The Self

Originally Posted by Obsidean

There can be no program, only the brain.

What? Computers clearly run abstract programs. This does not imply that the program has ontological status, as any true sentence about a state-of-affairs in the program can be reduced to a true sentence about the physical computer's internal states via semantic modification.

Originally Posted by Narcissist

No. Character is always mentioned in relation to others. If there'd be no others ; there'd be no character.
So still you,ve involved others in your definition of self.What is self in its essence ? Why can't it be defined in isolation from all other existence ?
What it really is ?
Is it God?
Is it a feeling , a physical thing , a sensation , an illusion. What ?
What if self didn't existed ? Would there be no "us" or "me" ?

Whoa, where'd that come from?

Apparently, people shape themselves up according to the situations that they are in. But that isn't always usually the case, your talking about self right? Well lets look at it a different way, why does someone act a certain way around other people? And why does someone another way around themselves?

If i were to describe self, i would say that it has absolutely nothing to do with any outside forces like "God" because what would be the point in even shaping yourself up in a certain image if your always worried about the consequences?

You wont get anywhere if you keep yourself limited to only a certain way of thinking.

That is why in my opinion, people shape themselves up in different ways according to what the situation calls for, or what the person sees themselves as..

Then you have people who are clones, people who do exactly what everyone else does.

How can these people be any form or entity of self if they rarely ever think for themselves and only do what is shown to them and never try anything that they themselves would do?

To form a self, i believe you have to be daring and forward about it.

If you even consider something else, then that may be a change in your character or doubt in your own persona.

Its ok to admire other people, it may even be acceptable to aspire to be like them, but to actually want to BE them is like becoming a puppet with no dreams other then copying your messiah.

Exactly why im not into religion. While it is half true that without other people a person would not be whole, look at society now, even with all of us on this planet we are still not whole, and we are still detached from one another, how different would it be with or without people on this planet anyways?

I don't think my personality would change in the slightest.

If a self didn't exist inside of you, you would probably be empty and shallow, but even when you have everything you want, you will feel very accomplished and successful, but then you will get bored and look for another challenge, i can easily say that the self may just be a greedy fragment of humanities unison.

If self didn't exist, maybe production would go a lot easier.

I converse with myself everyday to make sure i know what i am thinking, that way i dont make any sudden mistakes, or something doesn't go according to plan, that is why i always know in advance what it is that should be done or shouldn't be done.

If you want to know more about the self of human beings, i suggest that you create a documentary including the cultures of people all over the world. It is the only way to figure out what it truly is, only by asking numerous people with different, or the same views on life, will you fully even begin to grasp what is signified by all these cultural representations of (What our people do and why the believe in it).

Originally Posted by EmotionallyTonedGeometry

Surely the self can think and it surely can pretend that what it thinks about is actually itself, but it can only chase its own tail. Nothing in our reality can actually reflectively perform the action that defines itself back upon itself. Nothing.

So you suggest that the self cannot relate to itself in a meaningful way ?

Originally Posted by Narcissist

So you suggest that the self cannot relate to itself in a meaningful way ?

That's another way to say it. Knowing, at least the way I think of it, is an experience. The error encountered in knowing one's self is that this experience is not cast in the subject-predicate structure of language. There is no object called self that can be known (or related to, as you say), there is only an experience that must be an immediately lived one.

On a similar note, the Yoga Sutras suggest that the fundamental error of consciousness occurs when the discriminative apparatus (buddhi) attempts to discriminate itself.

Originally Posted by Narcissist

No. Character is always mentioned in relation to others. If there'd be no others ; there'd be no character.

But what about the relationship of one to oneself?

Originally Posted by EmotionallyTonedGeometry

Surely the self can think and it surely can pretend that what it thinks about is actually itself, but it can only chase its own tail. Nothing in our reality can actually reflectively perform the action that defines itself back upon itself. Nothing.

:) Which is basically what I was asking. Well, I would say that there is no basis on which the self can truly define itself, since it IS such a circular process. At best, there's some sort of overseeing process that takes what already exists, tries to reflect on it, and then makes decisions to add, change, remove something, etc, or reinterpret data, but there's nothing objective about that process.

The experience within that circle might feel very different, though, in terms of what the construct of self perceives.

Originally Posted by bubbleboy

sleep is called the cousin of death for a reason lol. there is no awareness of self when you are asleep. It's why depressed people like to nap all the time...because they need an escape from existence

I remember for part of my life not wanting to go to sleep because I felt like I was already dying, and it was too much to allow myself to "snuff out" for the night.

It does seem to exhibit a remarkable trust to allow oneself to sleep, on the assumption that one will eventually wake up again.

the way I see it, the self is a vessel that contains ideas, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, which are all transient expressions of an ever changing consciousness.

Originally Posted by Coldplayer

The more we learn, the less we know. You're going to work yourself into a stupor trying to add so much depth to something you could simplify. I like complexity too though. Interesting topic

Can you "simply" explain the topic of self ?
If we really knew about self ; we would have expressed it simply and clearly. But it turns out that , as EmotionallyTonedGeometry mentioned , each and every case of self-reference is wildly absurd. And so as self can , as we can most easily describe , only "think" ; thoughts might not lead us to the true discovery of self .

Originally Posted by Valdyr

Why should this be?

1. Why intuition is more epistemically valid than rational inquiry

While I am not an expert on epistemology ; I think that there are different levels of knowledge and intuition/innate wisdom is one of the different types of 'knowing'. While I understand that a mixture of reason , sensory data , and abstract data (thoughts) that is rationalism ; works on most topics of human interest but the topic of 'self' or 'God' is an exception. As thoughts cannot "think" ; the self ,as we know it , is something more than just thoughts. Thoughts originate from self , self doesn't originate from thoughts ! So here reason just fails (as it is questioning the very being that gives it the ability to reason). This is just my opinion . I have never studied philosophy in in a lot of detail but ,as it seems you have, you can elaborate/judge my statement on philosophical grounds.

2. Why the nature of the self should be a special case
While intuition is very useful, I don't think it's epistemically
priveleged.

The self is a special case as I have mentioned above and as far it's epistemic privelege is concerned ; I think epistemology does give credit to idealistic thoughts .

Why is it evident? It can't be that evident, or I wouldn't disagree.

All right it is not evident !

Let's recap. You're asserting that a transcendent "self" exists, though
without assigning it any meaningful attributes. You deflect rational opposing
views by claiming that this is a special case where intuition is epistemically
privileged (justify this please), and then repeat that it's "evident" that your
position is correct. This reeks of being noncognitive to me.

A question to you . Is self the object or the subject in a philosophical dabate ?

Originally Posted by Mr.wise

Whoa, where'd that come from?

Apparently, people shape themselves up according to the situations that they are in. But that isn't always usually the case, your talking about self right? Well lets look at it a different way, why does someone act a certain way around other people? And why does someone another way around themselves?

If i were to describe self, i would say that it has absolutely nothing to do with any outside forces like "God" because what would be the point in even shaping yourself up in a certain image if your always worried about the consequences?

You wont get anywhere if you keep yourself limited to only a certain way of thinking.

That is why in my opinion, people shape themselves up in different ways according to what the situation calls for, or what the person sees themselves as..

Then you have people who are clones, people who do exactly what everyone else does.

How can these people be any form or entity of self if they rarely ever think for themselves and only do what is shown to them and never try anything that they themselves would do?

To form a self, i believe you have to be daring and forward about it.

If you even consider something else, then that may be a change in your character or doubt in your own persona.

Its ok to admire other people, it may even be acceptable to aspire to be like them, but to actually want to BE them is like becoming a puppet with no dreams other then copying your messiah.

Exactly why im not into religion. While it is half true that without other people a person would not be whole, look at society now, even with all of us on this planet we are still not whole, and we are still detached from one another, how different would it be with or without people on this planet anyways?

I don't think my personality would change in the slightest.

If a self didn't exist inside of you, you would probably be empty and shallow, but even when you have everything you want, you will feel very accomplished and successful, but then you will get bored and look for another challenge, i can easily say that the self may just be a greedy fragment of humanities unison.

If self didn't exist, maybe production would go a lot easier.

I converse with myself everyday to make sure i know what i am thinking, that way i dont make any sudden mistakes, or something doesn't go according to plan, that is why i always know in advance what it is that should be done or shouldn't be done.

If you want to know more about the self of human beings, i suggest that you create a documentary including the cultures of people all over the world. It is the only way to figure out what it truly is, only by asking numerous people with different, or the same views on life, will you fully even begin to grasp what is signified by all these cultural representations of (What our people do and why the believe in it).

The more you get away from self the less is your individuality.The more you focus on developing your ego ; the better it can withstand the heaviest shocks to the point that it can even withstand the shock of corporeal death. What about this ? :)

Originally Posted by EmotionallyTonedGeometry

That's another way to say it. Knowing, at least the way I think of it, is an experience. The error encountered in knowing one's self is that this experience is not cast in the subject-predicate structure of language. There is no object called self that can be known (or related to, as you say), there is only an experience that must be an immediately lived one.

On a similar note, the Yoga Sutras suggest that the fundamental error of consciousness occurs when the discriminative apparatus (buddhi) attempts to discriminate itself.

Kierkegaard’s concept of approach to the Self is a movement from temporal to eternal . He says that to understand self one need to do it as a study of subject and not an object. He believes that subjectivity , the innate reality and not objective truths can lead us to discover the self .