But what is 'it', which is experiencing?Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 12:45 pmThe self is a construct. What is not and cannot be a construct is experience. Take way all constructs including pronouns and what remains is experience.bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:55 amIf the in-it-self doesn't exist, you in-yourself don't exist.Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 4:31 am Btw, you are not likely to agree - to Kant the Father of thing-in-itself is God which cannot be real and thus is illusory.
Your existence is illusory.
The Father of the in-it-self thing, therefore your Father, is the father of that which does not exist, including you.
You appear to exist only because of what you are not.
And what makes you exist, in turn owes its existence to something other than itself.
In a continuous reference until we reach the in-it-self thing that cannot exist.
If you truly admit the non-existence of the in-it-self thing, the whole castle collapses, and you with it.
However, you have a Father.
That doesn't exist, because it is.
And you are that.
The in-it-self thing cannot exist
Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist
Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist
The 'Universe'.bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 1:25 pmI did not understand your criticism.
The existence of a thing derives from something other than that thing.
Could you give me an example of the opposite?
I'm curious.
Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist
Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist
Like experience includes experiencing arms, or legs, so experience includes experiencing self. There is no subject of experience.Age wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 11:47 pmBut what is 'it', which is experiencing?Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 12:45 pmThe self is a construct. What is not and cannot be a construct is experience. Take way all constructs including pronouns and what remains is experience.bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 5:55 am
If the in-it-self doesn't exist, you in-yourself don't exist.
Your existence is illusory.
The Father of the in-it-self thing, therefore your Father, is the father of that which does not exist, including you.
You appear to exist only because of what you are not.
And what makes you exist, in turn owes its existence to something other than itself.
In a continuous reference until we reach the in-it-self thing that cannot exist.
If you truly admit the non-existence of the in-it-self thing, the whole castle collapses, and you with it.
However, you have a Father.
That doesn't exist, because it is.
And you are that.
Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist
I am not sure how I could ask my question more simply.
How about; What is the 'thing', which experiences?
You made the claim that at the most fundamental level there remains 'experience', but, to me, there obviously has to be some 'thing', which experiences. So, if we take away all constructs, including 'experience', itself, then what is 'it' that is 'experiencing'?
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Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist
Your first statement is not rational.bobmax wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 7:04 amYou verify and justify your existence based on the existence of something other than you.Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 6:21 am OTOH., my empirical-I [the thinking-I] exists as real and can be verified and justified within myself, others and science.
Which in turn...
With your empirical self you fall back into the thing itself.
Exit the loop!
Where even Kant was spinning ...
There is no you-in-itself to base my empirical self on.
What I am relying upon are the empirical evidences that supports the existence of my self as an empirical self and not as a self-in-itself or me-in-itself.
Note Hume's Philosophy of the Self,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume#The_'self'
If there is no empirical evidence to verify and justify the existence of a person's self [e.g. a corpse], there is no self-in-itself [claimed as an independent soul].Empiricist philosophers, such as Hume and Berkeley, favoured the bundle theory of personal identity.[97]
In this theory, "the mind itself, far from being an independent power, is simply 'a bundle of perceptions' without unity or cohesive quality".[98]
The self is nothing but a bundle of experiences linked by the relations of causation and resemblance; or, more accurately, the empirically warranted idea of the self is just the idea of such a bundle. According to Hume:[70]
- For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long I am insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist.
— A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I.iv, section 6
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Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist
Re Kant, it is the 'noumenon' as thing-in-itself that is used "temporarily" to indicate the limits of perception [re phenomena].Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 12:40 pm Sculptor wrote:
The phrase "thing in itself" is used to indicate the limits of perception. Yes, but also to indicate there are things in themselves. That perception is limited is not a reason to believe things in themselves exist.The phrase "thing in itself" is used to indicate the limits of perception such that any thing has qualities beyond which our limited perception allows. There no implication of complete independence from other things, and these connections could well be outside the limits of perception too.
to indicate the limits of perception such that any thing has qualities beyond which our limited perception allows. There no implication of complete independence from other things, and these connections could well be outside the limits of perception too.
As such, the above does imply there is still the 'thing-in-itself' to be considered.
But upon deeper philosophical consideration, the 'thing-in-itself' is illusory i.e. a psychological derivative and is not a real thing at all.
Note Russell's No Man's Land as an analogy;
At the limit & boundary of the No Man’s Land on the Science side is what Kant would place the noumenon which is assumed logically [not really] from the real phenomena.All definite knowledge – so I should contend – belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology.
But between theology and science there is a No Man’s Land, exposed to attack from both sides; and this No Man’s Land is philosophy.
Meanwhile theists and the likes take their necessary desperate big leap of faith and jumped across the No Man's Land to reify the noumenon as a 'real' thing-in-itself, i.e. the dogmatic God, the independent soul, etc.
While Russell merely generalize, Kant provided a very detailed argument of how theists reify the noumenon as a 'real' thing-in-itself when it is merely an illusion emerging as a psychological derivative serving therapeutic purposes only.
Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist
What does my birth have to do with it?
The questioning of the thing in itself necessarily questions my very existence as well.
I don't exist as a thing in itself.
You confuse being with existing.
And this is a problem.
So you don't grasp the question that Kant shows, but doesn't solve!
And in fact you don't even grasp how the ethical aspect is central to Kant.
Everything is ethical!
You don't see it because for you being coincides with existing.
While Kant, in his confused but sincere effort, questions precisely that existence is being.
Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist
Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist
Possibly the stupidest thing I have read this week
1) You know nothing about Kant, and do not know the meaning of ding an sich.
So you don't grasp the question that Kant shows, but doesn't solve!
And in fact you don't even grasp how the ethical aspect is central to Kant.
Everything is ethical!
You don't see it because for you being coincides with existing.
While Kant, in his confused but sincere effort, questions precisely that existence is being.
2) nothing exists according to you without a distinction.
3) SInce nothing was distinguishable before you came into being, then the whole world must have started when you did.
4) Now you are saying that, you do not exist.
Great - I can ignore you
Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist
Yes, but ' love ' as usually understood is a sentiment. I'd rather say what matters is caring about what is not self. Self is not a whole self unless it cares.bobmax wrote: ↑Sat Aug 20, 2022 5:29 amDo you agree that if everything is experience then what only matters is love?
Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist
Yes, it is not a sentiment.
It is not something I feel, as part of me.
Instead, it is something that imposes itself apart from me.
When it is there I am no longer there.
It is compassion that envelops everything, even myself as if it understood me as I have never understood myself.
And it is also capable of manifesting itself with no object to turn to.
It is enough in itself.
Re: The in-it-self thing cannot exist
Well said.bobmax wrote: ↑Sat Aug 20, 2022 11:32 pmYes, it is not a sentiment.
It is not something I feel, as part of me.
Instead, it is something that imposes itself apart from me.
When it is there I am no longer there.
It is compassion that envelops everything, even myself as if it understood me as I have never understood myself.
And it is also capable of manifesting itself with no object to turn to.
It is enough in itself.