AlexW wrote: ↑Tue Oct 13, 2020 5:02 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 3:07 pm
We start to experience the world long before any of us has any facility in language. That's very obvious.
Yes, agree, there is experiencing happening since the body is born (or even before that) - but the idea that there is a self that experiences the "world" is only known once these concepts have been learned and acquired - before that, there is... well... nothing conceptual.
Isn't this a hint?
"Nothing conceptual"? I wouldn't imagine that's so. Rather, I would say the concepts are simply more rudimentary at the beginning than later. A child may not be able to conceptualize "citizenship" when she's born, but she can surely conceptualize "warmth."
The point is that somebody, some "self" has to detect "warmth" in order for there to be an "experience of warmth." So it's not the sophistication of the concept that's indicative -- it's the presence of
any ability to conceptualize anything at all.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 3:07 pm
A "movie," by definition, involves certain basic elements, such as actors, a script, dialogue, action, a director and viewers. Without those things, a "movie" hasn't happened at all.
Yes, I fully agree.
But what if all these entities are purely conceptual...
I think we'd better clarify what you are meaning when you say "conceptual." You seem to be meaning something different from what normal usage is...maybe "abstract concepts," or something like that?
What if they are only nice stories, thought patterns, nothing more..?
Impossible. If there's no writer-self, or no reader-self to perceive a thing, it's not a "story," by definition. And if there are "thought patterns," then there is certainly a "thinker." And if these are "nice," then there has to be a self who assesses the "story" as "nice."
If the objection you're trying to raise here can be properly posed, then it surely must be posed without implying any "self," right? If you can't even frame the objection without already
assuming a self, then perhaps the objection cannot be posed rationally at all.
The question is: If I think about something happening... Has it actually really happened?
"If I think..." you begin. There again, you've presupposed the existence of
yourself, if of nothing else.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 3:07 pm
The "experience," in that case, never took place.
Exactly.
But if that's "exactly" right, there was no experience, and so there is no question about whether or not a "self" is having the experience that didn't really happen anyway.
Do you see how completely incoherent this gets, if we don't assume the existence of a self? We can't even find a way to pose the problem.
But there still is "something" - not some thing(s), no objects, but still "something".
As Descartes said, "I think (or doubt), therefore I am (i.e. I, the "self" exists)."
You can doubt my existence. You can doubt the world's existence. You can doubt, as Descartes said, even that you have a body or occupy physical space. But the one thing you cannot doubt is that some "doubter," some indescribable entity that describes, exists; for as often as there IS a doubt, just so certain is it that there IS a doubter.
I see no way past that. If you have one, I'd be interested: what would it be?