The Philosophy of the Self.

You're not making any sense, JL. First you say that reality "has no existence until humans interpret it into existence" and then you sayd that "Reality pre-exists interpretation". Which is it?

Joe, human beings all share things in common, and we identify with them in various ways. In specific ways, we identify with socially constructed groups as having something in common socially - such as gender, age, class, political beliefs, etc - and on a more general level we associate with human beings as a whole as being another group that is separate from say, animals. And on an even more general level, we can associate with everything living as opposed to everything non-living. But this transcends altruism, so there's no point in bringing it in.

Joe,

I mean that at the time of acting "we are the Borg", but even the "we" is not conscious.

JLN,

You are perfectly clear to me!

Have you found that interesting stuff on the Chalmers website yet ? (You might like this http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/conceivability.html

twyvel,

To paraphrase our friend W, we are perhaps trapped like flies in a bottle on "existence". HE would say how do we normally use the word "existence" and the answer would have something to do with "reality" and "context". The problem here is that we have suspended both of the latter so we perhaps need a neologism to describe an instantaneous "happening" of observer-observed...a "bigbanging" maybe,
or to add a veneer of culture a "grandfrappement"

Which came first the object or the subject?

Infrablue

"First" is undefined as time is a psychological construct.

"this I is not intimate with itself through and through, does not shine through so to speak, but is opaque, and therefore remains a riddle to itself."

That statement is backed up by what Nagel says about the irreducibility to object of the subject, and in another way, by Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, which can be roughly translatable as, "Self-referentiality is impossible in closed systems."

M.C. Escher's illustration, "Prentententoonstelling," helps me understand these abstract concepts a bit better.



A young man standing in a gallery, looking at a picture of a ship in the harbor of a Maltese town which also features a woman looking out a window of an apartment above a gallery in which a young man is standing, looking at a picture of a ship . . .

Does that include Einsteinian time (i.e. space-time)?

Perhaps fresco can explain how up is down in JL's post? I don't care how smart you think you are, contradictions never make sense. No one's saying that reality is meaningful, just that it exists. You all seem to have such a hard time with this concept.

fresco,
please disregard my subsequent question. I wrote the first question, "which came first" before you responded to twyvel. Thanks

Infrablue,

"Pretententoonstelling" is even better than "Grandfrappement" !

Wake up rufio,

We're into Russell's paradox here. Ordinary logic doesn't apply. See Infrablue's comments on Godel and Nagel. You are confusing meaning with "logicality". For example in the "trivial" one liner "The only truth is that there is no truth" you can deny meaning if you wish, but most would see such a stance as being argumentative for its own sake.

truth
Wow, I havn't been getting updates. I am way behind here.
Rufio, you seem to misunderstand me deliberately. You have misinterpreted my statements, but I'm going to let you figure it out. Now Twyvel's criticism is very much to the point. I too believe that the observer and observed are one, i.e.,the Hindu statement: "Tat tvam asi" , (thou art that) is for me axiomatic. I AM my perceptions (this means, Infrablue, that the object and the subject are two sides of the same coin; they emerge simultaneously). But I also find it difficult to take the extreme idealist position of assuming that the universe is non-existent until I furnish it with perceived "things." I do recognize that I and the universe are one, and this includes all that I do not perceive (I, the perceiver, am one with the perceived, but also with all that goes unperceived), sort of like the top of my head.
Twyvel, agreed, "no 'observing' no THINGS". The formless unperceived "empty" world exists (to me sunyatta means formless, not absent), but the "THINGS" do not exist until conceived/perceived, since only then do these bundles of meaning come into the phenomenal world--by definition. Your critique of "existence precedes essence" has me re-thinking.

The limitations of our sensory and emotional apparatuses (the veil of Maya), deceive us into thinking that anything differs from an underlying unitary truth.

BTW: Schopenhauer's use of the knower and known has been used by both Catholics and Buddhists for over 20 centuries.

The Blessed Trinity is a symbol in traditional western religious philosophy. The number three has for ages been a mystical number in many cultures.

The Blessed Trinity consists of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit The Father is symbolic of or the personification of the Ultimate Divine. For the Father to be known there must be a Knower, God can only be known by God, therefore the second Person of the Blessed Trinity is the Knower, the Son. When there is a knower and known there is a relationship between the two, and this is the Holy Spirit.

If one looks to the ancient holy language of Sanskrit, there are similar features there as in the Blessed Trinity, viz., as sat-chit-ananda, where sat means being, chit means consciousness, and ananda is rapture or bliss, and you have the same relationship.

It appears to be a universal method of grappling with Maya, just like Siddartha did.


nice to see you again fresco. hope all is well.

JL. Thank God! A word that I understand: WOW!

Anyone on this thread have children?

Greetings Kuvasz !

Some of us have indeed explored the trinity/ law of three etc on another thread so you must be picking up the vibes. Its relevance here is of course as a model for the transcendence of duality.

(As a matter of interest would you say that this "intellectual slant" on the trinity is what keeps intellectuals per se within the faith?)

Hang on letty, the view is better from up here !

It depends on whether one is looking down or up, Fresco.

I'm watching, listening here too. (Ah, sorry to interrupt.)

I had a course in logic and one in theology forty years ago and am no match for any of you and follow with nails clinging to a shiny surfaced wall.

JL's most recent post makes ephemeral sense to me.
Exposing perhaps a faulty susceptiblilty to appearances, I do feel that the well developed existence (ah, so called) of a universe before any of us are here now to discuss it is a patently obvious matter. Uh, matter.

I would like to hear more about why this might not be first.
Are y'all eliminating time as a factor?

Okay, okay, I said I'se ignerent.

Not to throw you all off your discourse, perhaps someone could address this (perhaps again, I don't always follow the reasoning) as an aside.