Who are you? What makes you "you"?

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

I know absolutely whether I’m a p-zombie or not, which is the starting point.

No, you don’t. You cannot know if you are a physical being, or a member of the Matrix (or another brain in a vat ).

I can know through justifiable answers if not through strict demonstration, first that I am not a zombie and second that I am physical. I don’t buy into Cartesian skepticism and its impact on philosophy after it, because for you the starting assumption, if this is what you really wish to do, is that the objects of our thoughts are thoughts and nothing more (and funnily enough end up with you necessarily having to deny that there are any thoughts at all, or on the flip side denying that we know anything else) . That is not a starting premise I need agree with.

I’d be interested in your epistemology first, given that my entire argument in this thread back to my first or second post is that the materialist lacks one that involves any knowing.

Edit: I need to break from the topic and focus on some work that’s come up.

 

[IWantGod]

‘self evident’ is just another way of saying ‘well, it’s obvious isn’t it?

Self evident means it cannot be denied without removing something intrinsic to the act of knowing. For example it is self evident to me that i exist. That cannot be denied. That you are having a qualitative experience, that cannot be denied. It cannot be an illusion because even illusions pertain to the reality of something without which an illusion would be meaningless or incomprehensible to us. In other words it’s only because we truly experience the act of thinking that it is comprehensible to us that there could possibly be such a thing as an illusion of thought.

That’s why it’s ridiculous to ask somebody to question the fact that we are having a qualitative experience, because if we wasn’t we would have no comprehension of this conversation, which is by the way unquestionably goal directed.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

‘self evident’ is just another way of saying ‘well, it’s obvious isn’t it?

Self evident means it cannot be denied without removing something intrinsic to the act of knowing. For example it is self evident that i exist. That cannot be denied. That you are having a qualitative experience, that cannot be denied. It cannot be an illusion because even illusions pertain to the reality of something without which an illusion would be meaningless or incomprehensible to us. In other words it’s only because we truly experience the act of thinking that it is comprehensible to us that there could possibly be such a thing as an illusion of thought.

That’s why it’s ridiculous to ask somebody to question the fact that we are having a qualitative experience, because if we wasn’t we would have no comprehension of this conversation, which is by the way unquestionably goal directed.

It’s self evident that ‘you’ are in charge of ‘you’. But that is obviously incorrect. There is a conscious you and a subconscious you. And the one that you are not aware of controls most of what you do. Without you knowing about it. With mostly zero (name removed by moderator)ut.

I’m saying it controls a lot more that you think. That’s the only difference here. How much work the elephant is doing and how much the rider does.

 

[Thinker_Doer]

I guess, it is time to take a deep breath and slow down a little.

Now that is an interesting discussion, and my issue is that the materialist has no proper answer to this at all, as knowing is impossible in such a system.

I’d be interested in your epistemology first, given that my entire argument in this thread back to my first or second post is that the materialist lacks one that involves any knowing.

Let’s not get into this “I asked first” type of evasion. So I am going to answer you. But we need to come to SOME agreement about the basic principles.

So, let’s start with “knowing”. “Knowing” is information about something. In what kind of environment is that information stored, how it is obtained, and what kind of encoding is used is irrelevant. If the information is congruent with the object, then we speak of “knowing” and / or “understanding”. Is that acceptable? I am not going ahead until we can agree. If you disagree, I expect a constructive answer, and an alternative suggestion.

Now just a generic dismissal, like " knowing is impossible in such a system".

 

[IWantGod]

That’s the only difference here. How much work the elephant is doing and how much the rider does.

But there is no point talking about an elephant if there is no rider with a real intention to ride. I don’t think it would be meaningful to say that we were riding at all.

 

[PetraG]

Do you mean am I “me” to myself or am I “me” to those who feel they have known me?
I was talking to some identical twins not long ago, and they said that after living in separate towns for several years, they had to get to know each other all over again. We have this internal feeling that we are an unbroken line of self, but to others we can come to seem someone different.

I don’t think it is a matter of memories. I think identity is self-referential, moment-to-moment. If I lost all my memories, I wouldn’t lose my sense that I am the person I refer to when I talk about “myself.” I also don’t think that my sense of myself is actually myself. We all know we’ve had senses of ourselves that were totally different from reality–that is, we have been oblivious to some degree about what our personal state was. So–I would say that my eternal soul is the indispensible part of me that defines where “myself” is, if I were blown into a million pieces. God knows that person, that self, in her complete truth, whether I am asleep or aware or oblivious or in a moment of clarity. Sometimes I do know something of myself, but I’m sure I’m deceived about myself in some way, too, because I keep gaining insight into the ways I have been oblivious.

Has anyone here seen “Being John Malkovich”? I haven’t, but I’ve heard about the plot. That would seem to be apropos from a science fiction angle. Is the plot in keeping with your view of what a “self” is?

 

[Wesrock]

I guess, it is time to take a deep breath and slow down a little.

Wesrock:

Now that is an interesting discussion, and my issue is that the materialist has no proper answer to this at all, as knowing is impossible in such a system.

I’d be interested in your epistemology first, given that my entire argument in this thread back to my first or second post is that the materialist lacks one that involves any knowing.

Let’s not get into this “I asked first” type of evasion. So I am going to answer you. But we need to come to SOME agreement about the basic principles.

Thank you. I hate playing that game. However, I find myself too frequently on the opposite side where I “effort post” for hours after much consideration and the skeptic just keeps through unsubstantial skepticism without any alternative. And I tire of it. I’ll endeavor not to do that to you. Thank you again for actually participating.

So, let’s start with “knowing”. “Knowing” is information about something. In what kind of environment is that information stored, how it is obtained, and what kind of encoding is used is irrelevant. If the information is congruent with the object, then we speak of “knowing” and / or “understanding”. Is that acceptable? I am not going ahead until we can agree. If you disagree, I expect a constructive answer, and an alternative suggestion.

I find that acceptable as a starting point. However, how we obtain knowledge is a crucial part of epistemology. We don’t need to pre-define how we obtain it, but that is relevant.

But as a starting point, “in knowing the knower has information congruent with the object known” is acceptable.

Now just a generic dismissal, like " knowing is impossible in such a system".

If we’re really having this discussion, then it’s my intent to be more specific about where I believe the issues are.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

That’s the only difference here. How much work the elephant is doing and how much the rider does.

But there is no point talking about an elephant if there is no rider with a real intention to ride. I don’t think it would be meaningful to say that we were riding at all.

The rider is aware of what’s happening. He is the one having the qualitive experience. He thinks he’s in charge. He is sure he has some control. The elephant appears to him to be heading in pretty much the direction he wants. He feels that he has intent. He feels like he has a free choice as to where he’s headed.

If you were the rider then you’d feel entirely happy with the situation. As you are.

But if you are in some computer game? Doesn’t matter. The experiences you have are exactly the same as if it were real so to all intents and purposes they are real. Treat them as real.

But if you don’t have any real control and it’s the elephant making almost all the calls and you are just along for the ride? Doesn’t matter. It’s still as real so treat it as real.

In effect, this self-evident reality you experience IS real. Whoever is in charge.

 

[Wesrock]

I dropped the word “concept.” I can accept “information congruent with the object known.” I think that will suffice for now. If I need more precision later I’ll bring it up then and with clarity about why I’m doing so.

 

[Wozza]

Do you mean am I “me” to myself or am I “me” to those who feel they have known me?
I was talking to some identical twins not long ago, and they said that after living in separate towns for several years, they had to get to know each other all over again. We have this internal feeling that we are an unbroken line of self, but to others we can come to seem someone different.

I think that it’s in our memories that we are ‘stored’. But we are definitely a different person as we move through life. I am not the same person I was when I wore a younger man’s clothes. Not substantially. But we are each a product of our environment and as we move through it and learn more we change.

Perhaps the elephant blunders about uncontrolled in our younger days and as we get older the rider gets more control. Wishful thinking maybe…

And you should see the Malkovich film.

 

[PetraG]

I think that it’s in our memories that we are ‘stored’. But we are definitely a different person as we move through life. I am not the same person I was when I wore a younger man’s clothes. Not substantially. But we are each a product of our environment and as we move through it and learn more we change.

Perhaps the elephant blunders about uncontrolled in our younger days and as we get older the rider gets more control. Wishful thinking maybe…

And you should see the Malkovich film.

I think I will…but what do we mean by “I am not the same person”? Do we mean that we each go imperceptibly from being one person into being just a slightly different person from one moment to the next? How many different persons has each of us been, then, in that sense of being “myself”? What is a “self,” except that unchanging moiety that endures through all those transformations? Or is the self the whole and the unchanging part just a part, such that we really can say “I am not the person I once was?” Are you saying there is no such part of us, that our perceptition that we have any such unchanging portion to our being is an illusion?

 

[Thinker_Doer]

I find that acceptable as a starting point. However, how we obtain knowledge is a crucial part of epistemology. We don’t need to pre-define how we obtain it, but that is relevant to an epistemology.

But as a starting point, “in knowing the knower having information/concepts congruent with the object known” is acceptable.

Very well. My sentiments exactly. The epistemological method obviously hinges on what we need information about.

The simplest one is the axiomatic / deductive science. We have some, mutually accepted axioms and mutually accepted rules of “transformation”. No need to go into details - I hope. The propositions are either “proven” or “disproven”.

The next type is the objective reality. In this case we deal with inductive methods. The basics are principles. We start with observations, set up hypotheses, conduct experiments, and verify if the results of the experiments coincide with the expectations coming from the hypotheses. The results are never “proven”, they are tentatively accepted or rejected - as the case may be. This is called the scientific method.

The objective reality is the physical world. If you wish to extend it into a non-physical, and yet physically active realm, you are welcome, but in that case it is your obligation to present your epistemological method.

There are other aspects of reality, which are subjective. These are the “ethical” systems and the “aesthetics”. But those are irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion.

Your turn. Are we OK with the definition of “knowing”?

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

I think that it’s in our memories that we are ‘stored’. But we are definitely a different person as we move through life. I am not the same person I was when I wore a younger man’s clothes. Not substantially. But we are each a product of our environment and as we move through it and learn more we change.

Perhaps the elephant blunders about uncontrolled in our younger days and as we get older the rider gets more control. Wishful thinking maybe…

And you should see the Malkovich film.

I think I will…but what do we mean by “I am not the same person”? Do we mean that we each go imperceptibly from being one person into being just a slightly different person from one moment to the next? How many different persons has each of us been, then, in that sense of being “myself”? What is a “self,” except that unchanging moiety that endures through all those transformations? Or is the self the whole and the unchanging part just a part, such that we really can say “I am not the person I once was?” Are you saying there is no such part of us, that our perceptition that we have any such unchanging portion to our being is an illusion?

I think it’s an illusion. Even our understanding of who we are at any given moment is an illusion. It’s like when you see and hear yourself in a recording and think ‘who on earth is that!’ I was actually in a lift a few days ago with a few people and it had mirrors everywhere and I found myself looking at the back of some old guy with a bald patch carrying a little too much weight slouched in the corner. And then we scratched our heads at exactly the same time and I realised I was looking at me.

The horror.

 

[Wozza]

I’m getting the popcorn out. Go for it guys.

 

[IWantGod]

He is sure he has some control.

As soon as you admit that, materialism starts to fall apart. Materialism assumes that the mind’s activity exists only because of parts moving in relation to each-other, producing a pattern of activity, out of which emerges the experience we call a mind. But what you have in that situation is an incomprehensible brute fact, because the existence of the minds intentional goal directed activity makes no sense if it is identical in nature to the blind natural processes you assume to be the ultimate cause, simply because it’s a blind natural process. In matter of fact, it’s a contradiction that you cannot avoid, unless you are willing to turn a blind eye to it.

 

[Wesrock]

Very well. My sentiments exactly. The epistemological method obviously hinges on what we need information about.

The next type is the objective reality. In this case we deal with inductive methods. The basics are principles. We start with observations, set up hypotheses, conduct experiments, and verify if the results of the experiments coincide with the expectations coming from the hypotheses. The results are never “proven”, they are tentatively accepted or rejected - as the case may be. This is called the scientific method.

The objective reality is the physical world. If you wish to extend it into a non-physical, and yet physically active realm, you are welcome, but in that case it is your obligation to present your epistemological method.

First, thank you for the response. I’ve whipped out my laptop to compose a response and been reminded why I always use my phone. This piece of machinery is almost as old as the computers NASA used for the moon landings. (Also, I trimmed some of you post due to the character limit.)

I don’t know if I wish to start with this point, but you write “The objective reality is the physical world.” Why? Why not reality is all things that exist? You haven’t done anything to support limiting to just quantitative measurements. I’m just calling that out. It’s not actually my main concern with your post.

More crucial is that you’ve made a gigantic leap from “Knowing is when the knower has information that is congruent with the object known” to the post above. The biggest question precisely at issue is how “information” from observation becomes present to you? How do you “have” it, and in what way is what you have congruent to the object known?

Part of this is going back to some of the first principles of knowledge. Classically speaking, and Thomists follow this, the object of thoughts is the external object known, and we receive it through the senses. Starting with Descartes, philosophy of knowledge (incorrectly, I believe) shifted to thoughts being the objects of thoughts, and this is true for both the idealists and the sensists (the latter are typically materialists). That is, the knower has not in his knowledge the object known but something that resembles or represents the object known. Descartes opened up the skepticism problem with this, because, trapped in our minds as we are, we’ve no way to step outside out minds and see if these representations are in any way actually congruent with the object we believe they represent.

Now, I don’t mean to be too self-indulgent, but we need to circle back to it. We can’t just run ahead without considering it, for getting knowledge from observation and methods based on this hinges on exactly what knowledge is. Is there information congruent with the object known in the knower? And if so, what is it? Which boils down to what the objects of our thoughts are. Thoughts/representations? The external objects? How is it imparted to the knower from the object? How is the knower/knower’s information conformed to/made congruent with the object? I don’t see an answer in your post.

 

[PetraG]

I think it’s an illusion. Even our understanding of who we are at any given moment is an illusion. It’s like when you see and hear yourself in a recording and think ‘who on earth is that!’ I was actually in a lift a few days ago with a few people and it had mirrors everywhere and I found myself looking at the back of some old guy with a bald patch carrying a little too much weight slouched in the corner. And then we scratched our heads at exactly the same time and I realised I was looking at me.

The horror.

So…you sort of see yourself as a one-man tribe, with memories that are essentially traditions handed down from generation to generation? I won’t say that is an irrational way to view yourself.

I don’t buy that the capacity for self-deception proves that the self is itself a deception. Why? Because I believe that the self cooperates in its own deception. Most (if not all) of us do have a “false self” as some call it, the construct of our pride. We can become so enamored of that false picture that we like better that we forget who we really are.

I also don’t buy that the fact that we cannot see ourselves from all angles or from an infinite number of points of view proves that our self is an illusion. No, I think that proves that our self has a limited capacity to know itself, stacked on top of a capacity that allows it to deny realities that it does not want to or know how to cope with without experiencing unwelcome inner turmoil.

We selves do a lot in order to make ourselves more comfortable. That doesn’t mean we’ve gotten so good at faking that we are nothing but fake from start to finish.

Having said that, the fact that others might experience us or view us as a monolith doesn’t prove anything. People think that corporations are monoliths with Borg-like selfhood. They really are not. Characters in books aren’t independent beings. They only exist in the minds of those who imagine them, even if a book’s author has the talent to give all readers a very similar experience. They are not persons, but ideas that many people have held in the context of a story about an imaginary person. We are each writers who write a story about ourselves, to give ourselves context, I do believe that. This is where the false self that we know from points of view we have never actually had comes into being.

 

[STT]

Why the plural?

There are many functions inside you for each a mind required.

 

[STT]

If I were a mindless zombie and thirsty (assuming zombies need to drink) then I would still go the fridge. And it would be nonsense to deny purpose in that case. And there would be no thought or consciousness involved whatsoever.

What is the use of consciousness if zombie can function properly?

 

[Thinker_Doer]

I don’t know if I wish to start with this point, but you write “The objective reality is the physical world.” Why? Why not reality is all things that exist?

As soon as you present an entity, which is NOT physical, but is physically active, I will take it into consideration. I am very flexible. If something is not physically active, it cannot interact with our senses, and as such we cannot know about it. After all the principle of “nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit is sensu” is very well established.

Now that does not mean that everything we imagine comes from a direct observation of the external reality. Fortunately we are endowed with vivid imagination and can create non-existent, imaginary entities.

The biggest question precisely at issue is how “information” from observation becomes present to you?

This is premature, until we establish what is knowledge? In the axiomatic systems the information comes from the axioms and the rules of transformation - both are abstract entities. In the physical reality we rely on our senses. Knowledge is nothing but a model of reality.

Just for a moment, let’s consider the arctic summer, when millions of birds have millions of nests with millions of offsprings waiting for their daily food. The tundra is a very busy place during the summer. The parents find their own nests and their own kids among millions. That is very serious knowledge, don’t you agree?

That is, the knower has not in his knowledge the object known but something that resembles or represents the object known.

Correct. It is called a model.

Descartes opened up the skepticism problem with this, because, trapped in our minds as we are, we’ve no way to step outside out minds and see if these representations are in any way actually congruent with the object we believe they represent.

He was wrong. We constantly interact with our environment, and if our model is incorrect, the environment will “punish” us. As long as we survive, our model was sufficiently accurate. Because no matter how wonderfully active our imagination can be, we cannot imagine that we are still alive, when we are dead.

There are many functions inside you for each a mind required.

Have you ever heard of multitasking? The brain is a massively parallel, multitasking wetware.