The big misunderstanding about “I”

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Skepdick
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Skepdick »

Angelo Cannata wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 4:57 pm I’m glad I found where the problem was. As I said, we can’t understand each other. I’m not using the way of reasoning used by computers.
If that were true you wouldn't be using the word "I". You are exemplifying recursion/computation every time you do that.

"Computer" was a human job description long before they became ubiquitous machines. So you are, in fact, using precisely the reasoning used by computers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_ ... scription)
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Terrapin Station
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

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Angelo Cannata wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 2:25 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 1:33 pm But, the only way that we can have any inkling of getting a belief wrong is via being able to also get beliefs right. Otherwise we'd never have grounds for saying we got any belief wrong. So that necessarily implies that we get beliefs right, too. Otherwise this whole line of thinking is a non-starter.
I don’t think so. You are considering right and wrong, so ignoring another category, that is much more powerful: doubt. This is what is impossible to destroy: doubt. Since it is impossible to destroy, this has as a consequence that the categories of right and wrong just don’t exist, they are just illusions, because they are unable to resist any doubt. Doubt is the irresistible machine that has the power to demolish anything; nothing and nobody is able to definitely destroy the doubt.

This is the dream we are in and we have no way to exit from.
So then you'd have to attempt to explain how you can know that you have any belief wrong. Take "This is/isn't my car" when you put your key in a car. How can you know that "This is my car" is wrong if you don't know that "This isn't my car" is right?
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Angelo Cannata
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Angelo Cannata »

Terrapin Station wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 5:37 pm So then you'd have to attempt to explain how you can know that you have any belief wrong.
I can’t. Nobody can. After realizing that I’m in the unescapable dream of doubting, right and wrong are meaningless. Whatever I say after this process is based on my instinct, emotions, sensitivity and, since I can’t do without the language that has been developed in the mentality of objectivity and computers, I need to use that language and those ideas, at risk of being continuously misunderstood. Aren’t all of us in this same situation?
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Terrapin Station
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

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Angelo Cannata wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 6:14 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 5:37 pm So then you'd have to attempt to explain how you can know that you have any belief wrong.
I can’t. Nobody can. After realizing that I’m in the unescapable dream of doubting, right and wrong are meaningless. Whatever I say after this process is based on my instinct, emotions, sensitivity and, since I can’t do without the language that has been developed in the mentality of objectivity and computers, I need to use that language and those ideas, at risk of being continuously misunderstood. Aren’t all of us in this same situation?
So contra what you said earlier, now you're claiming that if you go to a car and put a key in the door (we're showing our age with this example, lol) you can't know that it's not your car?
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Angelo Cannata
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

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I think you are mixing in this question common sense and philosophical statements. By human common sense I think that I can know that that one is not my car, but from a philosophical perspective I can’t know anything, I can’t even be sure that I exist, contrary to what Descartes thought he was able to gain.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

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Angelo Cannata wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 7:32 pm I think you are mixing in this question common sense and philosophical statements. By human common sense I think that I can know that that one is not my car, but from a philosophical perspective I can’t know anything, I can’t even be sure that I exist, contrary to what Descartes thought he was able to gain.
For one, in my view if you're doing philosophy so that you have to separate it from "common sense," you're not doing philosophy right.

Aside from that, are you using "knowledge" so that it has a connotation of "certainty"? And if so, why would you be using the term that way?
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Angelo Cannata
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Angelo Cannata »

I think that philosophy can’t make a strict choice between common sense and maths. My distinction between philosophy and common sense means that philosophy tries to make use of both, making a great effort to put remedies to all inconsistencies and oddities that come from this mix. Common sense in much more free and spontaneous. Maths is severe and exact. Philosophy needs to make use of both.
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

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Terrapin Station wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 7:37 pm For one, in my view if you're doing philosophy so that you have to separate it from "common sense," you're not doing philosophy right.
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So which of those two expressions is "common sense" according to you:

A. THIS COLOR IS RED vs THIS COLOR IS RED
B. THIS WAVELENGTH IS 620-700 nanometers vs THIS WAVELENGTH IS 620-700 nanometers
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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 7:49 pm I think that philosophy can’t make a strict choice between common sense and maths. My distinction between philosophy and common sense means that philosophy tries to make use of both, making a great effort to put remedies to all inconsistencies and oddities that come from this mix. Common sense in much more free and spontaneous. Maths is severe and exact. Philosophy needs to make use of both.
Philosophy needs to be able to describe/explain/account for ALL phenomena without having a separation from anything. It's like science in that regard. It's just that its methodology is different, as it doesn't focus on empirical experimentation. If we're having to separate something from it, we're doing something wrong, because we can't account for something about the world.

You didn't answer if you're using "knowledge" to connote "certainty," and if so, why.
Skepdick
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Skepdick »

Terrapin Station wrote: Sat Apr 03, 2021 8:13 pm Philosophy needs to be able to describe/explain/account for ALL phenomena without having a separation from anything
Philosophy can't even account for itself.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: The big misunderstanding about “I”

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Angelo Cannata wrote: Mon Jul 02, 2018 3:54 am Whenever we, or any philosopher of past or present time, talk about “I”, or “subjectivity”, a big mistake is made. The mistake consists in treating it as an object.
...

This means that any attempt to talk about subjectivity by trying to use exact ideas and concepts is automatically a betrayal of subjectivity, because being exact means just being objective. So, the best ways of talking about subjectivity are arts: painting, music, literature, sculpture, poetry. Arts express subjectivity without any claim of being exact, clear, precise. Arts allude to subjectivity, rather that define it; any artist expresses first his own subjectivity, not others’.

That means that philosophy must open a dialogue with arts (that is not philosophy of aesthetics: that would be, again, an objectification), if she wants to talk properly about subjectivity.

So, in this moment I am trying to consider what I have just written as “art of ideas”, rather than a claim of transmitting some precise, exact, clear idea.
There are many perspectives to "I" and "subjectivity" plus also 'objectivity'.
I agree the current focus in philosophy is on objectivity even objectifying the 'I'.

However I believe both 'subjectivity' and 'objectivity' must both be activated in complementarity like how Yin and Ying intermingled equally and checking each other in reality.
In this sense, when objectivity reaches its optimum, it is limited by subjectivity and vice-versa,

Yes, there is the true essence of subjectivity in the arts: painting, music, literature, sculpture, poetry; creativity, hermeneutics and even in science.
This is the inherent drive of 'artfulness' within all human.

Here are some points re Hermeneutic and Art from Zimmerman;
  • Philosophical hermeneutics, by contrast, insists that art possesses the power to convey true knowledge about our human condition.
    And this power is best described as creative performance.
    In Chapter 1 we said that hermeneutics is the art of understanding but also of making oneself understood.
    Both aspects play an important part in how art conveys truth.

    Understanding requires art rather than rule-governed science.

    Philosophical hermeneutics thus rehabilitates the power of art to convey real knowledge about ourselves.
    Art helps us understand ourselves better and thus make more intelligent decisions about life.
    Art helps us to identify and understand previously invisible forces that shape our lives and thus to deal with them.
    In what is perhaps its greatest gift to us, art makes possible recognition, the power allowing us to say, ‘Yes, that’s how it is, now I understand.’

    Scientific prediction depends on an art, namely the art of establishing—by means of the scientist’s trained eye, ear, and touch—the correspondence between the explicit predictions of science and the actual experience of our senses to which these predictions apply.
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