Reply to the Response to Entry 238

"Since words are necessary to express experience, and the proposition according to you cannot be overcome by words, it does not follow how experience can overcome the proposition." (Quote from Response)

Of course it does not follow, since the statement makes no argument. The statement merely asserts a fact, which can only be known (verified) by the appropriate experience. Words cannot give the experience of the color blue to a blind man, nor can words give the experience of the unity of true self and knowing.

"You cannot separate experience from words, still know or "assert" that you have experience." (Quote from Response)

This last sentence makes no sense whatsoever, unless it only expresses the limits of the experience of the author of the sentence. This limit is, of course, a given in the circumstances of this conversation, for if the author had the relevant experience they would never write the sentence. Being inwardly blind, how can the author be expected to speak of what he/she could see were they to awake to their primal vision.

"Even if you could have an experience that overcomes the proposition, and you know that it did, it is unclear what that actual experience would be. As an example, you refer to experience of the "examination of inner life through introspection" and "concentrated thinking without an object", but what is it about these activities and your experience of them that allows you to know who you are? Introspection and concentrated thinking allows an individual to compare different thoughts at a deep level... " (Quote from Response)

Only in the limited nature of your experience. As long as you assume that your experience is the limit of my experience then you will continue to write what is essentially nonsense, in the light of my experience.

"... but what it is it about the comparison of thoughts that allows an individual to know who he or she is?" (Quote from Response)

Thoughts are not compared. The mind has many riches, that seem quite beyond what you yet imagine.

"Also, since us ourselves apparently create knowledge (i.e. conscious meaning)" (Quote from Response)

Finally a sense of limits - "apparently". And no, we don't create knowledge, but this is a common enough assumption. It might be possible to speak of "thought-substance", and of mind (spirit) as drawing to itself this "quality" of the invisible world. Plato had it pretty much right when he spoke of our seeing shadows on the wall of the cave (thoughts), but not the reality or the light that illuminates them. It is necessary to draw "thought" into contact with experience, and this is often experienced in the inner wording (discursive thinking - the spirit "speaks" the soul "hears"). It is part of our gift of inward freedom that we can "control" this drawing together of thought and experience (concept and percept, as Steiner has it). So naturally it appears that we "create" knowledge and meaning. The problem comes when we place the seeking after truth over and above this freedom of inward expression of our experience. Then we have to choose - do we want the world only to mean what we egotistically want it to mean, or do we want the meaning we speak (think) to be the truth. This becomes a very interesting moral problem and an intense learning experience.

"... we cannot create who we are through who we are, how can we know who we are through our creation of knowledge?" (Quote from Response)

This may follow from your assumptions, but it doesn't follow when the truth is experienced.

"Moreover, your contention that the proposition is falsified on grounds of excluding possible future change overlooks that the proposition is proposed not as an absolute, but from our limited perspective. Therefore, the term, "cannot" is not rigid to exclude possible future change as you contend." (Quote from Response)

Cool. Please however, in your use of the term "our" in the phrase "our limited perspective", do not include me, for my experience (and the resulting perspective) is quite different.

Joel Wendt June 27 2001

Response:

2. An individual experience is not local, because of the non-local nature of an individual’s knowledge, which means that you cannot assert using words that knowledge of experience is unique onto each individual. (See Entry 234 for a similar argument attempting to separate the knowledge of individual minds.)

3. If thoughts are not compared at the conscious level, how can there be thoughts? Are you proposing that there is no reasoning process, whereby one thought is compared to another?

4. If we do not create knowledge, where does knowledge come from?

How can there be "inner freedom" of expression, since our thoughts are partly determined from outside of our control like the influence of the external world and our biological make up?

What is the difference between "spirit" and "soul"?

5. How can truth be experienced and we know with certainty that it is?

240. Entry:

"The proposition that ‘We cannot know who we are and be who we are at the same time’ is overcome by a simple observation. In order to obtain knowledge, one must intake data. The data we obtain in regards to this proposition is determined by the nature of ourselves. So when we determine with certainty who we are, it is based on the knowledge we procure from ourselves. It follows that our knowledge of ourselves is based on the being of ourselves."

Ray Nepveux June 28 2001

Response:

Your challenge is based on an assumption that human beings directly intake data from the external world, so that what we know is what really is. (i.e. our knowledge of a table is directly from a table existing in the external world.) However, the problem with your assumption of direct intake of data is that our sensory receptors apparently respond to external stimulus rather than receive external stimulus. This sensory response creates an indirect relation between our sensory and the external world. Therefore, what we know is created at the point of sensory reception in response to stimulus from the external world, so that knowledge of a table or who we are is based on a limited connection through our sensory with the external world.

To challenge the notion of indirect relation of sensory, you need to show how knowledge is directly transferred from the external world into our minds, whereby our knowledge becomes a matter of luck rather than a matter of sensing and reasoning.

241. Entry:

"Well, there's a fundamental error behind the idea of an epistemology. We cannot know the limits to our knowledge unless we place ourselves outside those limits. The error is found in the same proposition, we cannot know ourselves for we cannot be placed outside ourselves. If we were to know knowledge (epistemology), so we could know the limits to it, we would have to place ourselves outside the limits of this knowledge (outside knowledge). Thus I could state we cannot know how much we can know, instead of saying we cannot know what we cannot know. This simple reason sets us aside or beyond the proposition, though we've not overcome it as far as showing the opposite, it does no longer pose a threat to us.

The other problem presented by the argument is that we are in constant change. The question now is: Can we know that we cannot know ourselves? The answer, I believe, has been shown above."

Roberto Macías Barrientos July 4 2001

Response:

We agree that we cannot confirm the limits of our knowledge (epistemology), unless we place ourselves outside of those limits. Though from our limited perspective, we can know the limits of our knowledge without outside confirmation. For you to challenge this limited perspective on grounds of its limitation, you would then face inconsistency by challenging from your own limited perspective. Also, for you to contend that your perspective may not be limited does not help, because all perspectives may not be limited. (i.e. possibility appears to be an inherent feature of human thought.)

You could state that ‘we cannot know how much we can know’, but your statement is contingent on the assumption that there is something we can know. What is this know you are referring to? An absolute? A non-absolute?

To rephrase your statement without the assumption, we state that ‘we cannot know how much or how least we can know in absolute terms’, so that we have not set ourselves aside or beyond the proposition, but face its possibility from our limited perspective.

For you to argue that because we cannot absolutely confirm the proposition, the proposition is inconsequential, and therefore it does not pose a threat to us, does not make sense because limited confirmation does not necessarily equate with less validation, and all knowledge apparently faces the same uncertain confirmation, thus to follow your argument through, all knowledge from our perspective would face inconsequence.

242. Entry:

Reply to the Response to Entry 241

"Well, the whole idea gives it's own complications. As we've said epistemology is completely inconsistent. As you've proven my statement falls in the same mistake of trying to limit knowledge. As far as how much we can know I cannot assert to extend a threatening statement. There's still one more problem. The knowledge of oneself is itself inherent to the being. This means, to be who we truly are we must know who we are, more like a Nietzsche's idea. Being who we are implies we know who we are and we've achieved a state of personal achievement that turns us into what we truly are.

This is based upon several things:

a) Assuming that being one's self as inherent to the state of being disregards possible conditioning and alterations by neurosis.

b) Knowing one's self poses still a threat, however if we are to take the eternal change Heraclitean proposition, in order to know who we are, we must know who we want to be and work our ways towards it, much as the sephiroths in the gnostic heresy.

c) If we don't take the Heraclitean proposition, but rather an hilemorphistic idea as that of Aristotle, then we can know the our essence, for it never changes. This would assume knowing ourselves.

d) Stating that we cannot know ourselves for we must be placed outside us cancels the whole idea of epistemology. We cannot know knowledge for we must place ourselves outside knowledge.

e) The final reason is that philosophy is not on immediate answers, but cultivating the question, here's a new doubt to work on before even being able to reach the statement above. Are second degree studies valid? Is there really an essence to all things? Finally, isn't the being itself a whole idea, a mere concept?

Another problem I find in the proposition is that life is a constant stage of transition, so can we ever be who we are? for we are nothing fixed... so we are and we are not. Or as Descartes would say, ‘Question everything.’"

Roberto Macías Barrientos July 6 2001

Response:

Your previous assertion that "we cannot know the limits to our knowledge, unless we place ourselves outside of those limits", is contingent on the assumption that once we are outside of those limits we can know them with absoluteness. What is it about being outside of our conscious limits that allows us to know them with absoluteness? How can we be outside the limits of our knowledge and still be cognizant? We contend that there is more to knowing our limits to knowledge than placing ourselves outside of them. Though we also contend that it is possible to know the limits of our knowledge without placing ourselves outside of them, just as it is possible to know, within limits, the limits of our knowledge. Although what is important, in the context of the competition, is that as far as what we know due to self-referencing, there are limits to what we know. Therefore, your statement that "as far as how much we know I cannot assert to extend a threatening statement" overlooks that from our limited perspective you also cannot extend any other threatening or non-threatening statement. We are left comparing what we know within our perceived limits of what we know, so that meaning lies not in absoluteness, but in the limited comparison of thought.

We agree with you that knowledge of oneself is inherent with being who we are. (i.e. at our stage of evolution, we cannot be who we are without having at least some conscious conception of who we are.) However, it does not follow that we have to really know who we are, rather than know a limited conception of who we are, to be who we really are.

Other issues:

A problem with Heraclitean’s proposition, "in order to know who we are, we must know who we want to be and work towards it", is that it does not follow how we could work towards who we want to be, while not being who we are in the process, unless we view Heraclitean’s proposition at the conscious or worldly level, so that we never know who we really are because there is no who we really are to work towards--we are who we really are without having to work towards it.

This point takes us to Aristotle’s hilemorphistic idea, that "we can know our essence, for it never changes". Yet, it does not necessarily follow that we can know something on the lone ground that the something we want to know is static. (i.e. something static does not necessarily result in knowledge of that something static.)

We agree that philosophy is not the immediate answer on knowing/not knowing who we are, because the topic includes a number of fields like neuroscience, various areas of philosophy, anthropology, and biology. Though we contend that all empirical fields have their basis in the philosophy of the mind. So in our view, philosophy will be the final answer on whether or not we can know who we are.

If life is a constant stage of transition, as you contend, it follows that we never/always be who we are as long as we are alive, which means that we cannot know who we are, because there is nothing to fix onto, and even if who we are is static, it is still questionable, as mentioned, whether we could know who we are.

243. Entry:

Definition of two terms from the entry (as requested by the Inexpressible Committee):

The best explanation I have for "keyed-in awareness" is that we are constantly receiving data from our senses, but most of it doesn't reach the level of awareness or consciousness. It only reaches our awareness level when some outside stimuli is determined by the brain to be important enough to key-in awareness which in turn triggers response or reaction.

"Detached feeling" is feeling that has no conscious continuity path. It can't be consciously traced back to where it originated from or what stimulated it. One example might be feeling good or bad for no apparent reason.

Entry:

"Since the question of who we are doesn't enter our minds until someone or some event brings it to our attention, I would say that we ‘can’ know who we are and be who we are at the same time. ‘Being’ is the keyed-in awareness of a detached feeling while ‘knowing’ is trying to explain to yourself what you are feeling."

Richard L. Stover July 8 2001

Response:

Just because we are not aware of the question of who we are until someone or some event brings it to our attention, does not mean that prior to being aware of the question of who we are that we know who we are. You contend that because being is the "keyed-in awareness" or "determination by brain" in relation to a "detached feeling", we can know who we are prior to the question of who we are. Yet how do you know that being is the "keyed-in awareness", or are you implying that being is behind the determination by the brain? How does a human brain determine anything without having a basis behind its determination? How can being be the same as the human brain?

Also, how do you account for the distinction between "keyed-in awareness" (or "determination by brain") and what we are actually aware of? In other words, how can what we are consciously aware of be the same as the entity which determines what we are consciously aware of?

Though it appears that the human brain is part of the determination of what we are consciously aware of, it does not follow that the human brain is being, because from our limited perspective, there has to be a basis behind the brain for it to determine. (i.e. the brain apparently cannot be a self-existent entity.) More important, even if the brain can be equated to being, it does not follow that the determination of what sensory data we are conscious of is the same as the sensory data we are conscious of, and therefore, it does not make sense how we could know who we are through keyed-in awareness of detached feelings.

244. Entry:

"Just because something is unlikely does not mean it ‘cannot’ happen. The fact that we have not achieved our maximum potential makes knowing who we are a distinct possibility.

We as beings only exist due to change, and are beings who are perpetually changing. We are at all times who we are perpetually. It cannot be helped. As long as we exist in any form, we are who we are, always.

Therefore, it is possible, granted remote, to know who we are while being who we are. The statement invoking the ‘CANNOT’ is false."

Robert Vahovick July 13 2001

Response:

We agree with you on a number of points:

1. Just because something is "unlikely" or "remote", does not mean it cannot happen.

2. If we have not reached our maximum potential, then knowing who we are is a distinct possibility. (Though we would add that the apparent self-referential nature of knowledge makes possibility an inherent feature of all our thoughts.)

3. We as beings exist due to change, and are beings who are apparently always changing. (Though we would add that in order for there to be change, there must be something behind the change, and therefore we contend that there is more to our existence than just change.)

4. As long we are alive we cannot help from being who we are.

However, where we disagree with you is your assertion that the proposition by invoking "cannot" is false, because the proposition is asserted from our limited perspective, rather than as an absolute, so that the possibility of knowing who we are is implicit in the proposition.

245. Entry:

"‘We cannot know who we are and be who we are at the same time’ is an illusive statement and it is all about how ‘we’ is defined. The confusion results because ‘we’ is not fully defined so defining it is what the challenge is really about. How can ‘we’ know anything?

The answer to the statement is the same answer as a lot of tricky questions.

If a persons brain is destroyed and recreated do ‘they’ still exist?
At what stage does a fetus have an ‘I’?

These questions are really speculating upon what ‘I’ or ‘they’ is, if they are fully defined the answers become obvious, or more accurately what the question is saying becomes self-evident. For example if ‘they’ is subbed with ‘a copy of their program in existance’ for the first question then corresponding answers are obvious. These questions are all about defining the ‘I’ element.

Now ‘We cannot know who we are and be who we are at the same time’ is not as clear cut as these other questions because it has a second illusive ‘I’ element, ‘know’.

A rock cannot know something. ‘I’, ‘they’, ‘we’ know something. The word is dependent upon an ‘I’, it is not sufficient to have a matter configuration that could be interpreted as data. A calculator doesn't know how to add numbers, it has memory that when read can be interpreted as instructions on how to add but this does not constitute ‘knowing’ how to add, just as an abacus doesn't know how to add. A computer may have data on something, it can process that data and come to conclusions but it does not truly know the data. Knowing refers to some magical understanding of something, an intimate knowledge that is not simply a configuration of matter.

The ‘be who we are’ is a largely irrelevant element, it causes to confuse things that are not related to why the statement is correct. The idea behind it being that the magical entity ‘us’ by knowing it's existance is changed so existance is no longer understood. Therefore a person cannot know who they are and be who they are simultaneously.

The answer that makes all these tricky questions and statements that speculate upon ‘we’ is that there is no ‘we’. We are simply programs being manipulated by our inputs and responding accordingly.

Here is some evidence backing up why ‘we’ don't exist.

Everything in the universe has three attributes, inputs, outputs and makeup. These along with the laws of physics determine exactly how something will respond. A human for example receives input which manipulates its makeup and according to the laws of physics results in certain outputs. A man choosing a video from a video store is manipulated by inputs which stimulate his makeup and result in outputs. This is no different from how a rock reacts. Lets say a rock is hit by a baseball bat. It receives the input of the bat and the resulting output is dependent on the input (speed, shape and angle for the strike) and the rocks make up (shape).

Our brains are really programs, programs that like the computers we create have instructions and memory. Our brains are a whole bunch of matter in the form of neurons which functions by firing electrons. An electron is fired and it stimulates a neuron and so on. Matter cannot know anything, it simply reacts.

The reason we think ‘we’ exist is because we have the illusion of consciousness and existance. There is no ‘we’ only matter. The illusion exists because every moment our short term memory is accessed creating the illusion of a transition of thought from the previous moment. In reality what happens is each moment a new guy arrives in our brains, accesses short term memory and fires a few electrons. There is no transition of awareness between moments and ‘we’ cannot know anything.

Lets say a computer has in its storage a makeup that when read by the appropriate functions it can display a picture. Does the computer ‘know’ what the picture is, does it ‘know’ the makeup of that picture? No because like the rock it is simply responding to input and it knows absolutely nothing. For us to know something ‘we’ must exist in the first place.

There is no magical consciousness that knows 1+1=2 or its makeup, everything simply has a matter configuration with inputs, outputs and makeups. Knowing something involves understanding something and if we don't exist we cannot understand anything. We can be complex machines and have matter configurations that seemingly store data. When manipulated that machine end up firing neurons which could be dubbed reading that data. However ‘we’ can never know anything including who we are. Our machines are no different from a rock and a rock can never know who it is, it simply reacts."

Alistair Burrowes July 16 2001

Response:

There are problems with your "only matter" position that need to be resolved:

1. We agree that everything in the universe apparently has three attributes, inputs, makeup, and outputs. Though we disagree that a rock or computer, in terms of these three attributes, is the same as us. You claim that a rock and computer "responds" to input, yet how does a rock or computer itself, a non-living entity, respond? We contend that a rock does not respond to for instance a boulder crushing it, but simply exists in a changing environment, so that there is only inputs and outputs, with no response from the rock’s makeup. The same non-response applies to a computer; though it may appear the contrary because the computer has been programmed to respond in certain ways, but the computer itself does not respond. In contrast, human beings and other living beings respond to inputs rather than directly receive inputs through a non-living makeup, which implies that there is something behind us, or our makeup, that can be equated with identity. For you respond that we are biologically programmed, you would face the problem of showing what is behind our biological programme that allows us to exist.

1.1 If there is "no ‘we’ only matter", what is behind matter in terms of our existence that allows matter to respond to input, while in terms of the existence of a rock, matter receives input without a response?

1.2 If the basis for the universe is matter, what is the basis for the interaction of matter in terms of inputs and outputs?

2. If we are complex machines with no identities except for illusory identities, what can the data we store and react to mean, since the meaning of the data is centered around illusory, non-existent identities?

3. If "we" do not exist, then your "only matter" position is based on something that does not exist, and therefore it exists as an illusion.

Entries 232-238 Entries 246-249