Where is the self? How can dualism stand if it's just a fiction?

Oh, igm...you want so much to make my "I do not know the true nature of REALITY" to be a fault. Yo9u want to make it be a blind faith kind of thing.

Ain't gonna work.

You ought really to examine why you are so uncomfortable with someone telling the truth.

Stick with what I actually write, Frank. Quote it...and tell me if you find fault with it. We can discuss it.

Don't paraphrase me...because your biases make the paraphrasing biased.

You ought also to examine why my telling the truth bothers you so.

Your problem is that you don't appear to know 'why' you don't know the true nature of reality. I've ask you to explain but it appears you can't.

Normally such a stance can be explained e.g.

I know that I know nothing

However, in Apology, Plato relates that:

– This man, on one hand, believes that he knows something, while not knowing [anything]. On the other hand, I – equally ignorant – do not believe [that I know anything].

The impreciseness of the paraphrase of this as I know that I know nothing stems from the fact that the author is not saying that he does not know anything but means instead that one cannot know anything with absolute certainty but can feel confident about certain things.

Yes, Igm, this is what I meant, in my attempted justfication of Frank's sceptism, that he does not know what all men cannot know. It's of the same order as I do not know--in principle--what an ant can know in contradistinction to my not knowing in fact--but not in principle-- what a quantum physicist knows..

Well put!

C'mon, will ya!

Do you really want someone to explain why they do not know something they do not know.

I'd be willing to bet you do not know the name of the book that is sitting left most on the second shelf of the book across from my desk right now.

Would it really make sense for me to ask you to explain why you do not know that?

Why are you so troubled because I am willing to acknowledge that I do not know the true nature of REALITY?

Do y0u?

Same comment applies to you, JL.

Same comment applies to you, ci.

I have confidence that the true nature of reality is beyond elaboration and I have reasons for that confidence based on critical reasoning. I also have a reason why I explore whether it is justified to be confident in this respect because I've been told that if it is correct then the experience of this is unconditioned and that means happiness that does not depend on causes or conditions so therefore is immune to negative circumstances. So I have a reason to be confident in it and a reason why it matters that I should have confidence in it.

You Frank don't give any justification for your guess i.e. how you arrived at your particular stance via critical reasoning. Nor do you explain the benefits of holding such a view. So, is it just a 'stock' answer you've stumbled across and trot out when you get the chance to use it? Does your stance help you with your life?

That's fairly clear Frank. I do not know the name of the book on your bookshelf because it is not part of my reality, not within my senses. My reality is within my senses, in fact it is the result of the function of my senses. And that's all that it is.

Frank...igm...

...you are trying too hard.

All I am saying is that I do not know the true nature of REALITY.

If you want to think you do...or that you have reliable clues to what it is...or that you can make informed guesses about what it has to contain or what is cannot contain...

...do so.

I can't...and I strongly suspect you cannot either.

Of course you can also go with the other suggestion I've heard...that I am just saying what is obvious to everyone.

Why, oh why, does it have to be this way?

Frank's reality excludes his participation on a2k; it's a guess, and I don't know!

Because you are a part of reality and you claim to know with certainty you do not know...if so its true you are making a special pleading in the case of at least knowing you do not know...but it might be the case that you do know the nature of somethings in reality and simply are not certain of it...so that you do not know if you do not know but rather you BELIEVE you do not know ! So I ask how is that any different from us Frank ? Don't bypass an honest straight answer I am hoping you rise up to the occasion and enlighten us, so that we come to know why and how you "do not know" for sure !

Does the set of all sets who do not belong to themselves belongs to itself ?

Probably possible in a mental institution.

Just another in the list of contradictions, paradoxes and infinities that crop up in the apparent unending quest to discover the true nature of reality...

Yes and no

It may be that Frank's agnosticism is a stock answer useful for debate, i.e., a truth he thinks he can get away with . On the other hand, I have no need to ask him how he came to his conclusions about "knowledge" and "reality". His conclusions may have simply "come to him" as intutions, as most of mine have come to me.

I suggest that the political "me" which is evoked to claim "its intuitions" is very different to a "me" which has no alternative but to maintain its parochial self-integrity,