Challenge the Philosophy - main arguments supporting proposition 1

A Summary of the Main Arguments Supporting the Proposition that "we cannot [more reasonably] truly know who we are in part or in whole and be who we are at the same time":

1. Representational knowledge

Conscious knowledge is apparently based on interaction at sensorial, biochemical, and neurological levels, or any other levels, and therefore we can only know via representation. (i.e. we do not know directly from the external world in a Aristotelian fashion, whereby external knowledge somehow enters directly into our minds. We know through representation based on interaction, whether it be the interaction of neuron cells or the interaction of sensory receptors with external stimulus. One way around this position is to assert that some conscious knowledge is created ex nihilo ("out of nothing"). However, the concept of ex nihilo is less reasonable from our comparative perspective than something coming from something else ad infinitum (infinite causality), because we can only know by imputing (infinite) causality onto things.

The representative nature of conscious knowledge is important, in the context of Competition 1, because it refutes the notion of true knowledge viz., representative knowledge cannot truly be what it represents, because then it would not be representational.

2. Epistemology of knowledge (human invention)

Conscious knowledge is apparently derived from human invention. (i.e. we invent conscious knowledge from interactional based information.)

Since we are the ones behind the invention of conscious knowledge, we cannot invent true knowledge of ourselves and be ourselves. In other words, we cannot be the basis for invention and at the same time the product of invention.

3. Internalism and externalism

Since we are the knowers trying to be the known at the same time, we need to get outside of ourselves, otherwise we would have no space to know who we are. Yet by getting outside of ourselves, without considering its probability, we cease to be ourselves; and by ceasing to be ourselves we have no grounds to know who we are because there is no who we are to know. Hence, whether as ourselves (internalism) or outside of ourselves (externalism), we cannot truly know who we are.

4. Temporal lag

Conscious knowledge is apparently defined by temporality, and therefore as soon as we think we know who we are, we cease to know who we are because what we know is past knowledge of who we are. (If we deny the notion of time, we also deny the notion of thought, which then self-defeats the denial of time.)

5. Comparative nature of reason (reliance on past knowledge)

Reason is apparently defined by comparison of conscious meaning, and therefore what we reason and thereby know is based on what we previously know, which means that we can only know in the context of past knowledge.

6. Incomplete empirical knowledge

Empirical knowledge of who we are whether of our biological or conscious make-up, cannot completely capture ourselves in entirety due to the complexity of our make-up. Laon explains this position in Entry 296, in which he says,

".... truly know who we are’ must at least involve complete physical knowledge, for example of all our bodily systems, endocrine, muscular, central nervous, digestive, and many other systems, plus their complex interactions; and yet that relatively observable knowledge is beyond the capacity of any doctor, or indeed of the whole of medical science. Then add the necessity, to attain the standard implied by ‘truly’, to also know every aspect of our own personalities, all our memories, all our intellectual capacities, all of our hopes and fears and shames and secrets and drives and so on, including - which is surely a contradiction and therefore impossible - knowing the mental events and capacities we are not conscious of. If that is not impossible enough for you (and its impossibility is quite clear to me), then remember that ‘truly knowing’ ourselves must also involve knowing those extraordinary and crucially important things that the particles we are made of at the sub-atomic level."

To put what Laon Shelley says in context, Steve Burwen in Entry 209 states that "a single human brain [alone] contains [approximately] 12 trillion neurons, which are connected to anywhere from 3,000 to 100,000 other neurons.") Hence, due to the sheer complexity of the human brain, it is inconceivable within the bounds of probability how all the neurons themselves of a single human brain could be known.

7. Recursive reflexivity (infinite regress)

Apparently all conscious knowledge if it is asserted with absolute truth-value succumbs to infinite regress, whereby we reach an end link in our chain of reasoning which infinitely repeats because we never come to an absolute endpoint. Or, we face "recursive reflexivity" whereby each addition of knowledge of who we are changes who we are so that we never attain true knowledge of who we are, or as Laon Shelley in Entry 296 says,

".... additional self-knowledge adds to what the circle is: it means the circle is a sentient simple-minded circle that knows it is a sentient simple-minded circle that knows it is a sentient simple-minded circle. If it knows that, then to truly know itself it now has to know that it is a sentient single-minded circle that knows it is a sentient simple-minded circle that knows it is a sentient simple-minded circle. This cycle goes on forever, to infinity, in what Gödel calls ‘recursive reflexivity’. The knowledge never includes the whole system, because the knowledge expands the nature of the system it tries to know."

8. Precedence of possibility

Since possibility is necessary for the existence of impossibility, and impossibility is not necessary for the existence of possibility, it follows that possibility precedes impossibility. This axiom defends the competition from the standpoint that it cannot be claimed with validity that it is impossible to truly know who we are, and therefore, the proposition is impossible to overcome.

Also, since the proposition is asserted from a limited perspective, it is consistent with the precedence of possibility, and in particular the possibility of truly knowing who we are.

9. Limited perspective

By asserting the proposition with limited truth-value, we avoid the skeptical contradiction of claiming to not know anything from a position of knowing, or in the context of the proposition, claiming to not truly know who we are from a position of truly knowing who we are. Also, the criticism that the proposition has limited truth-value, thereby is uncertain, is cancelled out because apparently all propositions from our perspective have limited truth-value, and as mentioned, if the proposition did not have limited truth-value, it would be contradictory.

10. Precedence of human consciousness

Based on the premise that we cannot (more reasonably) get outside of our minds and know that we are (i.e. mind in box), and the conclusion that we can only know what we know, it follows within the limits of what we know that the nature of what we know (i.e. the nature of human consciousness) precedes what we know. So any conception whether metaphysical or scientific will be primarily defined by the nature of our consciousness, and since human consciousness is apparently comparative and incomplete in nature (Arguments 1-7), comparative incompleteness will define, within limits, any knowledge of who we are.

11. Limited position (in terms of physical occupation of space)

Based on the premise that individuals occupy space, no two physical positions (or points) in space are identical. Also, in consideration of the constant lapse of time, no two physical positions are identical. Hence, it follows that we have no way of completely knowing who we are because we are constantly changing (within our physical lifespan). (The source of this argument is Sabrina from Entry 541.)

For critiques of the main arguments see Entry 322,  Entry 336 ,  Entry 362,  Entry 436

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