it is here that Descartes (1) equivocates the meanings of substance (ouisia in the Aristotelean terminology) with the everyday sense of the term (a material with uniform properties) — Wayfarer
and the base of the identity is one's own memory of the past — Corvus
The only logical analogy I can come up with is that my soul had existed sometime in the past prior to my birth, and it encountered the places and situations in the images and people in my dreams. The only logical conclusion I could come up with is that all these contents of my imagination and dreams are my recollection of my past lives. If they are not, where else could they be from? — Corvus
Descartes is not confusing anything, he is using 'substance' in the metaphysical sense — Lionino
But comparing stones (or other such objects) with minds (res cogitans) seems to me a egregious equivocation of the idea of substance. — Wayfarer
whereas Descartes model has two fundamentally different kinds of substance that are supposed to interact, but Descartes himself was never able to say how, and it's never been clarified since. — Wayfarer
Not necessarily. One may only lose one's identity. Of course, this doesn't mean that one's objective identity is lost too. One only loses one's subjective identity with the loss of one's memory. The objective identity is intact as a fact whether one can recall who one is or not.So, to you, if someone loses their memory, they simply die and become another person? — Lionino
As Kant said, any claims made on the Soul, also the opposite is true.Are you actually saying that or this is some figurate speech I am not picking up on? — Lionino
Is it not the inverse? Going by the first quote, it seems that space and time arise from objects, so space and time would need objects and not the other way. I feel like this could be a semantic nitpick on the way you phrased the statement; if it is, ignore it. — Lionino
In parallel, if one as a conscious being experiences a new percept, one as the conscious being addressed will itself continue through time unchanged — javra
That is fair, but, ¿in this view of consciousness, when can we say it starts? And if we have a person as a five year old, is it the same consciousness as the same person 80 years later with advanced dementia (may it not happen)? — Lionino
Now, do you think that, if the nature of time is continuous (and time here would be not relative but an independent substance/dimension within which bodies exist), it would favour a process philosophy view of consciousness, and if it is discrete it would favour quanta-of-identity, or that there is no correlation? — Lionino
That is fair, but, ¿in this view of consciousness, when can we say it starts? — Lionino
The two necessitate each other at all times. — javra
Here, then, each different type of conscious being will have a different type of quality and magnitude of overall consciousness: hence the sperm's awareness of direction, for example, is of a different magnitude than the awareness of the embryo in utero, is of a different magnitude than the awareness of the birthed human being as a whole. — javra
As to the thread’s overall theme, were continuation of conscious being to occur subsequent to death—in this example, via reincarnations — javra
What definition of substance are you even using? — Lionino
Category mistake? — Corvus
I am trying to capture the meaning of ‘substance’ in philosophy as distinct from everyday use. — Wayfarer
Later, Husserl points to the same issue in his Crisis of the Western Sciences. Whilst he admires Descartes’ genius for recognising the ineliminable ground of being in the Cogito, and wrote whole books on Cartesian Meditations, he faults him for conceiving of res cogitans as an objective existent, on par with other existents - I seem to recall him saying Descartes made it ‘a little fag-end of the world’, which naturally makes it seem an epiphenomenon from the materialist perspective. Again it is a flaw of reification which was identified first by Kant, and later by phenomenology and existentialism, but to see that requires something like a gestalt shift, a change in perspective. — Wayfarer
I am mindful of the fact that ‘substance’, in philosophy, is derived from the Latin translation of Aristotle’s word, ‘ouisia’, which is a form of the verb ‘to be’. The meaning of the Greek verb ‘to be’ is very difficult to define (there’s an excellent academic paper that was introduced here some years ago about this, Charles Kahn, The Greek Verb ‘To Be’ and the Problem of Being’ which can be downloaded from here. Also see The Meaning of Ousia in Plato.)
The Latin translators then used ‘substantia’, ‘that which stands under’, as the translation of ousia, and from there it became ‘substance’ in English. But as I’ve said, the term is nowadays nearly always thought to refer to some kind of stuff or thing (which is the meaning of ‘reification’, namely, to turn an abstraction into a thing. The root of that word is ‘res-‘, the Latin term for thing or object, and the basis of Descartes’ ‘res cogitans’, literally, ‘thinking thing’.) — Wayfarer
The Latin translators then used ‘substantia’, ‘that which stands under’, as the translation of ousia, and from there it became ‘substance’ in English. — Wayfarer
The philosophical term ‘substance’ corresponds to the Greek ousia, which means ‘being’, transmitted via the Latin substantia, which means ‘something that stands under or grounds things’
Stanford claims that English "substance" matches Ancient Greek usía in meaning, — Lionino
Etymology. From Middle English substance, from Old French substance, from Latin substantia (“substance, essence”), from substāns, present active participle of substō (“exist”, literally “stand under”), from sub + stō (“stand”).
what reason do I have to believe in the maintenance of the self as opposed to its constant creation and subsequent destruction and replacement by another self? — Lionino
Now there is something that is interesting. Though it may seem a mistake to objectify the mind, as it is the mind that scans for objects, is it not valid when we talk about self-reflection, or rather, self-analysis? Descartes in his meditations talks about investigating what is this "thinking thing", which is him. Can the memories we have of our mind and/or experiences not be an object which will then be studied by the mind itself? Surely it is not the same thing as a physical body, like a stone, but we could argue that it could be seen as a thing that exists, hence why Descartes calls it a substance. — Lionino
Of course, Descartes himself had failed to understand the true significance of the cogito and misconstrued it as thinking substance (res cogitans), thus falling back into the old metaphysical habits, construing the ego as a “little tag-end of the world”, naturalising consciousness as just another region of the world, as indeed contemporary programmes in the philosophy of mind deliberately seek to do. ...
Descartes correctly recognised that I exist for myself and am always given to myself in a radically original way. I am a structure of egocogito-cogitatum. According to Husserl, as we have seen, Descartes’s mistaken metaphysical move was to think of this ego as a part of the natural world—as res cogitans, a thinking substance. I am not a part of the world...
In contrast to the outlook of naturalism, Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. For Husserl it is not that consciousness creates the world in any ontological sense—this would be a subjective idealism, itself a consequence of a certain naturalising tendency whereby consciousness is cause and the world its effect—but rather that the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness. The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. Treating consciousness as part of the world, reifying consciousness, is precisely to ignore consciousness’s foundational, disclosive role.
Can substance be further broken down into their constructive elements?Category mistake?
— Corvus
Not the case. Res cogitans and res extensa are two distinct things, yet they are both still substances. — Lionino
Via the Latin ‘substantia’, as SEP also says. — Wayfarer
I do not think you can expect any literary or musical talent from them (the captives from the wars in Britannia) — Cicero
And so, having reformed the army quite in the manner of a monarch, he (Hadrian) set out for Britain, and there he corrected many abuses and was the first to construct a wall, eighty miles in length, which was to separate the barbarians from the Romans. — Historia Augusta
nay, those over whom I rule are Britons, men that do not know how to till the soil or ply a trade, but are thoroughly versed in the art of war and hold all things in common, even children and wives, so that the latter possess the same dignity as the men. — Cassius Dio
The nations inhabiting the cold places and those of Europe are full of spirit but somewhat deficient in intelligence and skill, so that they continue comparatively free, but lacking in political organization and capacity to rule their neighbors. — Politics
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