The Philosophy Thread

[Louanne Learning]

Time is the setting.

With an equal mix of change and constancy?

 

[GrahamLewis]

With an equal mix of change and constancy?

What happens, happens. Time is merely the backdrop, or, more likely, the mode of perception by which we observe change.

 

[Stuart Dren]

What happens, happens.

He said the thing!

 

[GrahamLewis]

The ultimate endpoint of empiricism might be deemed to be futility or madness: "A brilliant neuroscientist I was reading recently said . . .. we never really encounter the world; all we experience is our own nervous system." Eknath Easwaran, Introduction, The Bhagvad Gita, p. 41 (Nilgiri Press 2007).

I recall having that same thought during one of my earlier philosophy courses, back in my personal dark ages. The realization David Hume led us down a dead-end alley, that if we rely solely upon our physical senses to understand the world, we ultimately end up with nothing. We are only fooling ourselves if we think we know anything at all empirically, because whatever is "really" there, if anything, is unknowable except by and through our admittedly limited sensory framework. We know only what our eyes make of reflection, what our fingers sense from the nerve endings, what our ears translate from air vibrations -- though to speak of reflections, of touch sensations, and of auditory interpretations is ultimately circular -- we are simply saying we know what we know based on what we know we sense. What lies beyond, if anything, is beyond darkness or feel or sound (or silence).

We can argue that there must be something there, from which we make our interpretation, flawed or limited though it may be. But it is equally likely, if not more likely, that there is nothing there in every sense of the word, that we are building a world based on illusion. Of course, that way lies solipsism, in which I can know only that I exist (because I sense myself) and can never know for certain that you exist. And may well have doubts as to my own existence, at least late in a restless night.

Yet I find myself at heart believing that I exist, and equally that you, the reader, exist as more than my imagined reading of words on my imaginary laptop. That I'm not making this all up. Which tosses me into some form of religious belief (though of course that may be the ultimate illusion). As in

"Our persona is known by the sensations . . . which we cause in other persons [and of course sense in ourselves]. But the exact character of our own feelings, seeings, and hearings cannot be communicated. . . . But in spite of these limitations . . . we do have a kind of mystic knowledge of each other. . . The knowledge of what might be called the 'inside' of the other person is possible only because we all share in the Logos of God." Howard Brint, The Religious Philosophy of Quakerism, p. 70 (Pendle Hill 1979).

 

[Louanne Learning]

we never really encounter the world; all we experience is our own nervous system."

I love this. But, if we have perception, and are able to take in information from the environment, should we not trust it?

that if we rely solely upon our physical senses to understand the world, we ultimately end up with nothing

But, what else do we have? I guess this gets into the different theories of consciousness - physicalism vs. dualism. Is there something else besides the highly complex electrochemistry of neuronal networks in brains? It seems like such a leap, for that to account for subjective experience, but it seems to me that imagining there is some a priori explanation is more far-fetched.

we are building a world based on illusion.

Some go so far as to claim that human free will is an illusion. that we are in effect a manifestation of all the "causes" that came before us - that we think we make choices, but really do not. But, I dunno, we do come up with novel responses to random change?

and can never know for certain that you exist.

This (and earlier mentions of time and change) is a nice segue to an Aeon article I read today about the philosophy of Mexistentialism

A core concept of this “philosophy of Mexicanness” is “nada es seguro” = nothing is certain - a reminder that “our humanity is fragile and accidental.”

It’s connected to nepantla = being between spaces, times, destinations, life and death … so we recognize our zozobra = our indeterminacy, instability and radical uncertainty

Mexistentialism is associated with Mexican philosopher Emilio Uranga (1921-88) - a founding member of el groupo Hiperión, a group of young Mexican philosophers influenced by German and French existential phenomenology …

At the centre of Uranga’s ‘ontology’ is the scholastic distinction between substance and accident. A substance is that which endures and survives change. It is what remains the same despite change – the thing itself, which is characterised by permanence. By contrast, an accident depends on a substance for its existence – x must be an accident of something – and is by definition impermanent. Applied to the human being – something that the phenomenologist Martin Heidegger does not do – this ontological difference manifests itself in the feeling of power, a sense of self-sufficiency and permanence on the one hand, and a fundamental sense of insecurity and impermanence on the other hand.

makes me wonder how much does cultural history impact cultural philosophy

et I find myself at heart believing that I exist,

Me too! There's just too much evidence!! A lot of it made up of connections to other people.