Philosophical Sophistry in 'True Detective'

[Speaking Mute]

The bit of "science fiction" I used in my example is unnecessary - I only used the Turing Test because it is the most famous example of using language use as a basis for consciousness. As noted, my example works well enough with someone suffering from severe dementia, delusions, etc.

"Self" isn't the important concept at play here. So far as it has any meaning, it's just an anthropocentric term for individuation - we humans are particular individuals in the same way as rocks, dogs, blades of grass are. "Self-consciousness/awareness" hinges on us having knowledge of certain factors that individuate us. As I said, we have a certain limited knowledge of ourselves as particular bodies, doing things at particular times, but we do not think of ourselves in this way without extreme difficulty. Being "objectified" is being debased in some way - the term has sexual connotations, but patient's complaints about doctors and hospitals "dehumanizing" them is another instance where fears of objectification surface (and, on a side note, a common theme in Ligotti)

So what are we supposedly aware of when we are "self-aware"? What is the domain and scope of this so-called self-awareness that goes beyond a body? If this so-called awareness deals solely in fictions, then it is an illusion. Put this into another context where we can escape all the baggage surrounding terms like "self", "consciousness" etc. - what does one "know" if one knows, for instance, that Golem bit off Frodo's finger and fell into the flames of Mount Doom? This statement has all the semblance of being a genuine statement about actual things - but there's nothing there. There is no Golem, Frodo, or Mt. Doom to know anything about. If knowing this fact has any connection to our physical reality, it's a rather convoluted statement about what certain authors wrote and director's filmed. To know a lot about fiction is, in a deep way, to know nothing.

So it's easy to pick on notions like "souls" as foolish and/or ambiguous, but take any term from my prior list and apply the same arguments we use to debunk souls - you'll find the concepts stripped bare as well. Even terms that we think of as being biological - like "male" and "female" - don't pick out anything in reality when we start nitpicking (quite a bit of "gender studies" tows this line - and I think rather well). These things become fictions - and look equally as empty. So if such notions make up our "self-awareness" then we are not aware of very much.

As I said, you can always bring in a pet theory to save appearances - just add phenomenology to my previous list. But this does not render denying "self" self-refuting or illogical. It's a bit rough to call any bit of fiction sophistical - True Detective isn't a philosophicall treatise - but the philosophical works it's referring to aren't exactly hack jobs.

[qcrisp]

I think the problem can be simplified.

As noted by alogos, to argue about the self, you need to know what you're arguing about - by some definitions it might exist, by others not.

I'm not going to go into that now, because I don't have time.

Let's say someone says to me, "Stop thinking you have a self!"

What is the point or meaning of such an imperative?

Whatever it is, that is what is at the back of the True Detective dialogue.

My response could be one of many. E.G:

"If I don't have a self, then who is thinking I have a self?"

"If an illusion thinks it's real, whose problem can that possibly be?"

"Who or what is telling me to stop thinking I have a self?"

"Is it the illusion that thinks it's real or something real identifying with an a illusion? In the former case, how is it defined as an illusion if it can think it's real? In the latter case, what is the real thing that has the ability to identify with anything?"

Another question: are badly cared for patients in a hospital wrong to complain of being dehumanised?

[qcrisp]

By the way, to save time I didn't address things such as the dualistic implications of Frodo etc being fiction, or the fact that "individuation" or any of the other concepts used in the above argument are just as anthropocentric as the concepts they are being employed to counter.

[qcrisp]

Also by the way, there's a fairly hardcore debate on related topics taking place here:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secular...parsons-index/

Even this debate is clearly a huge compression of the issues.

At some point we may or may not wish to leave it to 'professionals'. Or we may feel strongly enough about it to become professionals ourselves.

Just a few related issues.

Most neuroscientists I have listened to lately seem to be dismissing the concept of "Free Will". They are busy gathering data based on experimentation which will kick the god story in the teeth yet again. The implications are profound, of course, in academic circles. Not so much in the real world.

The main point of divergence for most people is not the validity of being but the significance of being. Religious people tend to think that we are some god's chosen species and are therefore justified in our belief of self-importance. Strutting around and trampling on anything and everything in our path. If humanity is not nature's mistake, we are certainly her nightmare.

To put the deleterious effect of humanity into proper perspective you could do worse than watch this short video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ysa5OBhXz-Q


Scientific Materialists, on the other hand, know that all religions are mythology and historical fiction; all demonstrably derivative, false, and completely absurd. Not to mention, frankly embarrassing. Not one is more important than the other. All religion is born of psychological need. But guess what, if you want justice you are going to have to strive for it in this life, not expect it in the next - because there is no next.

Humanity needs to grow up.

[qcrisp]

Reconcile these two statements:

"Most neuroscientists I have listened to lately seem to be dismissing the concept of 'Free Will'."

"But guess what, if you want justice you are going to have to strive for it in this life, not expect it in the next - because there is no next."

Strive for it with our lack of free will, presumably.

[qcrisp]

Nice video, by the way. I would love to see a return to higher populations of wolves.

[Druidic]

Maybe the laws that govern our internal consciousness are similar to the laws that govern the quantum world. That world seems to be a Jerry-rigged affair where the impossible is very often the only Possible.

Free Will may or may not exist--ultimate absurdity if it exists only at rare moments and for reasons too complex for us to understand--but human beings feel like free agents and act accordingly, even the determinists. I think Ligotti mentions this last bit in CATHR...

In the quantum world contradictions of logic and expected outcomes, as well as common sense in general, are just examples of business as usual.

[qcrisp]

The conversation about lack of free will only seems fruitful if it's not absolutely and inescapably true - for instance, if people generally act without free will, but there is a way to access free will that people should be aware of.

(Though how to access free will without the application of free will seems a conundrum.)

If there simply is no such thing as free will at all and never can be, then the only end to the conversation, it seems to me, is, "So what?" since we will have no free will to act on the knowledge that there is no free will.

I'm sure we've all pondered this before, anyway, etc.

[qcrisp]

The following article, by David Gelernter, would appear to be relevant to this thread:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/ar...ientific-mind/