Reply to the response to Entry 329

"---quote--
Clearly from this simplified example and as pointed out by you, the ‘I’ has the ability to know experience of itself, without having to get outside of itself. ---end quote--

Correct. For the ‘I’ to go-out from itself in any way in efforts of knowing is only done through the senses of the psyche or soma - and we call that analytics because the results are sorted and interpreted. and . that going-out is an act of the ‘I’ and therefore not the ‘I’ itself.

Conscious = actor.
Consciousness = act of the actor.
The relation of potency or contingent potentiality - to existence.
Conscious = actor = a potency to act.
Consciousness = act of the actor = act in existence.

We can say that the actor (the ‘I’) is the un-created creator - and that which he creates is the act which exists. but we need not fool with these definitions if they hurt and do not help.

---quote---
However, the crucial question in terms of the competition, is whether or not the ‘I’'s knowledge of its experience is true self-knowledge? ---end quote---

Any knowledge experienced via the sense is indirect knowledge. but also yes - it is knowledge of self (indirectly).
The experiential knowledge that the ‘I’ may have of itself - is true-knowledge. There is no better, fuller, or direct knowledge of self that can be had - so it alone can be defined as 'true knowledge'. All sense knowledge is indirect (via the senses), representational, and partial (any particular sense having its limits).

---quote----
The fact that the information derived from the sensory receptor level is not in conscious form, means that there must be an interaction at the conscious or mental level in which as mentioned the sensory information is converted into conscious information viz., the interaction of sensory information with consciousness whereby a conversion occurs means that the conscious knowledge which has been converted is based on an indirect relationship, and therefore the knowledge the ‘I’ knows of its sensory experience cannot be true self-knowledge.
---end quote---

Yes. Exactly. I believe I called this conversion between soma senses and the receiving mind, and between the mind and the receiving ‘I’ - an undefined ‘transducer’ in my last reply but I think we may call that 'transducer' simply the inherent of consciousness (the going-out and receiving back) and need not define it further.
I am assuming that when you said ‘at the conscious or mental level’ you mean. either at the conscious level or at the mental level - and you were not identifying them as one in the same. The mental level (mind) can be 'out of control' and we know that by the monitoring of the higher ‘I’. And again - the sleepwalker may speak and answer yet have no conscious awareness he is doing so (a separation of mind and ‘I’).

---quote--
For you to get around this position, you need to establish a direct continuum between sensory information and the conscious ‘I’, and yet by doing so, you succumb to the problem of how the ‘I’ can know itself as itself viz., a direct continuum could only be based on consciousness, thereby the ‘I’, existing at both the sensory and mental levels. ---end quote---

The continuum between the - conscious (the ‘I’) - and any sense (of mind or body) - is consciousness and is the act, or acts and actions of the actor (the ‘I’) and not the ‘I’ in itself. We say the ‘I’ exists at the level of mind and body based upon the virtue (power) of the special causal relationship of the ‘I’ to mind and body and we know that causal relationship can be interrupted (either the mind or body may not respond). And this returns us here.

----quote---
the ‘I’ has the ability to know experience of itself, without having to get outside of itself.
----end quote---

And we have now defined that this is not done through the senses but is rather a 'self-contained' experiential knowledge had within the ‘I’ without going-out from itself in any sensorial way.
Your challenge now becomes ‘Can we have and be in this experiential knowledge of self - and act at the same time?’
To which I answer that this experiential knowledge of self is available to us at all times - is not time dependent - and it is only out the habits of seeking it by ‘going-out’ into senses of mind and body for it - by which we have chosen to 'replace' it as something sensorial. But since the experiential self-knowledge is a 'built in function' we feel divided - fragmentized - and have out 'eyes' upon the reflection telling ourselves it is the real ‘me’.
How is it 'built in'? because without it the ‘I’ could not function at all and because we long for it (we remember it) as I said in my first submission.

-----quote --------
To say that the ‘I’ or ‘first nature’ is the foundation for the senses of mind and body in terms of individual experience, ignores that these three things, conscious ‘I’, mind, and body are interdependent on each other in this context, so that by subtracting one of them, you eliminate the other two. --end quote------

The term ‘first nature’ seems good to me as long as we keep in mind we are bending that word -nature- to describe something which is like a nature but is not a nature (meaning created).. It is rather a potential. It seems true that the I, mind, and body are interdependent upon each other in normal and practical operation - but just as a telephone is essential to communicate with someone else using a telephone and the person is dependent upon the telephone - the telephone is not the ‘I’ - if the telephone breaks - the people still exist - and so the mind and body are ‘tools’ of the ‘I’. We can subtract the telephone and the ‘I’ still exists. The body is associated with time and space (physical existence) so IT CAN be removed. the mind and ‘I’ are not dependent upon time and space - they can not be removed (being removed implies time). The mind and body receive the name ‘I’ in virtue of the special causal relationship of the ‘I’. What proof? Most solid is the fact that the body alone occupies time and space while the mind and ‘I’ are not dependent in anyway upon time nor space but can be fixated to the senses of the body that are.

If we agree on this things so far (we have our terms understood) then we can move on to ‘How can we have this experiential knowledge and what is it like?’ which is best defined (in the beginning) by what it is-not (negation) - and the practical aspects of that negation which allows us to eventually experience ‘I’."

Ray Kaliss March 20 2002

Response:

We do not agree on terms with you. Though through this response, we will attempt to arrive at terms agreeable to both of us.

You say that "I" can only go outside from itself through the sense of the "psyche and soma" ("analytics"), so that going outside really amounts to an act of "I", rather than actually going outside of "I". So what this point amounts to is that "I" technically cannot go outside of itself, though the "I" can imagine it has through its analytics.

You also say that the actor "I" is the "un-created creator", and yet in terms of the interconnectedness (causal relationship between things), the actor "I" is the product of other things. Therefore, we cannot accept your definition of "I" as un-created creator.

Just because there is apparently "no better, fuller, or direct knowledge of self-knowledge" than experiential knowledge, it does not necessarily follow that experiential knowledge is true self-knowledge. You are incorrectly arguing that because true self-knowledge exists, and experiential knowledge is the closest thing to true self-knowledge, experiential knowledge is true self-knowledge. (The first premise, the existence of true self-knowledge, has not been established. Also, just because experiential knowledge may be the closest thing to true self-knowledge, does not mean that it is true self-knowledge.)

Consciousness as the general continuum between "I", mind, and body, does not explain the continuum between them in terms of the ontology of knowledge. You appear to be looking at the human being as a complete whole with the "I" as the center of the whole, so that "I", mind, and body are simply at different dimensions within the same thing. However, your explanation does not overcome the external and internal interactions, and thereby indirectness, in the derivation of human knowledge. Moreover, considering the apparent interconnectedness of things, it is highly questionable that the human being is a thing-onto-itself.

Even though experiential self-knowledge appears to be a "built-in" function of our minds, it does not necessarily mean that this built-in function is a source of true self-knowledge viz., what is it about the built-in function of experiential self-knowledge that necessitates it is a source of true self-knowledge?

What do you "remember" about having true self-knowledge? How can you "long" for something you cannot truly know?

Just because you cannot truly identify the mind and "I", how do you know that they themselves are not dependent on time and space? According to Steve Burwen from Entry 207, we have attained about 5% knowledge of the human brain at the neuron level, and we have only established a connection between neuron cells and human consciousness. Also, since we agree that the mind and "I" exist at some level and form, it must follow logically from our causal perspective that the mind and "I" occupy time and space, even though we cannot specifically identify the time and space they occupy. (To argue that through mind and "I" we can transcend time and space, overlooks that our thoughts are causally defined by some form of time and space.)

Also, your reasoning that minus the telephone, the "I" would still exist even though the means to communicate through the telephone would not, is comparable to the body and "I", does not make sense. The body appears to be an essential requirement for human existence; so by eliminating the body, it does not follow how the "I" could still exist. When people die, do their "I"s keep on existing, or do people imagine that they keep on existing? Can you show an example of an "I" ‘existing independent on the human body? You cannot, because according to you the "I" does not occupy space and time, (and yet you claim that experiential self-knowledge, or "I", is a "built-in" function, which would mean that the "I" does occupy space and time, and without the body, the "I" could not function.) Further, your claim that "I" does not occupy space and time is based on the assumption that because we cannot physically identify "I", it must not occupy space and time. Yet as mentioned this reasoning does not necessarily follow because we may simply not be able to observe it at a space and time level, even though it exists at that level.

How can the practical aspects of negation allow us to eventually experience "I"? viz., how can we negate things from what we truly do not know?

332. Entry:

"There is something I would like to examine in greater detail, as it applies to your response to my Entry 326. You had said:

‘If you turn to all infinite interconnections of existence, as pertains to your being, centering in your consciousness, how can you truly know yourself, because you can only truly know yourself by truly knowing all the interconnections which determine your existence, and since we have established they are infinite you have no way of truly knowing them. The only way around this point is to assume that your being is created ex nihilo, because then the interconnections would not define your existence.’

The item in question is ‘your being is created 'ex nihilo'‘, which I may not understand fully what you mean.
You then further stated:

‘Also, it appears that you are overlooking that there has to be something behind interconnections, in order for there to be interconnections viz., they cannot simply exist out of nothing, which means that the whole of interconnections is prior to the interconnections rather than after as you contend. Moreover, how can all the interconnections converge on a point which exists outside of the interconnections? Where does the point come from?’ Or, as you said: ‘(Something from something else ad infinitum is more reasonable than something from nothing.)’

How can we understand this 'something from nothing', or ex nihilo, definition of a point? Is this somehow related to what the 'Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy' describes, regarding Nihilism:

‘Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated’?

If so, then indeed 'something from something' is more reasonable than the 'ex nihilo', of something from nothing. But instead of 'being created ex nihilo', I would see it the other way around, that being, or a point of being as represented by a body, is created from all that is related to it, ad infinitum. This seems more reasonable to me, and it fits into a concept where the interrelationship of all elements of the material universe, including the energy therein, are what defines in total any element within itself. What that 'point of being' then looks like is how the existence of everything else around it, through time and its spatial relations, then allows it to be as it is. Or, another way of seeing this is that each point, or being, is how the universal 'pressure' of interrelations have caused it to be. (This was my point in Habeas Mentem.) This means per force that no two points in space can be identified the same way, since both would have different historicals, and both would be positioned separately from each other (no two points can occupy the same space at the same time), and thus are never the same. However, this is not the same as saying that the mind and body are different, though they are two distinct values within a particular being, and instead they are two different values of the same within one being. So, not 'ex nihilo', but rather 'in total', is the way I would characterize a being's identity within its existence in the material universe. It is then a characteristic of how the interconnections that, over time, had caused this being to be what, or who, it is that defines the features, both physical and mental, that characterize it as it is.

Now, how does this apply to the Proposition? I think it then becomes a matter of how well these two features of being fit. Is the body, which had been created over time, (also keep in mind that our birth from live parents connects us through a continuum of living matter to the early universe), also the body that then somehow reflects all those connections that had materialized it into what it is? And if so, then is also the case for the mind that inhabits that body. So, can this be allowed, that the mind and body of a being are identical, or as close to identical as we can observe conceptually from outside ourselves? And if this is allowed, then can the inner consciousness we possess of ourselves, the 'who I am' characteristic of our self consciousness, also be the same as our body, which is our 'being'? And you answer 'yes', then of necessity the Proposition is satisfied, that we can 'be' who we are and 'know' who we are, as this is represented by both the body, in its time-spatial relations, and the mind, as it is aware of itself. The two are the same, at the same time. The only fault I can find here, given this line of reasoning, is that our awareness of the self is itself incomplete as it assesses itself with reason. It is for this that I had earlier said that we are then forced to fall back upon our 'feelings' of ourselves, even when these are not always expressed rationally. Would, by default, then poetry rather than logic be in order here, as to 'who' we are?

Getting back to 'ex nihilo', I think that if we assume that the universe's origins are not from nothing, but from something that predates the current state of affairs, though this is mysterious to us, then the creation of our being within existence is likewise not ex nihilo, though as to what is the origin of all life remains undoubtedly a mystery as well, except.. well... here we are!

Hope this adds something of value to our quest for a definition of our identity, of know who we are while being who we are, at the same time.

‘I am, to be, but who is me?
Who in my own, can it be known,
That we, as one with cosmic light,
Declare ‘I am!’... so erudite?’"

Ivan Alexander March 23 2002

Response:

Just because each point, or being, is the result of the [infinite] pressure of interrelations that have caused them to be, and that what we know as beings is a result of the infinite interrelations as well, does not mean that what we know has direct access, in part or in whole, to the infinity of interrelations. All we know from our epistemically limited perspectives, is that our knowledge itself is the result of infinite interrelations. However, this point is not saying that what we know, as in conscious meaning, is the infinity of interrelations. We do not see how "self-awareness" gets around the limitedness of what we know, because even though self-awareness is a result of the infinity of interrelations, it does not necessarily mean that we can be truly self-aware of ourselves viz., what is the connection between infinity of interrelations and knowledge with absolute truth-value? We contend that the latter does not follow directly from the former.

Also, if we consider that our self-awareness is dynamic, and thereby a partial product of previous self-awareness, and then we consider our identity, we lose ourselves in the web interrelations with only a point to refer to, but in reality there is no point to refer to because it is dynamic.

Moreover, you even concede that reason causes our self-awareness to be "incomplete". Yet the notion of incompleteness implies that something is complete. What is complete about our self-awareness? How can we know with absolute truth-value our body in its time-spatial relations?

What you need is a "whole" existence, because then the whole can act as a basis for knowledge with absolute truth-value. (The notion of whole is central to Schopenhauer’s theory of world as will and representation, in which he attempts to establish knowledge with absolute truth-value. Entries 313, 317, 320 deal with Schopenhauer’s theory.) Although the notion of whole faces the problem of ex nihilo, because from our causal perspective, it does not follow how something can come from nothing. We are left with the infinity of existence, and as a result we lose a basis for knowledge with absolute truth-value viz., with infinity of existence as the basis, true knowledge will be left out of our grasp, because there is no whole that can be reached. (Note, from our perspective, the notion of ex nihilo refers to simply something existing out of nothing. We define "nothing" as complete nothingness. An example of ex nihilo is Schopenhauer’s "thing-in-itself" (something devoid entirely of external interrelations). However, Ray Kaliss in Entry 329, defines ex nihilo more generally as something beyond our comprehension.

Also, in our view, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s definition of nihilism, ‘the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated’, demonstrates the contradictoriness of nihilism because if nothing can be known, then the definition of nihilism cannot be known either.)

333. Entry:

Response to the response to Entry 315

"To attain the state i.e. to truly know who we are and be who we are at the same time a complete denial of the will is the absolute condition. However such a state would no longer can be called knowledge - a better term would be self realization - the will turning against and abolishing itself in the phenomenon." (Suvas Lakshmikutty from Entry 313 on Schopenhauer.)

To start with Schopenhauer, I don't agree with him. If he would have said that there can be no will outside of being who we are, I would have agreed, but he says that the will has to be denied, in order to make it possible to know who we are and be who we are at the same time.
I don't quite see how knowledge is necessarily dependent on conscious will. I may want to know who I truly am, but that particular expression of my will is to "the outside world" an impression of who I truly am. Therefore it is inside the scope of being who I am. So is the knowledge itself; as a phenomenon.

Knowledge itself might be about truth, but knowledge as a philosophical object (the way we are viewing it in our debate) is simply a natural phenomenon (a noun), like an oak tree or a gannet.

At the bottom of my reason ( what I consider to be the most reasonable) is the notion that knowledge is represented in the objective world like everything else in the objective world, as an object. We may argue that this knowledge is "subjective", but we will nevertheless be treating it as an object, no matter how many times we state that it has subjective qualities.

The sensation, or experience of knowing who you are however is not an object but a being, part of a larger (human) being.
We can only reasonably discuss it as an object, because the (experience of-/ subjectiveness of-) being itself is forever exclusive (-a non-lingual state, where we are forced to use language in discussing it-).
Through experience of knowing, being and knowing are always simultaneous (Whether our knowledge is deigned most reasonable within limits, or of any lesser stature, is of no consequence here.)
Through knowing of knowing, being and knowing are sometimes simultaneous (in one opinion) and sometimes not (In an other. A third may consider them to never happen at the same time.)

We are looking for a basis on which all personal opinions can be judged equally. This basis can be named "reason", "the eyes of God", "The Law of Allah", etc.. My point is that, although I agree that finding such a common basis is imperative, the name of such a basis is yet again a matter of taste, or else of native tongue. Reason it will be.

Above I stated that knowledge of being might only be reasonably represented within a philosophical context as a phenomenon, similar to the phenomenon of an oak tree or a gannet. This would leave me with the following problem: How does an oak tree prove a gannet wrong within reasonable limits?

The compelling answer seems to be that this would be a fairly unreasonable undertaking, so:
In order to resolve the issue it appears that I MUST NOT view knowledge of being as a phenomenon (- I will never find escape from the battle between the tree and the bird). What is there besides phenomena? In my opinion, this can only be BEING itself.
This would imply that knowing and being would in fact be constituted of the same fabric, whether the nature of this fabric is known to us or not.

Might it be, that the question concerning the knowledge of being, as it is shaped in our discussion, may not be so reasonable and determining the most reasonable within limits might involve rephrasing the question?"

Raoul Starren March 27 2002

Response:

We do not understand how you can go from treating knowledge as an object (phenomenon) to treating sensation, or experience of knowing who we are as not an object, but as part of a larger (human) being. Since we apparently cannot get outside of our minds and know that we are, it follows that we must treat all thoughts, including thoughts of sensation and experience, as objects (phenomenon). However, by making this point, we are not ruling out the possibility of something other than phenomenon. Our point is simply that all we can know is phenomenon. To argue that there must be something other than phenomenon, like "being itself", is still to argue from a position of phenomenon--the point being, as mentioned, that phenomenon precedes everything else.

We agree with your observation that there is a necessity of reason for the existence of being. Though it does not follow that being and knowing are "always" simultaneous, because knowing can be transferred in the form of a program to a non-living thing like a computer. Hence, we think the more reasonable contention is that knowing originates from being.

Also, just because knowing appears to be constituted by the "same fabric" as being viz., knowing is dependent on being, does not mean that the proposition ought to be "rephrased". As Nortexoid from the Challenge the Philosophy Message Board correctly points out, "... the problem you incorporated into your challenge is the 'truly' qualification. Can I TRULY know I exist?" So the issue at stake in this competition is whether or not we can TRULY know who we are. (Note, in the proposition we distinguish knowing and being to clarify our position on being, because not everyone, in particular materialists, are in agreement on being. See Entries 179, 245. Also, we think being is relevant to the problem of more reasonably showing that we can truly know who we are viz., how can we truly know who we are from who we are?)

334. Entry:

Continuation of Entry 292

"Philosophical speculation is the broken method. Your methodology can only create many paths that have been walked before. I doubt anything novel will come of it. Assuming that you seek solutions to the "the only absolute is that there are no absolutes" sense, the theme of your topic reduces to a Xeno’s paradox. Specifically where does the point of the arrow begin? My reply to the basic question ----- is much more complete than a syllogism. Your response (is this a joke?) is illustrative of this point. Fundamentally the correct answer is that many absolutes exist. (Not in the Hill’s Many Universe approach, but more like Feynman's many paths). Just as an integer can always be increased by the addition of 1, the observer can always be "hooked" into many absolutes. These paths or basins of attraction (to use a term from deterministic chaos) constitute memory in biological structures, which is getting back to my main point. The strong language of the syllogism’s metaphors triggered these memories before analysis. As an example someone whose memories were encoded to long term in the legal field would see that the conclusion establishes the sociological consequences of ownership by "marking" the rolling stone. Someone in physics could see that the common communication link was the physical energy of the fluid flow changing the momentum of the rock and thus the direction under Newton’s second law of motion. The information contained in the physical laws of the universe but which only humans supposedly attach meaning. (No one said how large the rock was). Again someone in biology could see the urine as a nutrient source to grow moss on the rock. Each 'absolute' established by it’s own complete and correct set of logic not necessarily in the "correct argumentative formative philosophical sense" but in the sense that makes sense to the biological entity. Thus a definition from one basin can have no meaning in another. (Farewell to Reason-Feyer-Abend). In a sort of quasi-semiotic sense the predicate of the syllogism does not allow a difference in the thought or information content before it is converted to meaning by what could be called the Self-Organizational Principle (Hakin).

This ability of the mind, both chemical and electrical process, to mathematically bifurcate allows biological entities to make decision and thus act on them. Without that non-linear process, decision and action would be futile. Since this process encompasses everyone it is only natural that the framework and patterns should follow this same deterministic chaos, the switching between basins of attractions. Sociological (aberrant social patterns when the number of samples are not enough to form a good opinion), economics (indeed these are called consumer preference cycles) and demographic not to mention the psychological (Jung’s archetypes and the collective unconscious). To not allow an individuation (in the Jung sense, not individualization) of these ideas, isolation or not, is existence by consensus. This does not mean great discovery, but just the narrow spectrum of the human experience. Indeed, the very decision of self determination is governed by the Lyupanov constants that result from the spike trains in the brain stem.

A good example of this value boundary problem is: 'If a tree falls in the forest.....', Both explanations assume immediately that every one is hearing the same thing (or not hearing). Whether a pattern emerges to one person as some mechanical resolution (extended the human awareness through technological implementation of amplification devices) increases or decreases and not to another isn't the problem solution. Drawing from Gestalt for optical analogs for slightly different perspective, the issue is whether visual mental images rely on depictive representations (which are in turn interpreted by other processes) or whether they are purely prepositional representations. (Kossyln). The two kinds of representations are very different. When a depictive representation is used not only is the shape of the representational parts immediately available to process, but so is the shape of the empty space. Depictive representations specify also size and orientation and do not represent predicates explicitly but instead the relations between the arguments emerge from the spatial positions of the depicted object and parts. Propositions (and their predicates) can define without orientation and size. Thus closures and THEIR RATE OF CLOSURE work to create the things humans call patterns (all animals). Introduced into this very complicated problem is 'phenomenology'. Fractals, as an example, which are not actual pictures but are a measure imagery or the information process. One being depictive the other prepositional. The predicates to the depictive fractal (fractals in general) has 'false arguments' thus the brain is tricked into thinking pattern. Because a depictive event resembles a repeated event, and fractals are repeated events, fractals are depictive, but the event may not be fractal. This phenomenology or 'emotional content' is present in Crop Pictures, and my favorite Escher prints. At the very basis of this when the brain decided (catch on) it has enough information to act by drawing a conclusion or painting a pattern (bifurcation, go one way or the other, this pattern or that, depictive or descriptive) would be a significant clue to Cognition. Obviously at some point in this process the brain "fills in" and connects the dots. (This allows humans to make sense out of cartoons, which have minimal information content). To develop an method of argumentation that assesses the methodology for determination of this limitation (your basic question) is to beg the following questions.

When does the partial set assume full set status (when does a river become long)? As for your question, it is necessary for the set of given experiences to become a full set before it can be moved to the observation set. The point is during an experiment (which is what life is, to determine which DNA pattern will emerge) seemingly deterministic events occur which form patterns, optical, mathematical, auditory etc. Which may or may not have current mathematics (causality in this sense) associated and an "Eureka" occurs and some explanation evolves. Whether the event has meaning within the current context of science or philosophy is irrelevant. (Popper, Feyer-Abend, Mach, Goethe). Subconscious has more directionality in the process than scientific or philosophic methodologies. The mathematics involved are merely transformed from one set of subconscious states to another expressed as differing layers of complexity starting with simple counting schemes evolving up through still yet undiscovered schemes. Instinct (neural chaos?) has more to do with science than method. (Pauling) Whether its Druids and prime numbers, the Fibonacci club, Pythagorean reincarnates, Knot nuts (or is that neural net nuts?). Interrelated meanings (self-similarities) will occur simply because the numbers and their interrelated meanings are all formed by the same basic DNA pattern events at the basis of the drive (Jung, archetypes, collective unconscious). (Makes me wonder if aliens did not have hero myths could we really communicate with mathematics as a common language?) The need for greater mathematical acuity has been a driving evolutionary force for only a mere 250 generations of DNA turnover. The caveman got ate by the leopard because he thought the spots he saw were hallucinations. (Sometimes the wrong answer has more information content but less meaning than the correct answer-too busy counting the spots.)

Unqualified statements made about the workings and knowledge content of the human brain are dribble. They all assume that there is some dark and mysteries process involved that at some later date will be unveiled etc, etc. ad nausea. (God Gap). Can one know the proposition and the predicate at the same time? To be or not to be? (Your question restated again) Certainly if the partial set is raised to full set status it can, however if lines and boundaries are drawn on the definitional sets, no. To address each argumentative issue brought up, especially in the confines of the set definition proposed by normal philosophical argument, to my arguments would be futile, unless full set status was granted to my assumptions. Among which are the free agency to even discuss the possibility of boundaries and cannot exist because of the physiological boundaries placed on it. Even if perfect and total information were available about the topic, the discussion itself could never be optimized."

Dale Clifford April 28 2002

Response:

You say philosophical speculation is a "broken method", but what method whether experimental or statistical is not a broken method?! Our contention due to our apparent inability to know anything with certainty is that no method is unbroken. Also, we contend that because we cannot get outside of our minds and know that we are, and reasonableness (i.e. possibility) defines all conscious thought (Garvey, The Critique of Reasonableness), philosophy has a necessary role in distinguishing what thought is more reasonable than another.

In contrast, you contend that "many absolutes" differentiated by "many paths" exist, and that we cannot help from being "hooked" into accepting many absolutes. As an example, you refer to the statement that "an integer can always be increased by the addition of 1". Is this an absolute statement? Are we unavoidably hooked into accepting it as an absolute? We say no because of the groundlessness of what we can truly know (Wittgenstein) viz., an integer cannot always be increased by the addition of 1, because we can simply redefine an integer so that it decreases by the addition of 1! viz., you show no grounds for viewing the so-called normal definition of integer as absolute. It appears to us that we only get "hooked" into accepting apparent absolutes by not being able to see beyond them or their system of meaning, thereby not being able to see their apparent groundlessness.

We agree that through the notion of encoded knowledge, there is a certain degree of inevitability to our conscious existence. Yet encoded knowledge itself does not establish knowledge with absolute truth-value (See entry 232), nor is there a necessity to exist from encoded knowledge viz., conscious knowledge is not derived solely from encoded knowledge (non-linear process), especially since we can reason what we know, thus we have some options as to what knowledge we exist from whether intuitive, analytical, empirical, or encoded knowledge. What appears significant is the "self-organization principle" and our ability to reason what we know, thereby our limited control over what we know.

You say that subconsciousness has "more directionality" than scientific and philosophic methodologies. Though how can you separate subconsciousness from scientific and philosophic methodologies, when it is a necessary part of those methodologies? In other words, how can subconsciousness be separated from its scientific and philosophic methodologies? You appear to be trying to get outside of our minds to establish an external precedence over our minds, which is also supported by your notions of "many absolutes", "encoded knowledge", and "predicate of syllogism". Yet the notion of subconsciousness as conscious phenomena necessarily stems from our minds, and therefore it does not make sense to impute subconscious as ultimately outside of our minds. (Also, if we were to accept your notion of subconscious as more directional, why stop at the subconscious in view of the interconnected nature of things?)

By refuting the notion of "absolutes" that we know that we know, we refute your notions of partial set status and full set status, except with epistemic limitation attached to them. Also, since the proposition asks for either true knowledge in part or in whole, a partial set if granted would be sufficient for you to overcome normal philosophical argument, and thereby challenge the proposition. However, why should we grant you a true partial set? What grounds other than philosophy as "broken method", necessity of "absolutes", and precedence of "encoded knowledge", do you have for knowledge with absolute truth-value? The apparent lack of "free agency" is irrelevant because what matters in terms of the competition, are the reasons for positions, and the lack of free agency applies to anything we do, so that it is cancelled out. Similarly, just because the discussion on self-knowledge could likely never be optimized, because of the inherent differences in perspective and the lack of free agency, the same constraints would be applied to any other discussion. Do we stop discussing anything because of our inability to optimize? (If we cannot optimize anything, how can we optimize our knowledge of our inability to optimize?!) No. We must make do with our limitations, while bearing in mind, as you hinted at, that the less reasonable answer may be more correct in terms of our discussion, or any other decision-making process, than the more reasonable answer. Hence, we are left with a strong case for diversified outlooks, and at the same time a strong case for the precedence of the more reasonable outlook.

335. Entry:

Reply to the response to Entry 330

"I truly appreciate your last response to my #330, as it applies to Habeas Mentem. Thank you. It seems we are now almost speaking the same 'language'. I should preface this by saying that the manner of thinking using 'interrelationship' is still new to me also, so it is difficult at times to see this from the point of view of a 'totality of interconnectedness' as a determinant of 'identity'. Yet, this is the thrust of where I think this idea is going. However, there are points on which we disagree.

You had said: ‘In an interconnected existence, how can something like our minds be completely autonomous? How can we through our minds detach from existence outside of ourselves?’

My answer to this would be ‘I don't know.’ I do not know how we can detach our minds from existence and be outside ourselves. I also think this is not material, since our minds are 'autonomous' only as they perceive themselves to be to themselves and not in terms of the whole interrelated reality that defines their being, except to say that this is a characteristic of how our minds are, that we can perceive ourselves as autonomous.

You had also said in the same paragraph: ‘We are not autonomous of external existence.’ This is totally correct, as I understand it, that we are completely surrounded by our existence, so that though perceiving ourselves as autonomous, in actuality we are not. However, this does not mean that we cannot 'interact' with that existence by how we think and do 'autonomously'. So, by being conscious of ourselves in existence, we then feedback into reality (its interconnected existence) our being in it through how we are in it, consciously or not. What this means to me is that we are independent of existence 'only' at the level of our consciousness, for otherwise we would think and do only what that existence had 'predetermined' for us. However, if it is a condition of this interrelationship generated existence to have some degree of autonomy, by how conscious we are in it, then that is the 'who' we are in our identity.

This is the novelty of seeing existence through the philosophical lens of 'interrelationship', that 'identity' is not the accepted Aristotelian A=A, but rather it becomes that A=(infinity minus A); where infinity is used for lack of a better word that means everything that stretches from A to the totality of what is interrelated around it, to some distant totality that is unknown to us, ad infinitum, hence 'infinity'; A is because of everything else around it, ad infinitum. It is that 'other' A (what is the totally encompassing interrelationship around it), both spatially and in terms of time (what had happened throughout the history of its existence), that then defines the 'A' we seek to identify. And if so, then the interrelated value of 'infinity - A' is then its identity as 'A'. Therefore, the interrelated totality around any one thing in existence 'is' its identity, since this is how that totality had allowed it to be. In essence, an infinite interrelationship defines each thing within itself to give it its identity.

Now, this opens very exiting prospects, since now we have a mechanism that can translate how things interact with one another both at point A, as well as at the 'totality' that makes this A possible. As it applies to our minds, we are unique from other things in existence in that in us are evident properties that render us conscious. This is a condition of our being. All living things probably share in some form of 'consciousness', I suspect (unlike inert matter), but it is only in us that this consciousness is able to express itself in terms of itself. Or, to put it another way, it is only we who are able to 'be' who we are, as interrelationship has made us, and 'know' who we are, as we are conscious of this in our minds. And if this is so, then another dimension opens to us that we are also in our minds who we are 'out there', at the values that define this totality that surrounds us, and defines our being, the who we are in our identity.

Or, as you said: ‘Though we agree that we as individual life-forces are a product of the infinity of interrelations, it does not follow that what we know can be equated with the infinity of interrelationships viz., though what we know may be known through knowledge of the infinity of interrelationships, it does not follow what we know is the infinity of interrelationships.’ ... Well... No. We do not 'know' it from its own infinite perspective, which is a truly monumental task of knowledge, and hence a mystery to us; but we do know it from what that totality of 'knowledge' had become in us, the who we are in our 'identity'. That is all that is knowable to us, that we are ourselves conscious, through the definition of an infinity of interrelationship defining itself in us. And that, once understood as such, is truly a paradigm shift of how we view our identity.

(I might add an aside here, that this also opens exciting prospects for a new kind of thinking about a 'theory of everything', since now exists a mechanism of interrelationship that can be defined mathematically as self defining large sets, which cancel out at some totality value into the individual parts within the set. But that is another topic, still too theoretical and illusive for me to explain.)

So this is the 'language' I am working with, where A=A, but from a very different point of view. Of course we cannot from within our minds know all the interrelationship values that had manifest in us, that we are conscious of those infinite values, but rather we can know with some level of confidence that we are as we had been made to be, and that one of the characteristics of this being is that we are also conscious of it. And that is what is meant by ‘we are who we are’: A=A, because A=(infinity-A). Then to 'know' this is to align ourselves more closely with 'who' that existence 'is'. Is this a ‘true self knowledge’ of our identity? One hopes. There is always room to 'grow' with our self knowledge through a greater consciousness, which I believe in time we will, to become more our true selves. It is for this reason I claim that ‘who we are in our minds is who we are’. Does this satisfy ‘the Schopenhauer problem of how a being-in-itself can also be being-known-itself’? One hopes that the above is one such way to the truth of who we are."

Ivan Alexander May 4 2002

Response:

If autonomy is an illusion of the human mind (as you allude to by saying, "we are not autonomous of external existence"), how can we interact with existence through our illusion of autonomy? Where does autonomous interaction fit into an interrelated existence whereby everything is part of an interconnected infinity? How does our self-consciousness give us autonomy, when even our self-consciousness is interconnected with existence? From our causal perspective, the basis for conscious "feedback" (or interaction) is not separate from external existence, but interconnected with external existence.

We agree that there may be degrees of autonomy, but from our causal perspective, we contend further that there is no absolute autonomy we can know that we know.

The identity of something appears to be not just its interrelation with the infinity around it, but the thing itself and the interrelated infinity which helps define it. Though we still do not know the basis for the interrelated infinity, and therefore, we do not know how things interact and the identities of things formed through interaction.

In summary, we agree with you that by realizing the basic role of interconnection in the identity of things, we are more reasonably closer to truly knowing of who we are, but we argue that we are actually further from truly knowing who we are because knowing who we are requires knowing not only who we are as points in existence, but all the interconnections behind ourselves, including the basis for the interconnections. You turn to human consciousness, a means to express ourselves in terms of ourselves, as a gateway to true knowledge of ourselves. Yet we question how we can truly express ourselves in terms of ourselves when our consciousness is interconnected to external existence, so that we do not attain true autonomy over our existence viz., what we express in terms of ourselves is an interconnected extension of the external world. For your argument to work you need to establish our consciousness as a thing-in-itself, and thereby through it we attain control over our existence, and the more we attain control over our existence, the more we truly know our existence and ourselves. However, the problems with this position are more reasonably establishing consciousness as a thing-in-itself, especially in consideration of our causal perspective, and dealing with Schopenhauer’s dilemma of how a being-in-itself can also be a being-known-itself.

Entries 328-330 Entries 336-337