What Are You Reading 2015 - Page 20

On April 10 2015 08:16 Nyxisto wrote:
And what about first person concious experience? Shouldn't we have turned into some kind of concious hivemind if we're just 'interacting processes?'

On April 10 2015 09:25 oneofthem wrote:
not going to continue this, i've made the arguments already.

On April 10 2015 09:22 Nyxisto wrote:
Well I just wouldn't think that the conciousness would appear as absolute and distinct as it does if it wasn't in some way real. Why do I actually experience reality from my distinct perspective if "I" is just some arbitrary concept that doesn't actually exist? Seems like it totally contradicts everybody's most fundamental experience.

On April 10 2015 05:07 bookwyrm wrote:
That article says the same "thing":

"Metzinger, in the first sentence of the book, states his aim straightforwardly as "to convince us that there is no such thing as a self" because, "contrary to what most people believe, nobody has ever been or had a self""

All of this depends on the assumption that we have an ontology which is based on the idea of "objects" - it's assumed by the grammar of "Being" and "Having". You can "be" someTHING, you can "have" someTHING. But there aren't any things in the world, only processes: everything which we experience as an 'object' is only such in virtue of the fact that it is a process which is always reproducing itself more or less successfully (i.e. we mistakenly believe that *attractors* are *objects*). In formal logic you have these entities called "logical objects" which are empty pegs on which you can hang predicates (the "x" in F(x)), but there's nothing in a (correct) ontology to which this "logical object" corresponds (as Hegel showed in the beginning of his Phenomenology).

So once you realize this, it's sort of an empty claim to say that there's no such "thing" as a self, because we already know that there's no such "thing" as a "thing." There are, however, *processes of becoming* and therefore there are "becoming-selves" - which is no different from the realization that all things are actually processes of becoming-themselves.

which is not to say that he's wrong, just... duh! but maybe i should read the book

On April 10 2015 11:43 Zergneedsfood wrote:
I'm always unhappy with the "philosophy" period I went through. I know everyone has their philosophy phases (some people go on for longer, some people are way more consistent, obviously, but I think everyone goes through at least a short phase).

My phase was looking into Bertrand Russel's history of philosophy that my father had bought for himself, skimmed the first page, fell asleep, and haven't touched a lot of other philosophy since.

As a student taking a class on critical theory, obviously I've read some essays, and there have been philosophy readings in some of my other classes too as well as trying to touch some of it now, but I always really regret not making a more concerted effort to have read a bit more when I was in that short and excited phase that lasted like two minutes. T_T;

On April 10 2015 05:54 farvacola wrote:

Ahh but you and I have the next best thing, which is the enchanter that already exists in our heads! He just needs the right incantations, naturally.