"It is more a question of ‘what’ we are, than ‘who’ we are.
Every created ‘thing’ from the smallest parts of atoms to the universe has a built-in command or ‘want’ which controls all its actions.
I am composed of ‘things’ that ‘want’, physically and mentally. ‘I’ am the consciousness of living in these ‘wants’.
Once ‘I’ am separated from these ‘wants’, and become aware of them as being separate, ‘I’ become what?
‘I’ become ‘me’, who is not defined by my relationship with this world. ‘Me’ is life. Can life define itself or ‘see’ itself? Or can it just ‘BE’?"

Henry Hanecak August 16 2002

Response:

How do you know with absolute truth-value that you are "the consciousness of living" in your built-in wants, or that you are life?

If who you are is not defined by your relationship with this world, then that apparently would rule out the notions of "I" and "life" or any other notion as truly who you are.

We agree that one of dilemmas in more reasonably showing that we truly know who we are is truly knowing who we are through who we are. It leads to a state of "recursive reflexivity". (I.e. if we truly know that who we are is life, then it is not enough to know that we are life, we must add the additional self-knowledge that we are life who know that we are life, which then leads we are life who know that we are life who know that we are life ad infinitum, so that no complete knowledge of ourselves is reached. Entry 296.)

Other issue:

The notion of who refers to identity, and the notion of what refers to composition, and when we are looking at things in terms of absolute truth-value, the notions of who and what appear to define each other.

368. Entry:

"‘We can not truly know who we are, in part or in whole, and be who we are at the same time.’

I believe this proposition to be refutable. Hopefully I will be able to clearly convey this sentiment.

As a new (within three years) ‘born again’ Christian, I have become overwhelmingly aware of my bent (and the bent of all mankind) to think/speak/do contrary to what is labeled ‘right’ by God (I am not using this argument as a pulpit to preach repentance, so please do not attack the ethos latent herein when countering, but the underlying correlation between self awareness, sin and being); hence my need for a Savior. Now this self knowledge-my understanding of what I typically yearn to think/speak/do in many scenarios, and that it is typically sinful and contrary to what God commands-is always looming in minds eye of a believing Christian, and is what enables him to navigate a more righteous walk (certainly never fully void of sin until death) than when he was unsaved; the equivalent of not truly knowing who he is, and not knowing that he is truly a sinner in need of salvation.

Simply put, I am a sinner, and this truth can not be circumvented by ignorance. And when that truth of my being was realized, I achieved this apparent quandary of truly knowing and being who I am at the same time.

The thing is --and I feel a little funny referring to points made in my other, completely unrelated essay on Morality and God-the majority of individuals confuse ‘life’ with ‘being’, and in so doing, they make the idea of ‘who we are’ temporal. And with these blurred lenses on, yes, it is impossible to know and be who we are because our ‘life’ (mistaken for being) is defined moment by moment. And we, only able to objectively see and experience the present, can never ‘know’ how the next moment's event is going to impact us. But if you are able to see some unchanging truth pervading throughout humanity such as the sin recognized by Christians, you can know your sinfulness while being a sinner.

By the way, this ‘self knowledge’ is certainly not limited to the Christian faith. Socrates-as I am sure everyone here knows-was recognized for his timeless saying ‘know thy self.’ He was overwhelmingly appalled by the so called wisdom of the wise of his day, because they thought they knew. Socrates wisdom is celebrated not because he himself knew, but because he recognized that he did not fully know. He too, in a different way than the believer, truly understood who he was while being who he was at the same time."

Doug Blanchard August 17 2002

Response:

How do you know with absolute truth-value that you are a "sinner"?

How do you know with absolute truth-value that the notion of sin is "an unchanging truth throughout humanity"?

How do you know with absolute truth-value that your notion of sin or anyone else’s is an unchanging truth?

Regarding Socrates, you argue that because he recognizes that he does not truly know himself, he then realizes, in some sense, that he is imperfect, a sinner in relation to the perfection of God. However, if Socrates does not truly know himself, and identity is the center of all human thought, then it follows that he does not know anything with absolute truth-value. (Though it is possible he may know something with absolute truth-value without knowing that he does.) The same reasoning applies to you, and therefore, your argument that you recognize the limited truth-value of what you know, thereby your imperfection, means that you cannot truly know yourself. To claim that you do, as you have done, is self-defeating. Viz., the conclusion that you know yourself with absolute truth-value does not follow from the premise that you do not know with absolute truth-value. It results in the skeptic contradiction of claiming to know that one does not know anything from a position of not knowing anything.

369. Entry:

"I would not really like to try and refute the proposition. I agree with it, you see. But it is not clear to me it is not in principle, or logically, possible to know oneself fully and be whatever that is at the same time. So I will only make up a thought experiment.

Imagine futuristic technology that describes to the limits of possibility the interactions of whatever fundamental brain units that turn out to be the role players (microtubules, neurons,) in the making of who we are (I am assuming materialism is true), and complete theories that translate this data to us as all the information contained in, well, you. Now who you are is known, fully, though by another person, namely whoever has the information. Next simply transmit (artificially) this information to you, and be who you are knowing everything there is to know about you.

Of course taking for granted many things. Materialism, reductionism, a strange reading of the term information and what one is, etc.. but hey, its logically consistent. Now this only means that the proposition is not true in all possible worlds, and not much more. But as I said, I do not believe it can be refuted at this moment, and if materialism or reductionism is wrong, at all."

anonymous August 22 2002

Response:

As shown in the response to Entry 168, possibility precedes impossibility because from our perspective possibility is not contingent on the impossibility of it, while impossibility is contingent on the possibility of it. So unless it can be shown otherwise through establishing knowledge with absolute truth-value, it is possible to truly know who we are.

Materialism being an extension of conscious phenomenon faces serious shortcomings as a gateway to overcoming the proposition, because it succumbs to infinite regress and cannot avoid indirect knowledge. To illustrate, in your thought experiment, the futuristic technology is in an indirect relation to the fundamental brain units, and therefore it cannot measure them with absolute truth-value. As long as there is technology being applied, the indirect relation cannot be avoided, just as, as long as there is an observer and the technology being observed, an indirect relation cannot be avoided. Moreover, if you claim the futuristic technology’s measurements of the brain units has absolute truth-value, your claim slips into an infinite regress of claiming that the measurements have absolute truth-value because they have absolute truth-value.

370. Entry:

"'Knowledge with absolute truth-value refers to complete, whole conscious meaning. Are there any other grounds for knowledge with absolute truth-value than a thing-in-itself? (Schopenhauer: transcendental knowledge as a mirror of the will itself, from being dimensionally in oneness with the will.) To be complete or whole appears to require a thing-in- itself. Yet from our casual perspective and the apparent interactive nature of things, a thing-in-itself is less reasonable than an infinity of things (i.e. something from something else ad infinitum)'. (Source: Comment by Garvey, Challenge the Philosophy Message Board, August 24 2002)

There is at least one other possibility I can think of, that of creation of absolute truth-value through thought-i.e. isn't there a Buddhist idea that something doesn't exist until it is thought of? Thought would therefore create reality, not be representative of it. And the reality created would be a thing-in itself."

eif August 26 2002

Response:

If things do not exist until they are thought of, that would mean for example that the human genetic code did not exist until it was first thought of, or even that dinosaurs did not exist until they were thought of. What the Buddhist idea possibly refers to is that things do not exist from our perspective until they are first thought of by us.

Also, the notion that thought creates reality leads to contradictory realities in which, for instance, both the non-existence of knowledge with absolute truth-value and existence of knowledge with absolute truth-value would exist as reality simultaneously. Clearly, thought as a basis for reality (i.e. conscious meaning as thing-in-itself) would be untenable.

371. Entry:

Reply to the response to Entry 368

"There are only two logical options for the being of mankind: either it has objective purpose or it does not.

The value of any thing is determined by its relationship to an intended purpose which is in turn relative to its design. As I have previously argued, objective purpose for mankind and therefore his being is contingent on the existence of God.

When I say that man is fallen/sinful, I am simply acknowledging a necessary ingredient for the state of reality as it has been made clear to me.... But objective reality is what is ultimately at question when you present the statement ‘I can not truly know who I am and be who I am at the same time.’

Again, in its simplest form, man within reality exists either with purpose because of design or without purpose because of his arbitrary arrival through evolution. Now, neither reality can be concretely proven. Both require a certain degree of faith to be accepted and therein lies the problem with the question being posed. It is unanswerable without objectively establishing the origin of man’s existence.

Man’s being as X in relation to reality as Y can not be objectively established. And without X or Y, no solvable equation can be presented to reasonably overcome your statement.

My reference to Socrates and Christianity are simply examples of how the question can be answered if one or both elements are defined. The constant/ value of X in Socrates view was that true wisdom belonged to the gods, and therefore Socrates’ recognition of his inescapable ignorance put him in a position to know the unchanging truth of his being (X) within the context of reality. The Christian’s X is the inescapable fallen ness of mankind by nature (a constant of sin). Recognizing this fundamental truth of ones being enables him to know and be simultaneously.

As a side: No one can NOT be who they truly are and still be. So an important constant to recognize is the constant of one’s being. Furthermore, there appears to be no necessary nullification of either element by the existence of the other. By this I mean that if one is, knowing who one is does not necessarily mean that one no longer is. In fact, the only possible way to know who one truly is, is if one is. And if one is not, it necessarily follows that one can not know who one is. Knowing requires thinking. And I think, therefore I am. To know why I am is something all together different, and that, I think requires a thorough investigation into man’s origin; and this, to date, can not be scientifically and objectively established. It therefore requires faith. But faith is absolutely no excuse for illogical thinking. Faith must coincide with what is scientifically and logically established. If it does not, it is unreasonable faith. The historical, physical and scientific evidence that currently exists thoroughly supports faith in the Biblical account of reality and man’s being. That is one of the primary reasons why I claim Christ."

Doug Blanchard September 5 2002

Response:

We agree with you that we cannot truly answer the epistemic nature of human self-knowledge without having "objective" knowledge or knowledge with absolute truth-value to refer to, and since we do not more reasonably have access to knowledge with absolute truth-value and know that we do, we cannot truly answer the epistemic nature of human self-knowledge and know that we have. We are left as you say using our "faith" to answer the epistemic nature of self-knowledge, or as we say, determining what is the more reasonable answer. In this light, you provide two possible answers:

1. "true wisdom belongs to the gods" as a statement of absolute truth-value within the limits of what we know

2. "humanity is defined by constant sin" as a statement of absolute truth-value within the limits of what we know

In support of your proposed answers, you claim that "the historical, physical and scientific evidence that currently exists thoroughly supports faith in the Biblical account of reality and man’s being", including the two proposed answers.

However, it is unclear what is "true wisdom" when you have established that there is no true wisdom we can know. So the contention that "true wisdom belongs to the gods" as a statement of absolute truth-value is more reasonably contradicted by the limits on what we can truly know.

Also, the notion of god as a thing-in-itself, which is central to both proposed answers, is more reasonably contradicted by our casual perspective and the apparent interactive nature of things, which both imply an infinity of things over a thing-in-itself.

To make either of your proposed answers work, you need to more reasonably establish a thing-in-itself. Merely assuming the existence of a thing-in-itself is not enough.

Other issue:

Just because the existence of being is more reasonably necessary for an individual to truly know who he or she is, does not necessarily mean that the constant of being with self-knowledge equates with true self-knowledge. “I think, and therefore I am” merely establishes the existence of being from our perspective. It does not necessarily establish true self-knowledge. Viz., there is no necessity that in order to know or think, and thereby be, that we need self-knowledge with absolute truth-value.

Entries 363-366,  Entries 372-374