[MD] The Self?

[Ham Priday]

[Krimel]:

> Right there, you have identified what we are just not going
> to agree about. You think there this non-physical something
> or other and you need to explain it. I think it is a fantasy and
> have no problem explaining it as wishful thinking. I think
> the self is a perfectly natural thing that arises out of biology
> and develops according to its interaction with the environment
> that it finds itself in. There is no need to invoke the non-physical
> or the supernatural and frankly invoking them does not make
> for a clearer understanding. As I see it is just opens a Pandora's
> box of other stuff that needs to be explained. After all we would
> need to find a way to explain all of the "supernatural" laws
> because if there aren't any then I don't see any difference
> between "supernatural" and chaos. Oh except that we can make
> a lot of sense out of chaos and none from the supernatural.

You can call epistemological theory "wishful thinking" and "supernatural", 
but you won't find an adequate physiological definition for the Self in the 
annals of neurophysics or psychology.  I make no claim to "explain" it; I 
simply want to establish the principles that are fundamental to human 
awareness.  We both agree that subjective awareness is not a physical thing, 
which means that it can't be objectively observed, localized or quantified. 
Yet it is essential for the appearance of an objective reality.

Neurologist Richard Schain has summed up the paradox of selfness in his 
appeal for a "radical metaphysics":

"'Truth is subjectivity' means that the essential feature in the life of an 
individual is his valuation of his interior self, i.e. his subjective self. 
There is no greater tragedy than the failure of an individual to realize 
this value.  What hinders this development, however, is the modern view that 
there is no such thing as the self, that there is only a complex arrangement 
of synapses and neurons in the brain, giving rise to the illusion of self. 
Without a belief in the metaphysical self, humans are at the mercy of their 
environment, which in the present age fares little for the development of an 
interior self.  Only a radical metaphysics will save the individual from 
drowning in the swamps of the materialist dogmas of contemporary society. 
There is a pressing necessity for metaphysics for any individual in today's 
world who has respect for himself as an independent being."

> The "environment" is background. Experience is foreground. I think
> the intellectual level is a collection of ideas and thoughts that have
> been accumulating since people have been expressing them. That
> collection of ideas exists, encoded in individual minds and in books
> and in a host of newly discovered techniques for encoding and
> decoding them. Those "ideas" have no existence or meaning other
> than what individual minds detect in them. But each individual mind
> can dip into that pool of ideas and extract meaning from it. That is
> what a culture is.

That may be what a "culture" is, but culture is not mind or apprehension. 
You avoid saying what mind is while speaking of the "intellectual level" as 
a "collection of ideas."  The mind of the knower isn't an accumulation of 
borrowed knowledge.  All of the ideas that society holds must originate with 
some individual.  An idea is not pre-formed as a bit of knowledge that can 
be extracted from an intellectual pool.  It is the product of a thinking 
human being.

> I find all of the terms you make up pretentious. They provide
> an illusion of clarity without actually make any sense. I think it
> comes from your insistence that philosophy is just the making
> of definitions and arranging them into patterns that feel good.

Where have I insisted that philosophy is just definitions and "feel good" 
patterns?  To the contrary, I continue to maintain that it's concepts, not 
words, that are the basis of philosophical thinking.

> I have always assumed that what you mean by proprietary
> awareness is unique to the individual. I have explained how
> I think this happens several times in the past couple of days.
> The issue you are asking about is similar to what Willblake2
> is getting at. There is a rich literature on this and as I have
> said I tend to side with Searle and Dennett. Consciousness
> is an emergent process of the Mind/Body.
>
> "I" am an integral process, a Mind/Body, that emerges from
> the environment.  But "I" am a unique process.

And I'm asking you to define (not explain) what you think Mind is.  If you 
cannot define the mind, I don't see how you can even begin to explain the 
dynamics of selfness and conscious awareness.  My question to you was: Is 
what you feel and apprehend unique to you or is it an integral part of the 
objective universe that surrounds you

> Consciousness cannot exist in the absence of metabolism.
> Even I don't think this is a satisfactory explanation and haven't
> claimed that it is. But to pretend that consciousness exists in
> the absence of metabolism is something you would have to
> be an Aw Gi to buy into.

I made no such assertion.  What I said was "the Self is not the metabolic, 
digestive, respirational, or endocrinal processes that go on in my body."  I 
didn't say that one can be aware in the absence of a body or its functions. 
The very term "being-aware" implies a dichotomy of two mutually dependent 
contingencies.  Like everything in existence the human being is a 
differentiated entity.

 [Ham]:
> You are evading the central issue, Krimel. ...
> Why not admit either that you don't accept the individuality
> of the Self or that you are persuaded by the MoQ to deny
> subjectivity?

[Krimel]:
> I am not evading anything. I think the Self is a Mind/Body.
> As I have told you before it is the current instantiation of a
> process, a fire that has been burning on this planet for 4.5
> billion years. I certainly do not think that I am an unnatural
> process and definitely not a supernatural one.

I suppose I'm not to regard "current instantiation of a process" as 
pretentious language designed to cover up the gaps in your explanation or, 
heaven forbid, that it might involve "supernatural" phenomena.

> I agree that we disagree

Sorry to hear that, Krimel.  I think your insistence on a physiological Self 
demeans your intellectual potential.  But I suspect it is largely due to the 
influence of RMP.

Best regards,
Ham
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>>> [Krimel]
>>> If you insist on using your terms, then Self does not invent
>>> values, but values invent the Self.
>>
>> [Ham]
>> As I define the Self as value-sensibility, I can understand how values
>> might
>> be conceived to "actualize" selfness.  However, it's inconsistent with 
>> the
>> epistemology of Essentialism.  Not that you particularly care, but I
>> consider Sensibility primary to value realization.
>>
>> [Krimel]
>> You are right I have nothing vested in preserving Essentialism. In fact I
>> think the sooner you move past it the better. But to do that you have to
>> realize that your investment in it is emotional not intellectual.
>>
>> [Ham]
>> Value doesn't "realize"; it simply represents what is beyond sensibility.
>> I like to think of it as desire's "referent".  Socrates described desire
>> as what man wants and does not possess: "...what he neither has nor
> > himself is--that which he lacks--this is what he wants and desires."
>> If Socrates was right, then the object of desire, the thing wanted,
>> is the desire's value.  In the differentiated world of existence, we
>> yearn for value and experience it in passing things and events.
>> But pure (metaphysical) Sensibility needs no object; Value is
>> already and immutably its undivided Essence.  That's why in my
>> ontogeny Sensibility is negated from Essence to create the entity
>> Being-Aware.  Since the individuated self is incapable of sensing
>> Essence directly, it experiences the Source as the value of otherness.
>>
>> [Krimel]
>> I have nothing to say about this other than it is an example of how you
>> are
>> making up a lot of terms and arguments to support your desire to make
>> your 'philosophy' work. Unfortunately it is stated in terms that make
> > evaluation problematic.
>>
>> Just one example: Sensation is the encoding of physical energy in neural
>> impulses. It cannot occur is there is nothing out there to encode or if
>> there is no physical organs to do the encoding. Sensation is not a
>> metaphysical concept it is a process.
>>
>> [Ham]
>> I think this discussion has been both productive and amiable.  Are you as
>> pleased that we are fundamentally in accord as I am?  Or is it more fun 
>> to
>> quibble over terminology and accuse me of conjuring up "fantasies"?
>>
>> [Krimel]
>> I think the degree of accord is pretty small, but yeah at least it is
>> detectable. I still find your understanding flawed and your terminology
>> obscure.