Arguing Against Self Existence

[Iti oj]

You do that.

Thanks. Want to help be being interviewed on radio rf?

 

[Iti oj]

Just because gold is made out of atoms made of sub atomic particles doesn't mean gold doesn't exist.

 

[1137]

Who says the self needs to.be separateto exist. I don't agree

It's not matter of who says, the mind and brain simply have evolved to have different properties.

Even if miss I'll end up among the stars

Actually you'll float off until your inevitable death, arriving long before you reach any stars.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

In this thread I'm simply looking for a refutation of self existence, a denial that "I exist" is an axiomatic fact for whoever says it. Whether you're a dualist or monist either way, I don't see how self existence can be denied, and yet most religions, as well as secular philosophies, reject the importance, if not the very existence, of a self/mind/internal experience/etc. Yet it is self evident, relies on no simpler premises, and cannot be denied without relying on it. In my religion/philosophy, rejecting the self is as illogical and hopeless as rejecting the law of identity. I'm curious to see if this view holds.

Xeper and Remanifest.

The acknowledgement of self-existence isn't axiomatic.

Neurologically, we don't perceive the fact of our own perception or thinking as it's happening; we shift back-and-forth between the thinking and the recognition of our own thoughts.

Self-perception relies on memory. Memory from an instant before, but still memory. It's therefore subject to all the philosophical problems with the reliability of memory. The statement "I exist" is most certainly reliant on simpler premises. Specifically, it relies on:

- "My memories from an instant ago are accurate."
- "The 'I' that I remember perceiving and thinking is the same 'I' that is aware of these perceptions and thoughts."

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

1. the mind is not material
2. only matter exists
3. therefore, the mind does not exist.

Maybe this time you'll quit begging the question and actually make an argument for your first claim.

 

[Onoma]

Reality:

If you don't mind, it doesn't matter

Ever try an isolation tank ?

Your mind will dissociate from your body { seemingly }, but the brain is still working, it's just the illusion that comes when there is no sensory input and the mind does not know where to perceive itself

 

[YmirGF]

'There is only matter.'

All Matter matters!

 

[1137]

Maybe this time you'll quit begging the question and actually make an argument for your first claim.

You seem to confuse a null hypothesis with a fallacy. If someone can give me direct, material access to the content of their minds, especially things like experience and visualization, I'll reject the null hypothesis in a heartbeat. But with nothing more than neuronal correlation, I simply don't have the faith to do so currently.

 

[1137]

Reality:

If you don't mind, it doesn't matter

Ever try an isolation tank ?

Your mind will dissociate from your body { seemingly }, but the brain is still working, it's just the illusion that comes when there is no sensory input and the mind does not know where to perceive itself

Who is in the tank, whose perception is skewed, if not you yourself? I certainly don't deny the mind relies heavily upon the brain, like an orange relies heavily on a tree. The orange and tree still have different properties and identities, however.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You seem to confuse a null hypothesis with a fallacy. If someone can give me direct, material access to the content of their minds, especially things like experience and visualization, I'll reject the null hypothesis in a heartbeat. But with nothing more than neuronal correlation, I simply don't have the faith to do so currently.

So you aren't going to defend your claim?

 

[1137]

So you aren't going to defend your claim?

No, that's no how a null hypothesis works. It's specifically meant to be refuted. You could say my argument is an utter lack of evidence to the contrary, like you atheists like it. We directly now our minds and have access to them, and matter seems far to consistent to not objectively exist. Unless we have evidence of monism either way, I'm not going to accept either on blind faith.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

No, that's no how a null hypothesis works. It's specifically meant to be refuted. You could say my argument is an utter lack of evidence to the contrary, like you atheists like it. We directly now our minds and have access to them, and matter seems far to consistent to not objectively exist. Unless we have evidence of monism either way, I'm not going to accept either on blind faith.

IOW, you aren't going to defend your claim and you don't think you need to.

 

[1137]

IOW, you aren't going to defend your claim and you don't think you need to.

We've discussed this several times. We have direct awareness of or mind, our Self. From a skeptical point of view, it's possibly the one and only thing we can be certain of. Yet we obviously have to accept the material world as well, or how would we explain the successes of science. However, there does not seem to be any direct, material way to access a mind, whether yours or especially others. Sure, you can measure the neural correlation to mental activity, draw me an image of what you visualize or otherwise describe it, but there's no direct way there. This is unlike a brain, which we can directly touch and feel, as well as consistently measure. So, the way to show this position is incorrect would be to provide a reason or, more importantly, material representations of the contents of your mind. But I currently agree with Nagel: that no matter how much material information we know about, say, a bat, we will not know what it is like to actually be a bat.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

We've discussed this several times. We have direct awareness of or mind, our Self. From a skeptical point of view, it's possibly the one and only thing we can be certain of.

No. It's indirect.

 

[1137]

No. It's indirect.

What is indirect? what's between you and, well, you?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

What is indirect? what's between you and, well, you?

There's quite a bit of mental processing that occurs between having a thought and recognizing that thought. It may feel instantaneous, but it isn't.

 

[1137]

There's quite a bit of mental processing that occurs between having a thought and recognizing that thought. It may feel instantaneous, but it isn't.

Both the thinking and thought recognition are part of your self/mind. Now when are you going to provide the evidence I've been asking for over months?

 

[Quintessence]

It sounds like it would be worthwhile to first explore this "law of identity" you are talking about, and why you believe it is a law.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Both the thinking and thought recognition are part of your self/mind.

The thinking is by "you of the past". The thought recognition is by "you of the present". Memory is the intermediary.

This means that self-conscious knowledge of your own thoughts is only as reliable as your memory... and the potential for false memories exists, so you can't know with certainty that the thoughts you think are yours really are yours.

Now when are you going to provide the evidence I've been asking for over months?

This article touches on some of the research:

"People can't multitask very well, and when people say they can, they're deluding themselves," said neuroscientist Earl Miller. And, he said, "The brain is very good at deluding itself."

Miller, a Picower professor of neuroscience at MIT, says that for the most part, we simply can't focus on more than one thing at a time.

What we can do, he said, is shift our focus from one thing to the next with astonishing speed.

"Switching from task to task, you think you're actually paying attention to everything around you at the same time. But you're actually not," Miller said.

"You're not paying attention to one or two things simultaneously, but switching between them very rapidly."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95256794

 

[1137]

It sounds like it would be worthwhile to first explore this "law of identity" you are talking about, and why you believe it is a law.

The law of identity is simply that a thing is itself, not something else. While I'll admit axioms may not, in the end, be true, do we have any reason to think the law of identity is false?