The big misunderstanding about “I”

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Terrapin Station
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Terrapin Station »

Your reluctance to attempt different explanations of anything isn't helping, by the way.

Also your reluctance to answer questions. For example right above:
"When I say that subjectivity is so and so, I am actually talking not about subjectivity, but about an objectified idea of subjectivity." What's the difference?
How about a response that says, "The difference is . . ."?
jayjacobus
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by jayjacobus »

Is reality objective or subjective?

When it is not observed but exists nevertheless it is objective but, if it is not observed, it is perhaps fictional.

Once in the mind it is subjective to the observer.

I exist but everything other than I is subjective.

But if you agree that what I observe is what you observe, does our agreement make our mutual observations real?

Since you are subjective in my mind, I can't be sure.
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Angelo Cannata
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Angelo Cannata »

Perhaps the following note might help.

There’s no way to get evidence that our existence is not a dream.

As a consequence, even the statement itself can be suspected of being just the result of a dream, so, it can’t be taken in turn as an objective statement. It is just a consequence of the hypothesis that we might be in a dream. In this situation, the dream is synonymous of subjectivity. As a consequence, whenever we talk about subjectivity, we need to remember that we are talking of it while being inside it, so that what we say is 100% conditioned by our being inside what we are talking about.
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Angelo Cannata
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Angelo Cannata »

Atla wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 7:48 pm Nothing emotional about it. Plato for example believed in the realm of pure forms, and in actual subjects and objects and their relationships, he reified abstractions left and right, which made the Western world pretty insane for 2400 years. Descartes made it worse with his mind/body split for example, and his misguided cogito ergo sum. We have destructive thinkers like them to thank for that even today, 99%+ of Westerners have no idea what the 'I' refers to, what the real nature of consciousness is.
At least Kant fixed this slightly no? He showed that it's not possible to escape our subjectivity.
Have you tried to understand why these things happened?
Atla
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Atla »

Angelo Cannata wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 8:33 am
Atla wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 7:48 pm Nothing emotional about it. Plato for example believed in the realm of pure forms, and in actual subjects and objects and their relationships, he reified abstractions left and right, which made the Western world pretty insane for 2400 years. Descartes made it worse with his mind/body split for example, and his misguided cogito ergo sum. We have destructive thinkers like them to thank for that even today, 99%+ of Westerners have no idea what the 'I' refers to, what the real nature of consciousness is.
At least Kant fixed this slightly no? He showed that it's not possible to escape our subjectivity.
Have you tried to understand why these things happened?
Haven't you?
Skepdick
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Skepdick »

Angelo Cannata wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 6:42 pm The false assumption is this one: “Let’s assume that we can talk about subjectivity leaving aside our involvement in it”.
But the inverse is equally as challenging: Let's assume that we can talk about objectivity leaving aside our involvement in it.

The subjective/objective distinction is just a manner of speaking. Distinctions are mere instruments to steer discourse towards the point.

You could assume a perspective in which you say "Subjectively speaking, there is no such thing as objectivity - all that we call objectivity is subjectively perceived"
You could assume a perspective in which you say "Objectively speaking, there is no such thing as subjectivity - every thought, feeling and emotion exists objectively".
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Angelo Cannata
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Angelo Cannata »

This happens if we ignore the history of how philosophy, or even culture in general, understood these things. If we consider history, we can see that there has been, and still is going on, a development from a naive thought, that conceived reality as just simply existing autonomously from us, to a more elaborate way that makes efforts to include in this framework the awareness of our involvement.
Atla
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Atla »

Angelo Cannata wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 9:52 am This happens if we ignore the history of how philosophy, or even culture in general, understood these things. If we consider history, we can see that there has been, and still is going on, a development from a naive thought, that conceived reality as just simply existing autonomously from us, to a more elaborate way that makes efforts to include in this framework the awareness of our involvement.
No shit, but you wrote
Whenever we, or any philosopher of past or present time, talk about “I”, or “subjectivity”, a big mistake is made.
meaning that you think there never was development. Plus you're ignoring Eastern philosophy.
Skepdick
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Skepdick »

Angelo Cannata wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 9:52 am This happens if we ignore the history of how philosophy, or even culture in general, understood these things. If we consider history, we can see that there has been, and still is going on, a development from a naive thought, that conceived reality as just simply existing autonomously from us, to a more elaborate way that makes efforts to include in this framework the awareness of our involvement.
It happens even when we take all of the above developments, social, technological and epistemic progress into account. Systems theory looks at the whole and at the parts. Through the lens of systems theory you can examine the "I" as a whole; or as a system of parts.

The objective/subjective distinction remain but a manner of speaking. I remember past events - I have memories. Is that an objective or a subjective claim?

One could say that there is no such thing as "the ecosystem" - it's just a subjective/mental construct that helps us conceptualise stuff.
One could say that there is such thing as "the ecosystem" - it's objective and we are part of it.

This is the gap between theory and its application.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Terrapin Station »

Angelo Cannata wrote: Fri Apr 02, 2021 9:08 pm Perhaps the following note might help.

There’s no way to get evidence that our existence is not a dream.
So on my view, there's a ton of evidence for this, including the simple difference of phenomenal qualities. The phenomenal qualities of what I consider a dream (and I'm someone who always lucid dreams or who is at least aware that they're dreaming) are completely different than the phenomenal qualities of what I consider waking experience.

What we don't have is proof of such things, but that's because no empirical claims are provable period. That doesn't imply that there is no evidence. Evidence and proof aren't the same thing, and proof isn't something to worry about here. Reasons to believe one possibility over the other possibility is what we should be worrying about.
As a consequence, even the statement itself can be suspected of being just the result of a dream, so, it can’t be taken in turn as an objective statement.
I wouldn't say there can be objective statements. Statements can be about objective things, but statements themselves can't be objective. And just to clarify, I use a "mental phenomena" or "located at a creature that has mental phenomena" versus "not mental phenomena" or "not located at a creature that has mental phenomena" distinction as the "subjective" versus "objective" distinction.
It is just a consequence of the hypothesis that we might be in a dream.
That's possible, but possibility isn't sufficient for belief, otherwise you'd believe everything, including all contradictions (for example, you'd both believe that we're in a dream and that we're not in a dream). Again, the thing to do is to focus on reasons to believe one possibility over a competing possibility. "Everything is a dream" has no good reasons for belief. All it has going for it is possibility, but that's not sufficient.
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Angelo Cannata
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Angelo Cannata »

If you give the word “dream” the traditional meaning, that is, what we are commonly able to distinguish from being awake, the discussion becomes impossible. I thought it was obvious that dream is not exclusively what happens to us when we are sleeping. It should be obvious that, in a philosophical discussion, the meaning of “dream” is to be understood in a radical way, that is, by applying a radical criticism to our experience and taking the traditional meaning of “dream” just as a starting point to move to a more radical and critical reflection.

Sorry for my mistake about using the word “evidence” instead of “proof”.

About the possibility, I think that what I said is exactly what happens: if we suppose that we are always in a dream, we are automatically lead to the conclusion that we are in a dream. This is an interesting mechanism. Let’s consider the process in a more detailed way.

1) Let’s suppose we are in dream: we think: we might be in a dream.

2) Then the question: if we are in a dream, what ways do we have to tell if we are in a dream or not?

3) The answer in not difficult: nothing can proof us that we are not in a dream, because any proof can’t escape the possibility of being itself part of the dream.

4) Then we can make a more philosophical deduction, typical of the interest of philosophy in considering the meta aspects of any reasoning and in applying any reasoning to itself. Here is the philosophical deduction: if nothing can free us from the suspect of being in a dream, then we are inexorably imprisoned in that dream, that is, the dream of being in the condition of being totally unable to discern if it is a dream or not. The dream is exactly our impossibility to discern if we are in a dream or not.

This is how the hypothesis of being in a dream is like magic: as soon as we make this hypothesis, it becomes automatically an inescapable statement: we can’t deny that we are in the impossibility of discerning if we are in dream. We are in the dream of this impossibility and we can’t escape it.

In other words, we can say: if we are able to suppose that we are in a dream, this very ability of us is itself the proof that we are in a dream, because we can’t avoid it and we can’t solve it. If we can’t avoid it and we can’t solve it, then it is a dream, then we are in a dream, we are prisoners of it and we have no way to go outside it, outside the hypothesis that we are in dream.
Skepdick
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Skepdick »

Angelo Cannata wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 11:31 am If you give the word “dream” the traditional meaning, that is, what we are commonly able to distinguish from being awake, the discussion becomes impossible. I thought it was obvious that dream is not exclusively what happens to us when we are sleeping. It should be obvious that, in a philosophical discussion, the meaning of “dream” is to be understood in a radical way, that is, by applying a radical criticism to our experience and taking the traditional meaning of “dream” just as a starting point to move to a more radical and critical reflection.
What's really happening is Terrapin Station is arguing naive realism. He says "I can distinguish dream from being awake". Can he, really?

I've had dreams within dreams. I have dreamt that I have woken up only to later realise that I was still dreaming.

What allows us to see the difference is the act of waking up itself. Dreaming was ex ante waking up. Awake is ex-post waking up.

He can't actually determine that he's not dreaming right now unless he wakes up.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Terrapin Station »

Angelo Cannata wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 11:31 am If you give the word “dream” the traditional meaning, that is, what we are commonly able to distinguish from being awake, the discussion becomes impossible. I thought it was obvious that dream is not exclusively what happens to us when we are sleeping. It should be obvious that, in a philosophical discussion, the meaning of “dream” is to be understood in a radical way, that is, by applying a radical criticism to our experience and taking the traditional meaning of “dream” just as a starting point to move to a more radical and critical reflection.
If we're not literally talking about it being a dream, what would we even be talking about, exactly? Philosophy doesn't really work as poetry in my view. We'd have to have something clear in mind that we're even asking about.
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Skepdick »

Terrapin Station wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 1:06 pm If we're not literally talking about it being a dream, what would we even be talking about, exactly? Philosophy doesn't really work as poetry in my view. We'd have to have something clear in mind that we're even asking about.
So how does it work then?

What do you have in mind exactly when you speak about Philosophy? Can you clearly describe it?
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Angelo Cannata
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Angelo Cannata »

Terrapin, is it so difficult to extend the meaning of a dream? For example, whenever we behave according to false information, we are like in a dream. I put my keys in the locker of a car and after a few seconds I realize that it isn’t my car, but another one identical to mine. Life gives me a lot of money, so I think that I’m better than other people, but actually it’s just my selfishness. I think that the existence has no meaning, but later I realize that it was just because some unpleasant things had happened to me. Aren’t these dreams? Anything we think about is conditioned by our body, our personal history, culture, language, biology. Don’t these things makes us living in dreams? A woman looks at herself and she thinks she’s beautiful, but later she realized it was just her need making her think this way. We can make billions of example showing that our entire existence is made by dreams, it is a dream.
Is there anything you can say about “No, this isn’t a dream, this isn’t conditioned by anything in my mind”?
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