[MD] Thinkers and Rainers?

[Ian Glendinning]

All,
The idea of "I" and "Consciousness" as entities in the sense of
objective existence in an ontology, is clearly misguided for any of us
who already reject SOMism. In their noun sense "just" a figure of
speech sure, but from a process, functional potentiality sense, they
are far more than a figure of speech - they're all "we" have.
Epistemologically they are what we mean by I and consciousness. They
are real enough, it is only their objectivity as our subject that is
illusory. It's worth remembering that an ontology is simply something
we deem pragmatically useful, like figures of speech in language, a
functional pattern worth giving a name to, not fundamental reality
itself.

The words "exist" and "entity" are the figures of speech.

Good to see the fundamental process dynamic of such (static) patterns
coming to the fore.
Ian

On Fri, Oct 18, 2013 at 5:01 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think, therefore I am? The most famous certainty isn't at all certain.
> "The absurdity of this assertion becomes clearer once we switch subjects. We’ve all used the common expression “It’s raining.” But would we say, “It is raining, therefore it is”? What is raining? Do we suppose there is some entity corresponding to the word “it” which is doing the raining? No, of course not!" -- Steven Hagen in "Ergo Sum?"  http://dharmafield.org/resources/texts/ergo-sum/
>
> But I think Hagen is borrowing this criticism from Nietzsche. As Wiki says...
>
> "That is, whatever the force of the cogito, Descartes draws too much from it; the existence of a thinking thing, the reference of the "I," is more than the cogito can justify. Friedrich Nietzsche criticized the phrase in that it presupposes that there is an "I", that there is such an activity as "thinking", and that "I" know what "thinking" is. He suggested a more appropriate phrase would be "it thinks." In other words the "I" in "I think" could be similar to the "It" in "It is raining." "
>
> William James also attacks this Cartesian self as a non-entity...
>
> "I believe that consciousness, when once it has evaporated to this estate of pure diaphaneity, is on the point of disappearing altogether. It is the name of a nonentity, and has no right to a place among first principles. Those who still cling to it are clinging to a mere echo, the faint rumor left behind by the disappearing soul upon the air of philosophy. During the past year, I have read a number of articles whose authors seemed just on the point of abandoning the notion of consciousness, and substituting for it that of an absolute experience not due to two factors. But they were not quite radical enough, not daring enough in their negations. For twenty years past I have mistrusted conscousness as an entity: for seven or eight years past I have suggested its non-existence to my students, and tried to give them its pragmatic equivalent in realities of experience. It seems to me that the hour is ripe for it to be openly and universally discarded.
>
> To deny plumply that consciousness exists seems so absurd on the face of it — for undeniably thoughts do exist — that I fear some readers will follow me no farther. Let me then immediately explain that I mean only to deny that the word stands for an entity, but to insist most emphatically that it does stand for a function. There is, I mean, no aboriginal stuff or quality of being, contrasted with that of which material objects are made, out of which our thoughts of them are made; but there is a function in experience which thoughts perform, and for the performance of which this quality of being is invoked. That function is knowing. Consciousness is supposed necessary to explain the fact that things not only are, but get reported, are known. Whoever blots out the notion of consciousness from his list of first principles must still provide in some way for that function's being carried on."
>
> Three ways of saying the same thing. This is how Pirsig treats the subject of SOM too. It's just a figure of speech, he says.
>
>
>
>
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