Hi Mapping the Medium,

Great reference, thanks for jumping in. I have not read that book that you mention, though I know a few things about the author's Literary Theory. As in, very few. I'll definitely check it out. Thanks! Judging by that quote that you shared, and just going on intuition, Bahktin's "prose" lacks a bit of the scientific language that you can find in papers from the natural sciences, which is something that I personally gravitate towards. And it sounds more like a "process philosophy" in Whitehead's sense, whereas I'm a realist, mine is a "thing philosophy".

@MrLiminal: I couldn't have said it better myself. It's exactly like that. It seems to be at that level of generality, or of universality, or of importance, or however you want to call it. But it's comparable to the Question of Being: "why is there something rather than nothing?" It's Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason, but applied to What There Is in the Question of Being. And this other question that I'm asking (yes, I'm delusional in that sense, I know) is comparable: "Why am I this and not something else?" But here's the fun part: that question can be asked by anyone. So, it's universal in that sense. Is it as universal as the Question of Being?... Maybe, maybe not. It depends. Hence, this discussion: it's just an odd thing to talk about. It just feels odd to begin with. And I have no idea why that is. I understand that the experience itself is not universally shared, as in, I'm aware that other people are not necessarily having this experience, or even could have this experience. I want to know why I have it myself, in my case, and what is causing it. Perhaps I should talk to a shrink, and I actually do, but I've found out that they're not very good at philosophy, they just kinda take a few courses here and there, maybe read a couple of philosophy books, but not much more than that. And I get it, philosophy is not their job, they're shrinks, they have a different profession. I've had much better dealings with phenomenologists, neuropsychologists, metascientists and metaphysicians in the Analytic tradition.

No problem Mr. Liminal, thanks for the comments! They keep the discussion on track. I think you're right, there's definitely an element of de-personalization here. As in, you feel as if you're not a person. Like, literally. That's what a de-personalization "feels like", to me. And, in this other experience that we were discussing, there's an element of de-personalization, but it falls in the "Something Else" category, sadly.

If I had to explain it in simpler terms, in simple English, I would say the following: think of the problem that I'm talking about in my first post in this Thread, as if it was a professional philosophical problem that people discuss at different Universities.

Hmmm... maybe. I'm not sure if I understood you correctly. My God, we're in the Deep End of the Ontology Room over here... Nice. Please don't take offense at that, I meant it like: "We've just jumped off the Deep End now, haven't we?".

Enough, back on track. Right, regarding "the experience that I am having". The question was, "is that experience something like a disconnect"? Let's start with that, before getting into the discussion about the reality of the external world. Let's just focus on the formal part here. Is it, formally, like a disconnect? Hmmm... Yes, I think you're right. It is indeed like a disconnect, because it's a mismatch of modalities: your are somehow "experiencing" (we'll get to that in a moment) two different modalities at the same time: contingency and necessity. It's as if you're aware that the "Facts of Life" are contingent, like, you got what you got, those are the cards you've been dealt, so now deal with it. But you see? As soon as you start to explain it (at least, that's what happens in my case, subjectively) they suddenly have this "wavey" oddness, eerie-like quality. I don't know, I'm just playing the harp at this point. So, let's sum this up: yes, it's a disconnect, as you said.
Next point: is it a disconnect between the reality that I'm experiencing and my sensory perceptions of it? I'm not entirely sure that those are the semantic choices that I would make. We would have to agree on some sort of basic, ontological definition of some of these terms. "Reality", for example. To me (and I may be wrong here) the word "Reality" has an external referent. What is the referent of the term "Reality"? A good candidate is "The Universe". Another good candidate is "The Laws of Physics, or whatever physicists actually study". So, unless we can define some of the terms that you're using (and I agree to use them), I'm afraid I can't answer this specific question that you have.
Last point: Am I experiencing my life from "outside" somehow? I guess you could say that, but it's not exactly that. I mean, it's not an "out-of-body experience" (I don't know what that even feels like, I've never left my own body, and I don't think that I even could, merely because I can't leave my own brain).

I know what you mean. Allow me to tell you an anecdote, it's relevant to your point. I was once taught that we should try to imagine what it would be like to explain the color of an orange to a blind person. Perhaps we could do so by saying that the very word, "orange", has multiple meanings, even though it's the same word. An orange (noun) is a fruit, and you can taste that fruit. It tastes like an orange. Well, -so the thought experiment goes-, explain to a blind person what it "feels like" to see an orange, which has a color (adjective) that is also called like the noun (orange). It would be an extremely abstract discussion, but ultimately, we have no way of knowing (well, not when I was taught this, anyway) if such abstract explanations actually enable this person, in a neuro-psychological way, to visually experience the color "orange" (think of it like in dreams, when you have visual sensations but you're not actually using your eyes).

Sorry, I derailed my own Thread. Ok, so, back on track, no, I cannot describe it any other way. I'm sorry. Perhaps if you ask me some other questions, I might.

Hi MrLiminal,

Great question, thanks for jumping in. In response to your question: what I meant to say in the passage that you quoted, is that I have a subjective "experience" (I'm not even sure if "experience" is the technical term here) for the phenomenon that I describe in that same quote. As in, that is how my "mind works", so to speak. To use a metaphor, I'm just "hardwired" like that, or at least that's how I would describe it in a non-literal way.

Does that make sense? I feel like I'm not being very collaborative. My apologies. I genuinely don't know how to tackle this problem, let alone solve it.