I got your meat sack hangin’, right here! Who’s your Daddy?
“Self” is what gets remembered. It’s a mistake to think you exist in the now. You only exist in the past. You’re always a little behind the clock, as any number of cognitive illusions illustrate.
Only in the sense that the environment is literally an extension of the self, in turn.
Figure-ground problem.
The environment doesn’t exist independently of me, just as I dont’ exist independent of it. Don’t make the mistake of assuming “individual person is tiny, universe is huge, you don’t affect it, it affects you” – this is one of those philosophical places where there’s a massively meaningful difference between “infinitesimally small” and “zero”.
The guy isn’t my hero.
As for his “neuroscience”, apparently most people say that it’s what Buddhism has been saying for thousands of years.
Oh and apparently he’s not a neuroscientist he’s a philosopher, so you are incorrect in some manner.
I’ve never heard that phrase before-What does it mean?
Begbert is right. The self is the only thing we can be sure of. Whether it’s an emergent property of thousands of self-referential feedback control loops is immaterial, and by no means makes it an “illusion”. Describing how or why something exists, even if it contradicts what you might have guessed about its origins or fundamental nature, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Being an aggregation doesn’t make it not real, anymore than mammals don’t exist because they are a mass of cells, or that rocks and stars don’t exist because they are an amalgam of atoms.
That’s not entirely true, Mr. President. Everything I’ve ever done, felt, thought or experienced happened right here in this bony dome you can’t currently see me tapping. Whether there is an actual keyboard in front of me or I’m just a brain in a vat getting zapped by the right stimuli, the “me” who lives in this brain is still actively typing at this very moment.
I have a lot of faith that the external, objective world is real, even though I know my senses are imperfect at best, and baldfaced liars at worst. But again, whether I’m a real guy walking around this reality, or a pattern of bits in a microprocessor just experiencing a convincing simulation, either way I’m actually me and I actually exist.
Do you hear that sound? That’s the sound of me whacking my head against my desk.
Let’s look at what I said shall we:
Thomas Metzinger is on the editorial board of the journal Neuroscience and Consciousness.
Wow! Will you look at that. He is! 1 for 1.
Ligotti follows him closely. Well, it says so in your cite, so I’m giving myself that one. 2 for 2.
Ligotti is your hero. You say he isn’t, but you sure do seem to love him as he comes up a lot. But sure, let’s say 2 for 3.
Metzinger’s papers are on this subject. Ding! Ding! Ding! 3 for 4.
https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&q=metzinger+neuroscience+self&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=
Some of Metzinger’s papers on open source. Boom! 4 for 5.
https://philpapers.org/archive/METEPF
So yes you’re right, I was incorrect about something, namely that Ligotti is your hero (although again the evidence suggests you have a strong favoring of him so I don’t know I think I deserve at least a half point). Certainly the core of what I said was true.
Sooooooo… all that being said, are you going to remain purposefully ignorant and dismissive or will you actually go and read some of Metzinger’s work?
I’m going to guess no. Prove me wrong.
But it does challenge the notion of “me” ness that fuels most of the daily lives we live. That sense of “Me” as a seperate entity is what makes things like love possible and romance, but also choosing what to do in life and to stick through things.
To find out that it’s nothing more than an illusion is disheartening to say the least. That there is no “true” self with which it’s discovery will serve as a guidepost for your life.
It’s just something we think is real. Knowing that, how can one still treat others as people and not as puppets acting out a story that they mistake for themselves.
I give you an F in relevance and for reading comprehension.
I don’t favor him, I just want to find holes in what I find to be a very demoralizing view of the world.
Even reading what metzinger writes is disheartening. Makes it more evident that humans are but robots, after all there is “no one there”. If there is no self then why treat any of them like they matter. They are just “puppets” dancing to a tune. Ugh, the more I dig into that more sucky they make life sound.
Then again, he’s but a philosopher.
There’s no one there. There’s a whole argumentative community. Why that’s disheartening, rather than empowering, says more about you than the situation.
Read less philosophy, more poetry:
*Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
*
When you find that all arrows point in the same direction, consider the possibility that you have might not know one end of the arrow from the other.
I think there is some truth to what you say. The self really isn’t what we tend to think the self is, and I suppose some of the understandings that come with realizing that can be disheartening.
On the other hand, the self is no longer subject to death. Here’s your eternal life and you don’t even have to invite somebody to take up residence in your cardiovascular cavity to get it.
You might as well ask where the flame goes when you blow out a candle.
There is one. It’s the flatline on the monitors.
Where was your “self” before you were born?
I think asking the question is the proof itself.
Pretty much what I said back in post #7.
No, it doesn’t challenge it at all. I’m not sure why you’re asserting this.
I just explained why it is not an illusion. And in fact, it’s probably more “real” than anything we think we know about objective reality from our imperfect senses and the scientific tools we use to augment them.
You quoted my post. And yet you continue to assert that consciousness is an illusion without addressing my reasoning. Why? More to the point, who? Who is it that keeps asserting such, while typing through your fingers and responding with your words? Who is subject to this illusion? Who is deluded?
Biblically this is hinted at as we are not ourselves but part of the body of Christ. Also seen how Israel is the person (man - son of Abraham) and the tribes are all one and the same with that one man. And how we all share in God’s Spirit (the Holy Spirit), we all are the same and one with each other.