Some funky thoughts on the exteriority of the Other:

Suppose we had this plug in our necks we could slot something into which would cause our total experience to become like the record rather than being directed towards the world around us. And let's suppose we have some recording device where I can record a day in the life of me and put it into the machine for others to play back.

More or less treating the brain like a VCR-Recorder, or perhaps it could be streamed across UV rays to various brain-transponders which generate experience, somehow.

The ineluctability of the Self before the Other would remain because it would still only be myself experiencing these things. They may have originated from some kind of wild science fiction machine, but even as I change identities I'd remain in my ipseity, the cogito. — Moliere

Here is Bunge's take on that, and I happen to agree with him on this specific point: a brain transplant, by definition, is impossible. You can have someone else's kidney transplanted into your body. You cannot have someone's brain transplanted into your own body, even if the technology to do such a thing were to exist. Why not? Because if you receive someone else's brain, what has happened is that the other person's brain has received a body. You, on the other hand, exist wherever your brain exists. So, if you receive a brain transplant, what happens to you is that you have become disembodied. Someone else has occupied your body. You now only exist as a disembodied brain. If they put you into someone else's body, then you have received a new body. A brain transplant, therefore, is impossible by definition, even if the technology for it were to exist.

The exterior isn't experienced, but lies outside the self. Since there is no gap between world and self the difference cannot be accounted for by our world -- it comes from the impossibility of ever being the Other. — Moliere

As Bunge says: what is internal to my brain is external to yours, and what is internal to your brain is external to mine.

But what we can do is imagine and encounter -- the encounter is beyond proof, like having hands doesn't prove anything. — Moliere

Yes it does. It proves that solipsism is false, as Moore argued:

Here is one hand is an epistemological argument created by G. E. Moore in reaction against philosophical skepticism about the external world and in support of common sense.

The argument takes the following form:

• Here is one hand,
• And here is another.
• There are at least two external objects in the world.
• Therefore, an external world exists. — Wikipedia

I think of the face-to-face relation as more an encounter than a strict logical relationship -- it's a phenomenon when one is made certain of the existence of the Other and the impossibility of knowing them the way you know your own ipseity and world. — Moliere

Logic is just the formal science that studies the validity of arguments, nothing more. It's not "a thing in the world" in the same sense that this stone on the floor is.

All we have is language and charity, and the semi-mystical experience of being-with-others. — Moliere

Hmmm... I don't agree with this. We have a ton of things. We have science (episteme), we have opinion (doxa), we have reason (ratio), we have deductive reasoning, we have inductive reasoning, we have "abductive reasoning", as Peirce called it (it's really just inference-to-best-explanation), etc. We have a ton of things, in addition to language, charity, and the semi-mystical experiences of being-with-others.

Why? I'm curious to know your thoughts. — Arcane Sandwich

Well, there's two thoughts I have on Kant. One, I think he has a deep insight in his philosophy which is that the rational mind is more limited than what it might desire to know -- there are some things which are beyond us.

But there's a lot that comes along with his project that I reject like transcendental idealism, even of the one-world variety, mainly because I don't think the world makes as much sense as Kant seemed to believe. One Big Mind would make sense of a nature which is rationally ordered, but I don't see rational order in nature or the signs of some kind of purposive mind (to be fair Kant predates the wide acceptance of Darwinian biology which can explain some of this stuff).

What I like to keep about the thing-in-itself is that it's a purely negative concept which indicates some beyond that we must assume in order to make sense of the world but which will forever be outside of our mind's grasp -- almost by definition, meaning if terra-incognita somehow became cognizable due to brain-implants or whatever then this new part of the mind previously unexperienced would no longer be a thing-in-itself.

By definition it's unknowable, and the funny part that's hard to accept is that because causation is part of the categories it cannot be the case that the thing-in-itself is the cause of our representations. So it really just floats outside of all thought to take the place of things like the philosophical Ideas or God and the Soul and the Good.

It's an incredibly beautiful philosophy that I just can't bring myself to really believe in. The world appears much more jagged, and even if it were constructed it appears to move much more than Kant's epistemology seems to indicate -- there's not some eternal structure behind it all that provides a mental foundation to explain our rational abilities, but a loose web of guesses which hold together many of our bleiefsbeliefs meaningfully, but changes with time.

No, I would not. It's in-itself, sure, but it's not a thing in the technical sense. Human experience is not a res. Human experience is more like cogitans in that sense. I would say: there is a human (a res) that has human experiences (cogitans). In other words, we shouldn't think that the cogitans is purely "mental" or "rational", since it is also empirical — Arcane Sandwich

Cool.

I'm not sure I'd put human experience as an in-itself at all -- I'm not sure we really are our brains, or that there is something so solid about identity that we can treat it like an in-itself.

It's right around there that it becomes wildly interesting but speculative at the same time.

I'm not sure there even is a cogitans -- the brain-body bundle doesn't think much without having grown up in a supportive environment.

I really think of "mental" and "rational" as socially performed and taught rather than bound up in the structures of our brains.

Yes it does. It proves that solipsism is false, as Moore argued: — Arcane Sandwich

He argued it, but does he know that "here is one hand"?

What if he were dreaming? Would there be a hand there?

But there'd be no way to differentiate between the dream-hand or real-hand in dream-land. So we must conclude that Moore does not know, in the apodeictic sense of proof, that "here is a hand"; we must grant that he is able to refer to the hand in the first place by interpreting him and responding in kind. Without that collective enacting of language in the first place the hand couldn't be referred to -- he's assuming a great deal in thinking that referencing his hand is what proves solipsism to be false.

Here is Bunge's take on that, and I happen to agree with him on this specific point: a brain transplant, by definition, is impossible. You can have someone else's kidney transplanted into your body. You cannot have someone's brain transplanted into your own body, even if the technology to do such a thing were to exist. Why not? Because if you receive someone else's brain, what has happened is that the other person's brain has received a body. You, on the other hand, exist wherever your brain exists. So, if you receive a brain transplant, what happens to you is that you have become disembodied. Someone else has occupied your body. You now only exist as a disembodied brain. If they put you into someone else's body, then you have received a new body. A brain transplant, therefore, is impossible by definition, even if the technology for it were to exist. — Arcane Sandwich

So close and so far at the same time! :D

I tend to think that we are more than our brains -- we are our bodies, what we own, our relationships, commitments, legal rights all barely bundled together in a collective fiction we call "the self", which I think forms a dyad with the Other. In our original innocence the world is a playground which we can do with as we please, but the adult is the one who sees there's more to the world than the self and the world, and that the self requires others to exist at all (consider what happens to prisoners in solitary confinement, and feral children)

Brains seem an important part for human beings to be able to do all the things we tend to think of as a self or a mind -- but all unto themselves they're just a pile of dead cells. We can put them into computer chips to treat them like physical neural nets and train them, but for all that I don't think that the chips with neurons are a self at all.

Hmmm... I don't agree with this. We have a ton of things. We have science (episteme), we have opinion (doxa), we have reason (ratio), we have deductive reasoning, we have inductive reasoning, we have "abductive reasoning", as Peirce called it (it's really just inference-to-best-explanation), etc. We have a ton of things, in addition to language, charity, and the semi-mystical experiences of being-with-others. — Arcane Sandwich

For understanding the experience of others'?

Do you think it's possible to record the individual human experience? — Ayush Jain

My individual experience IS my body - this is the “cord” that there is to “re-cord” so to speak.

Talking about it is recording it. Thinking about thinking is an attempt to record thinking.

So yes, it’s not only possible, it’s what we do when we speak. Problem is, the recording quality sucks.

Well, there's two thoughts I have on Kant. One, I think he has a deep insight in his philosophy which is that the rational mind is more limited than what it might desire to know -- there are some things which are beyond us.

But there's a lot that comes along with his project that I reject like transcendental idealism, even of the one-world variety, mainly because I don't think the world makes as much sense as Kant seemed to believe. One Big Mind would make sense of a nature which is rationally ordered, but I don't see rational order in nature or the signs of some kind of purposive mind (to be fair Kant predates the wide acceptance of Darwinian biology which can explain some of this stuff). — Moliere

Kant also predates Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose Transcendentalism is far beyond anything that Kant could ever dream.

What I like to keep about the thing-in-itself is that it's a purely negative concept which indicates some beyond that we must assume in order to make sense of the world but which will forever be outside of our mind's grasp -- almost by definition, meaning if terra-incognita somehow became cognizable due to brain-implants or whatever then this new part of the mind previously unexperienced would no longer be a thing-in-itself. — Moliere

The way I see it, a Kantian thing-in-itself is just an Aristotelian substance, at the end of the day. An unknown Arisotelian substance, that's all he adds to it, that it's unknown. Well, I disagree with that skepticism (because that's what it is). I'm a realist in metaphysics, and I'm a realist in epistemology.

By definition it's unknowable — Moliere

Why do I have to accept that definition in the first place? Why does anyone have to accept that definition in the first place? It doesn't mean anything substantive to me. The mere speech act of definition, by itself, does not get to dictate the ultimate words (the "last words", if you will) in matters of ontology.

It's right around there that it becomes wildly interesting but speculative at the same time. — Moliere

I feel the same way about that, oddly enough. I think everyone does, in some sense, in some other topics.

I really think of "mental" and "rational" as socially performed and taught rather than bound up in the structures of our brains. — Moliere

Could you briefly make a case for that, so that I can "picture" it?

He argued it, but does he know that "here is one hand"? — Moliere

Yes, he does. That was his whole point. He does indeed know that.

What if he were dreaming? — Moliere

He knows how to distinguish dream from reality, in the same sense that you and I do.

Would there be a hand there? — Moliere

Would there be? It could be a hand in a dream, instead of a washing machine in a dream. A hand that is dreamed is as much of a hand as the hand that is real. Simpler: both of them are hands, even though one is real and the other one is not.

But there'd be no way to differentiate between the dream-hand or real-hand in dream-land. — Moliere

Who cares? You can differentiate them in reality, when you're awake. Everyone can do that.

For understanding the experience of others'? — Moliere

Yes, for that, and for other things as well. But here's the thing: is a person literally a thing, as in, a res? Descartes said "yes", we are thinking things (res cogitans)

I'm a realist in metaphysics, and I'm a realist in epistemology. — Arcane Sandwich

I'm a realist of some kind or other, though I have no clear idea of what that entails.

I'm certainly also a skeptic of some kind or other, even if merely by disposition alone.

Could you briefly make a case for that, so that I can "picture" it? — Arcane Sandwich

When I think about the various examples of extreme neglect of children and the effects that has on them it's apparent to me that we at least need others in order to get to a place where we can confidently say I have a sense of self.

The fish experiences the world, but does not experience itself experiencing the world like a self does (which, really, seems to me a third step removed -- there's the experience of the body knowing the body and the world and there's the synthesis which somehow allows us to meaningfully and truthfully say "I am")

The cogito is so significant not because it's point-like, but explosive: Once we have a sense of self there's so much already in play that solipsism is a clear impossibility.

Who cares? You can differentiate them in reality, when you're awake. Everyone can do that. — Arcane Sandwich

Right. It just takes more than me waving my hand in the air. Once I'm speaking to everyone in an audience there's no need for proof, and saying "here is a hand" proves nothing.

Yes, for that, and for other things as well. But here's the thing: is a person literally a thing, as in, a res? Descartes said "yes", we are thinking things (res cogitans) — Arcane Sandwich

I don't believe so, no. But I'm a materialist at the same time.

Hence the conundrum.

The cogito is so significant not because it's point-like, but explosive: Once we have a sense of self there's so much already in play that solipsism is a clear impossibility. — Moliere

Sounds like a smart thing to say. I'm not sure that I agree with it, but OK.

Right. It just takes more than me waving my hand in the air. Once I'm speaking to everyone in an audience there's no need for proof, and saying "here is a hand" proves nothing. — Moliere

But the point of Moore's argument is that he has two hands. Solipsism says that there is only one thing. If that's the case, then Moore would have to have just one hand. But he has two instead. So, it follows from this that solipsism is false. It's a rather simple case to make, but most people resist it for some unknown reason.

• Here is one hand,
• And here is another.
• There are at least two external objects in the world.
• Therefore, an external world exists. — Wikipedia

I don't believe so, no. But I'm a materialist at the same time. — Moliere

I'm a materialist as well. Through and through.

EDIT: My "core beliefs", if that's what they're called, are the following five:

1) Realism
2) Materialism
3) Atheism
4) Scientism
5) Literalism

I'm not so sure about the last one, though. It's the newest addition to my system. I might have to modify it a bit, in some ways.

Sounds like a smart thing to say. I'm not sure that I agree with it, but OK. — Arcane Sandwich

It's where my mind has been drifting in reading Sartre... slow going as always.

It's a transcendental argument so we can be suspicious about it immediately :D -- but I suspect Descartes' is too, in some fashion.

But the point of Moore's argument is that he has two hands. Solipsism says that there is only one thing. If that's the case, then Moore would have to have just one hand. But he has two instead. So, it follows from this that solipsism is false. It's a rather simple case to make, but most people resist it for some unknown reason. — Arcane Sandwich

I didn't until I read On Certainty.

I'm a materialist as well. Through and through. — Arcane Sandwich

Probably not through-and-through on my end, only it's what appears true to me.

But articulating it, and trying to do so without a notion of substance -- well, that's what I think about at night to go to sleep ;)

But articulating it, and trying to do so without a notion of substance -- well, that's what I think about at night to go to sleep ;) — Moliere

You can do what I do: just accept substances. It's like, you're not going to turn into a fascist just because you have a concept of substance in your personal philosophy.

EDIT: My "core beliefs", if that's what they're called, are the following five:

1) Realism
2) Materialism
3) Atheism
4) Scientism
5) Literalism

I'm not so sure about the last one, though. It's the newest addition to my system. I might have to modify it a bit, in some ways. — Arcane Sandwich

Cool.

I don't know 5, but it seems we do have some pretty significant differences with respect to 4, even without my knowing exactly the meaning -- just basing that on our conversation here.

2 I'm somewhat ambivalent on -- it's what I think, but it's not really important to me as a truth.

3 I'm solid on in terms of some gods, and fine with modifying it with respect to more metaphorical gods or things like epicurean gods or deist gods. While I'm an atheist I'm increasingly ambivalent towards gods that don't interact with the world.

You can do what I do: just accept substances. It's like, you're not going to turn into a fascist just because you have a concept of substance in your personal philosophy. — Arcane Sandwich

I just don't think it makes sense, truly. So I want to drop it for that reason.

You can do what I do: just accept substances. It's like, you're not going to turn into a fascist just because you have a concept of substance in your personal philosophy. — Arcane Sandwich


I just don't think it makes sense, truly. So I want to drop it for that reason. — Moliere

I can respect that. You disagree with substances on a conceptual level, because they have no methodological role to play in your ontology. In other words, you're a good ol' fashioned relationist. Not a co-relationist, just a relationist. Like Bruno Latour, for example.

Like Bruno Latour, for example. — Arcane Sandwich

Hrrrmm! Carlos Astrada and Bruno Latour -- I've heard the latter but never read.

But that adds two names that I ought investigate to help me articulate myself better. I'm not sure that I'm a relationist, but if that's the category that comes to mind through the conversation I ought investigate it

Also, should say, it's been a blast going back and forth. I find it hard to articulate my own positions a lot of the time and you helped me define some things I think about.

I'm not sure that I'm a relationist, but if that's the category that comes to mind through the conversation I ought investigate it — Moliere

Well, look at it from a methodological POV: if you have no substances in your ontology, what element is doing the work that the classical substances are supposed to do? The inference-to-best-explanation for that is "relations", though it could be "properties" instead (i.e., classical British Empiricism, like in Berkeley or Hume). It could instead be "events", it could instead be "processes" (like in Whitehead's process ontology). It could be "Being" and "Event", as in Badiou, etc. There's a lot to choose from, but "relations" seem like the most reasonable option here, if you discard classical substances.

Also, should say, it's been a blast going back and forth. I find it hard to articulate my own positions a lot of the time and you helped me define some things I think about. — Moliere

It's been a blast as well! :up:

I'd like to join in the mutual appreciations; I've got a deal of reading up to do, and things to think about, and thanks for that. I would have been a bit more forthcoming maybe, but I had a seizure on Boxing day and have been in hospital for tests and scans and then on anti fitting drugs and painkillers for a severe backache.
So I can say from immediate experience that I am not my brain, because my brain is going its own way and doing stuff that I definitely do not approve of, and my body likewise. But I am reading along more or less, and I'll just make a vague comment, somewhat related to this:

Would you say that human experience is a thing-in-itself?
— Moliere

No, I would not. It's in-itself, sure, but it's not a thing in the technical sense. Human experience is not a res. Human experience is more like cogitans in that sense. I would say: there is a human (a res) that has human experiences (cogitans). In other words, we shouldn't think that the cogitans is purely "mental" or "rational", since it is also empirical. — Arcane Sandwich

I find the term 'experience' too ambiguous for the job it has to do here, so I will substitute—

Would you say that human awareness is a thing-in-itself?

And my answer is an emphatic 'yes'. It is the thing in itself; the noumenon into which all phenomena fall. Awareness is like the black hole at the centre of the galaxy, it is the unexperienced source and destination of all experience. Thought cannot touch it, cannot grasp it cannot know it. The confusion of the mechanical process of thought with the silence that is aware of thought and everything else, Is I suspect, the heart of most philosophical difficulties.

So personal identity, then, is the confabulation thought creates in the attempt to stabilise itself as the narrative thread on which identity is built. In the superficial physical world, there are the facts of name, age, medical history, posting history, etc, etc, that is substantially true of a physical body and brain, but that is all merely phenomenal; of the thing in itself, of that which I am and you are, nothing whatsoever can be said.

So, does a stone have an identity? Mu!

I had a seizure on Boxing day and have been in hospital for tests and scans and then on anti fitting drugs and painkillers for a severe backache. — unenlightened

Sorry to hear that, I hope you are doing better now!

Would you say that human awareness is a thing-in-itself? — unenlightened

No, I would not. I would say that it is indeed in-itself, but it is not a thing, it is not a res. Awareness is a process, just like any other mental process. It is noumenical (a process-in-itself), without being a noumenon (a thing-in-itself).

Does that make sense?

I'd like to join in the mutual appreciations; I've got a deal of reading up to do, and things to think about, and thanks for that. I would have been a bit more forthcoming maybe, but I had a seizure on Boxing day and have been in hospital for tests and scans and then on anti fitting drugs and painkillers for a severe backache.
So I can say from immediate experience that I am not my brain, because my brain is going its own way and doing stuff that I definitely do not approve of, and my body likewise — unenlightened

No worries, and I hope you get to feeling better soon.

Also, silver lining, your example provides a good basis to think on the topic ;)

"I assure you I am neither my brain nor my body" makes a good deal of sense to me.

Would you say that human awareness is a thing-in-itself?

And my answer is an emphatic 'yes'. It is the thing in itself; the noumenon into which all phenomena fall. Awareness is like the black hole at the centre of the galaxy, it is the unexperienced source and destination of all experience. Thought cannot touch it, cannot grasp it cannot know it. The confusion of the mechanical process of thought with the silence that is aware of thought and everything else, Is I suspect, the heart of most philosophical difficulties. — unenlightened

So we cannot be aware of awareness.... at least insofar that awareness is thought?

Is there a non-thought awareness of awareness?

I'm thinking that if we answer "yes" to there being a non-thought awareness then that makes some sense of how we can say awareness is a thing-in-itself.

So personal identity, then, is the confabulation thought creates in the attempt to stabilise itself as the narrative thread on which identity is built. In the superficial physical world, there are the facts of name, age, medical history, posting history, etc, etc, that is substantially true of a physical body and brain, but that is all merely phenomenal; of the thing in itself, of that which I am and you are, nothing whatsoever can be said. — unenlightened

By golly I think we're beginning to converge. I found myself nodding along here.

Though the zen stuff is always outside of my comprehension -- I'm told that's the point, but that makes me even more confused. :D

No, I would not. I would say that it is indeed in-itself, but it is not a thing, it is not a res. Awareness is a process, just like any other mental process. It is noumenical (a process-in-itself), without being a noumenon (a thing-in-itself).

Does that make sense? — Arcane Sandwich

I'm tempted to go into the thinghood of the thing. oof. :D

Definitionally at least I think it's not the "thing" that the thing-in-itself emphasizes -- it's the outside-of-cognition that it emphasizes.

But the self is inside of cognition, and so can be considered a "thing" in the super-general sense Kant is getting at -- which is basically anything that can be named.

He bases his logic around the copula such that "X is Y" is the form of an assertion, and every assertion can be appended with an "I think X is Y", and the X is the name and the Y is a category.

So we cannot be aware of awareness.... at least insofar that awareness is thought?

Is there a non-thought awareness of awareness? — Moliere

I think (awareness is always aware of being aware).

I have basically stolen the notion from J. Krishnamurti, that thought is nothing much to do with awareness. If awareness is considered as 'presence' to the world, it surely becomes clear that thought is secondary, subsequent, and thus always operating on the past as memory. The awareness that can be put into thought and thought about is not awareness but thought.

I want to, or you want me to, talk about life— but talk is dead; thought is mechanical. And this is the hardest lesson for western philosophy and western culture by which I mean to include both Christianity and science (the twins). The heart of things cannot be touched by thought, cannot be understood by thought, and all that AI does is to expose how dead and mechanical we have become, that we mistake our lives for that endless talk that clouds it.

The space between heaven and Earth is like a bellows.
The shape changes but not the form;
The more it moves, the more it yields.
More words count less.
Hold fast to the centre. — Tao Te Ching: 5

How does one hold fast to that which always moves and yields? Hush. Do not say it, find out.

Now, if we actually are able to parameterize the experience, we might just be able to recreate and capture the human experience. Essentially, you will be able to step-in your past, re-experience those moments. We might just be able to time travel in the past, only to observe though.

Do you think this is possible? — Ayush Jain

It wouldn't be possible in reality. Maybe it could be recorded in films, and virtual reality settings, and one could try to replicate a certain experience of someone or yours, but it would still not be the lived experience of actual reality. The hard fact in reality is that no one can go back to the past.

I think (awareness is always aware of being aware).

I have basically stolen the notion from J. Krishnamurti, that thought is nothing much to do with awareness. If awareness is considered as 'presence' to the world, it surely becomes clear that thought is secondary, subsequent, and thus always operating on the past as memory. The awareness that can be put into thought and thought about is not awareness but thought.

I want to, or you want me to, talk about life— but talk is dead; thought is mechanical. And this is the hardest lesson for western philosophy and western culture by which I mean to include both Christianity and science (the twins). The heart of things cannot be touched by thought, cannot be understood by thought, and all that AI does is to expose how dead and mechanical we have become, that we mistake our lives for that endless talk that clouds it. — unenlightened

Yes!

or yes?
or yes.

I think I agree, though now I'm wondering if there's a difference between "I think I agree" and "I think (I agree)", but simultaneously seeing that as the wrong way to go about.

I'm going to jump to Sartre because thems the words I'm familiar with at the moment:

But it does sound a lot like Krishnamurti might agree with Sartre on consciousness: Sartre's unique contribution to the philosophy of consciousness is that it is always what it is not. Intentionality means that consciousness is never the thing it's directed to, but rather an awareness of the thing while not being the thing.

I would love to talk about life, but I've come to like talking about puzzles related to that love.

Sartre's unique contribution to the philosophy of consciousness is that it is always what it is not. — Moliere

You'd have to give some details to be sure, but it sounds from that as if Sartre is confusing identity with consciousness, and identity is very much the thought that conflates itself with consciousness. I quite like Sartre, but the suggestion that he might be aligned with Krishnamurti seems almost ludicrous. Sartre's still playing goodies and baddies, even if he asserts that he is making it up like everyone else.

I quite like Sartre, but the suggestion that he might be aligned with Krishnamurti seems almost ludicrous. Sartre's still playing goodies and baddies, even if he asserts that he is making it up like everyone else. — unenlightened

Thank you for saying so.

Sartre is definitely playing goodies and baddies. At least I'd say he's playing it like the other existentialists who have notions of authentic/inauthentic.

I'm coming back around to Sartre in so many ways that I thought would not be the case.

I'm probably confusing things with respect to Krishnamurti, too.

I'll attempt to give some details on his phil-o-consciousness after i re-read the section on temporality. today I'm just goofing off with the philosophy phriends ;) :)

phriends ;) :) — Moliere

lol

:D

It fits tho right? I like the idea of phriends, at least in philosophy -- peeps you like to hear from even though you know there's something different in your respective beliefs.

@unenlightened Has long been an excellent interlocutor for myself, for instance.

I'd say we're friends in the normal sense, and phriends in the philosophy sense.

It fits tho right? I like the idea of phriends, at least in philosophy -- peeps you like to hear from even though you know there's something different in your respective beliefs. — Moliere

But every human being is in that club, matey :death:
There is no human being that does not philosophize
Or at least that's what the curricula says that we have to say in the first class of Philosophy 101
And I take exception at that
Why would everyone philosophize?
Is Philosophy a disease?
Is it a Sin?
Is it "a Good Thing"?
Is it "a Bad Thing"?
Philosophy has many ugly qualities, and I say that objectively, because it is a fact.
And yes, I like controversial penultimate lines in my verses.

Until when?
Until every Meth-Lab Burns to Ashes.

Here is Bunge's take on that, and I happen to agree with him on this specific point: a brain transplant, by definition, is impossible. You can have someone else's kidney transplanted into your body. You cannot have someone's brain transplanted into your own body, even if the technology to do such a thing were to exist. Why not? Because if you receive someone else's brain, what has happened is that the other person's brain has received a body. You, on the other hand, exist wherever your brain exists. So, if you receive a brain transplant, what happens to you is that you have become disembodied. Someone else has occupied your body. You now only exist as a disembodied brain. If they put you into someone else's body, then you have received a new body. A brain transplant, therefore, is impossible by definition, even if the technology for it were to exist. — Arcane Sandwich

What if you do it slowly? Suppose that 1% of my brain is replaced with someone else's and I'm awake for the whole thing. And then another percent...At what point do I stop being me?

What if you do it slowly? Suppose that 1% of my brain is replaced with someone else's and I'm awake for the whole thing. And then another percent...At what point do I stop being me? — RogueAI

That's a brutal question, and it's more or less the same question that arises in the paradox of material constitution (i.e., the case of a piece of clay and the clay statue that it constitutes). But it's even worse when you ask it about a brain, because there is arguably an ontological difference between inorganic objects (such as a statue) and an organism (such as a human being). I have no answer to your question, it's an extremely tough thing to even think about.

That's a brutal question, and it's more or less the same question that arises in the paradox of material constitution (i.e., the case of a piece of clay and the clay statue that it constitutes). — Arcane Sandwich

I don't know. There are two "things" involved in the paradox (I'm using "thing" very loosely), the piece of clay and the clay statue. Are there two "things" in the brain replacement scenario? If my brain is slowly replaced while I'm conscious the whole time, do I "become" some other person at some point? (the way the lump "becomes" the statue) Or is there only just "me": me at the beginning of the process and me at the end.

Are there two "things" in the brain replacement scenario? — RogueAI

There is no brain/mind duality in that scenario, as if it were a duality between a res extensa (the brain) and a res cogitans (the mind), because the mind is not a thing (it's not a res), it's instead something that the brain does (the act of minding is a process that the brain undergoes, just as the act of digestion is a process that the gut undergoes, just as the act of walking is a process that the legs undergo).

But there are two brains in the hypothetical case of a brain transplant. In that sense, yes, there are two things. Does one of them turn into the other one, if we proceed with a small step-by-step replacement of cells, or even atoms? I have no idea what the answer to that question is, but I'm not sure that I would describe such an operation as a "brain transplant". When someone gets a kidney transplant, this doesn't occur partially, it occurs fully, one thing replaces another thing, one brain replaces another brain. It's not the step-by-step incremental replacement of one and the same brain by small incremental changes of its parts.

If my brain is slowly replaced while I'm conscious the whole time, do I "become" some other person at some point? — RogueAI

Here's the thing: this has actually happened already. Eventually, all of the cells of our bodies, even all of our atoms, get replaced by new ones. In that sense, we're like the Ship of Theseus. Your brain is not composed of the same atoms that it was composed when you were a child. It's an entirely different brain. So, are you still the same person? Or are you a different person? I think that you're still the same person, just as I am still the same person. If someone has Alzheimer, and they lose brain mass because of it, do they turn into a different person? I don't think so.

Or is there only just "me": me at the beginning of the process and me at the end. — RogueAI

I don't know, you tell me. I think it's still you.