To many people, philosophy seems like a big exercise in wasting time. It looks like a little group of weird people with spacey minds having nothing better to do than to ponder the true nature of their bellybuttons. These folk are kept away from the crowds, safe and sound in their colleges and universities. There, they challenge our youth (college students) with odd questions that have some temporary usefulness as “mind strengthening” exercises. It’s kind of like weight training for a baseball or football player, as it helps young women and men to develop brains strong enough to take on modern problems like quantum computer design or asynchronous war strategy or multi-national manufacturing logistic systems. As with muscle exercise for athletes, you do just enough philosophy in college to pass your class, then you get on to the more relevant challenges.
In a way, that’s too bad. Classical philosophical issues really can be interesting and relevant to a graying, middle-aged person like myself. But other than spending your time alone with a bunch of books (which actually sounds pretty good to me these days), it’s hard for the average middle-aged person to get back in touch with philosophy. There are a handful of small “movements” out there that are trying to bring philosophy back to the people. One of those movements is called “Socrates Café”, which sets up weekly or monthly discussion sessions open to the public during the after-work hours. I’ve been to the nearest SC, and it can be interesting. But it didn’t seem like “real” philosophy to me. It was mostly a rambling discussion that usually turned into a group therapy session (with follow-up liquid therapy at the local tavern).
Not that a walk-in therapy session (at low cost) is a bad idea in these crazy times. But from what I’ve seen, philosophy really is like exercise. It’s not easy and not necessarily pleasant. You have to put time into it and work your way up through it, as your “mental muscles” strengthen. In my own current project of reading up on the issues behind human consciousness, I’ve had to build some familiarity with “philosophy of mind”, which can be difficult and frustrating at times. It’s not always light, pleasant reading. But it can lead to some interesting insights, and maybe even develop the wisdom that promotes and protects one’s mental health in a crazy world. At my age, it’s not a question of passing a class to get a degree; it’s a question of using whatever time and opportunities are left to shore up some of my failings and to make whatever I can yet out of my messy little life.
I’ve been reading a treatise lately that talks a lot about “the self”. You can’t read a book or article on consciousness without some reference to “self”, but the authors of this particular work were very interested in Buddhism and its claim that there actually is NO self. Well OK then – so just what is “the self”? We usually get just one self in life, so maybe it’s better to ask just what is MY self? One answer to that question, perhaps the easiest one, is that our bodies define our selves. Here I am, sitting right here. My body defines the way I look, the way I talk, the memories I have, my tendencies such as crankiness or anger or hunger or contentedness or friendliness. The body changes over time, but so what? We all accept that we change over time.
And yet. Deep down inside, isn’t there something that we believe stays the same about us? Isn’t there some theme to who we are, to what our lives are? Isn’t there something we could say about ourselves that would apply even when we were babies and children? Something fundamental, more than just the sum of what happens to us over time? Were we totally determined by everything around us, everything that happened to us and came through us (“you are what you eat”) over the years? Obviously our laws don’t think so. We are held responsible for what we do; we can’t get off a felony charge by saying that we had a bad childhood or a bad meal.
Actually, our laws could simply be pragmatic; they could accept that we don’t have independent selves (free will) but demand that the guilty still be punished so as to keep society from falling apart. But most people (here in the west, anyway) seem to think there’s something more to it than that.
Plato took it all the way to the other end. He said that we had souls, and that there were “forms” that defined the pure essence of everything in our world. As such, our souls are the ultimate “form” of ourselves. You can see why the Christian religion (and some of the others) liked Plato, despite having to ultimately brush him off as a Greek pagan. The Christians, and the Jews before them, said that God gives each of us a soul, and that soul is ultimately who we are – or could be. But we live as a mix of body and soul, and if we listen too much to the body, our souls get corrupted and ultimately vanquished, to Sheol or Hell or where ever. If we make the sacrifices needed to nurture the soul, even at the expense of the body, then we won’t be vanquished once our bodies fail. We might then live on in some other realm or dimension, since we previously asserted the true nature of our “self”.
And in between these two extremes, i.e. self as nothing more than the changing body and self as cosmic eternal soul, various philosophers over the years have had other thoughts. John Locke emphasized the facility of memory; we are what we remember. Memory allows us to change, yet keep some things constant over the years (so long as our brains are working right). According to Locke, if you could take two people and exchange their memories (unforeseeable in Locke’s time, not so unforeseeable today), they would in fact exchange bodies and lives. The “self” would follow the memory trail. David Hume talked about self as more of a “bundle” of things, some that change quickly (e.g. our conscious attention; our minds do wander a lot), and some that don’t change as much (memories, body structures, personality tendencies, etc.). Other philosophers in turn have pondered whether there is something else about the mind that defines us, something to do with the ethereal nature of consciousness (i.e., “SELF consciousness).
Even the most dualistic of modern philosophers (those who posit that consciousness is different than matter and physics as we now know them) are generally afraid to say that consciousness actually affects how we are and what we do. But a small handful try to get around the “epiphenomenal” problem and ponder whether a conscious being is actually different than an unconscious one, all else the same. If so, then our behavior is in fact influenced by consciousness per-se (or self-consciousness, which is conceptually more stable than the short-run consciousness we have of itches and flies buzzing and people talking in the background and what we are doing this weekend). If so, then there is something to Plato and the Judeo-Christian Platonists, even if this doesn’t prove that there is a God (or a “World of Forms” in Plato’s case) behind it all.
The Buddhists generally don’t think so. They say that the mind is a monkey, doing this and doing that without much more reason than day-to-day survival. As such, the self is an illusion. On one level of truth, we have multiple selves, selves that change every day. We are one way in the morning, another way in the afternoon, another way after good news, another way after bad. In their deep meditations, they see nothing but change. They see that the idea of an unchanging self ultimately causes more pain than comfort. It’s an empty promise that makes us nutsy, it’s really the source of all problems. The highest level of truth revealed in their sittings is that there is no self. Once a person reaches that truth, they can
then be happy in life despite pain and sickness and failures in this world. Well, that’s what I’ve read about the Buddhists, anyway.
So, is all this deep thinking (or deeper than the usual office-cooler chit-chat) worth more than the digits and pixels on the screen which you are reading it with? Can it help my life and yours? Notice that I didn’t draw any conclusions here (although admittedly I am hoping against hope that the radical consciousness-dualists somehow rally back against the pro-Buddhists and physicalists that seem to be winning the debate right now). But hey, if the exercise helps you to appreciate your own SELF – your life, your very being – if it helps you to see just how precious a gift it all is, even in a world of decay and failures — then maybe it is worth the struggle. As the fitness freaks say, “no pain, no gain”. In a “SELF-SERVICE” world, it’s a good idea!
Jim, To me, you really have two distinct discussions going on: One on philosophy and one on the self.
First some comments on “philosophy.” (See next comment for “self” discussion.) I find that philosophy is a lot like physics. I’ve read a lot of philosophical stuff lately and I’ve read (over the years and am recently reading) some physics. It seems to me that both have the same kind of quality. They are both ends of the “building blocks” that make that which is. Discussion of both/either contributes very basically to “that which is.” If we don’t have discussion of each of “ends” of what is, then I think that somehow the evolution of what is can even be stopped–thus, while both are abstract, they are both essential to humankind; and there will always be some persons inwardly driven to their discussion.
HOWEVER, I also think that one of the things that appears to make philosophy “so hard” (as with physics) is that a lot of it is written in JARGON. Basically, by this “writing in jargon” I mean the tendency of some writers to have an attitude that says: “Well, what we are discussing is ‘important’; therefore, we must use VERY LARGE words where simple words would do; otherwise, we will not appear to be discussing something important.” For instance: Jargon comes into play when one says, “The celestial orb ascended into the azure firmament” when one wants to say “The sun rose.” The general idea with the use of jargon is: never use a 1 syllable word when a 2, 3, or 4 syllable one will do. When one reads a sentence and has to say to oneself, what does this word and this word and this word mean, and then put the whole thing into simple words to figure out what is being said–we are in the presence of JARGON. I have no use for this kind of writing. Important ideas will out whether one uses multi-syllabic words or simple words. And I say: Why make already difficult concepts further obscure by using “big” words unnecessarily. BUT: There are some instances when one simply must use words that are multi-syllabic to convey a concept. But these instances are not all that often.
Another tangential point on “group therapy”: I’ve never been able to get much from groups–especially group therapy. The problem with GT as I see it (and this may simply be peculiar to me) is that the hearing of others’ problems or troubles often distresses me so that my own problems and/or thoughts on a topic sink deep into the background where there is no possibility of anything I wanted to say coming to the fore.
Then in what might be called “simple” discussion of concepts: Seldom is there an un-impassioned discussion where people can disagree without getting angry with each other and/or that does not degenerate into group therapy. It’s seldom people actually “discuss”–exchange ideas among themselves and grow in the process. If one does not consider aspects of a concept that one may “disagree” with, one has no hope of growing.
I find it a blessing when one can find someone to actually “discuss” topics, talk about pros and cons, disagree without someone falling into some kind of emotional stance in defending one’s position. This last usually erupts when one has control issues and must control the outcome–very often this “control” is unconscious, but, nevertheless, all pervasive.
MCS
Comment by Anonymous — November 1, 2007 @ 4:44 pm
Jim, To me, you really have two distinct discussions going on: One on philosophy and one on the self.
First some comments on “philosophy.” (See next comment for “self” discussion.) I find that philosophy is a lot like physics. I’ve read a lot of philosophical stuff lately and I’ve read (over the years and am recently reading) some physics. It seems to me that both have the same kind of quality. They are both ends of the “building blocks” that make that which is. Discussion of both/either contributes very basically to “that which is.” If we don’t have discussion of each of “ends” of what is, then I think that somehow the evolution of what is can even be stopped–thus, while both are abstract, they are both essential to humankind; and there will always be some persons inwardly driven to their discussion.
HOWEVER, I also think that one of the things that appears to make philosophy “so hard” (as with physics) is that a lot of it is written in JARGON. Basically, by this “writing in jargon” I mean the tendency of some writers to have an attitude that says: “Well, what we are discussing is ‘important’; therefore, we must use VERY LARGE words where simple words would do; otherwise, we will not appear to be discussing something important.” For instance: Jargon comes into play when one says, “The celestial orb ascended into the azure firmament” when one wants to say “The sun rose.” The general idea with the use of jargon is: never use a 1 syllable word when a 2, 3, or 4 syllable one will do. When one reads a sentence and has to say to oneself, what does this word and this word and this word mean, and then put the whole thing into simple words to figure out what is being said–we are in the presence of JARGON. I have no use for this kind of writing. Important ideas will out whether one uses multi-syllabic words or simple words. And I say: Why make already difficult concepts further obscure by using “big” words unnecessarily. BUT: There are some instances when one simply must use words that are multi-syllabic to convey a concept. But these instances are not all that often.
Another tangential point on “group therapy”: I’ve never been able to get much from groups–especially group therapy. The problem with GT as I see it (and this may simply be peculiar to me) is that the hearing of others’ problems or troubles often distresses me so that my own problems and/or thoughts on a topic sink deep into the background where there is no possibility of anything I wanted to say coming to the fore.
Then in what might be called “simple” discussion of concepts: Seldom is there an un-impassioned discussion where people can disagree without getting angry with each other and/or that does not degenerate into group therapy. It’s seldom people actually “discuss”–exchange ideas among themselves and grow in the process. If one does not consider aspects of a concept that one may “disagree” with, one has no hope of growing.
I find it a blessing when one can find someone to actually “discuss” topics, talk about pros and cons, disagree without someone falling into some kind of emotional stance in defending one’s position. This last usually erupts when one has control issues and must control the outcome–very often this “control” is unconscious, but, nevertheless, all pervasive.
MCS
Comment by Anonymous — November 1, 2007 @ 4:44 pm
Jim,
Now to “the self”:
First of all: I’ve always found the Buddhist concept of “NO self” somehow unacceptable. I guess it’s that the concept of “self” within me is so strong that I can’t see it becoming “NO self.”
I MAY BE able to understand the “NO self” as a concept only if one considers that in the totality of the evolution of one’s “self,” it’s possble that eventually (as perhaps in–back to physics–the end of the universe, one may eventually dissolve into the Godhead–or what may “pass” for a Godhead. However, in my thinking that concept is so distant one might just as well be thinking in terms of the billions of years the universe will last (as in, everything is FINITE).
Then, for ME (and here I may be a majority of one) I have never, ever (even as a child) thought of my body defining MY “SELF.” My “self” inhabits my body–but is not defined by my body.
And yes, there is something “that stays the same”–well, for me it’s my “self”; however, it really does NOT stay “the same”; it grows and develops. Experiences of life add over time to my “self,” add to the experiences my “self” may have through my body–but these “happenings” do not define my “self” either.
Maybe Plato was right–with the forms and all that. Perhaps the “self” is the “soul”; that may be a close definition of sorts.
I often think that the “after life” (whatever form it takes) likely is similar to what this life is (or should be) all about–the growth of the individual person. We may find that when we get to “heaven,” we may “grow as an individual” there too. Now I think that would be an interesting kind of “heaven” and one where I’d enjoy going.
As to making “sacrifices” in order to grow: I have long ago given up on “sacrifices.” Life itself contains enough sacrifices–just live a life trying to grow as an individual, doing the best one can do in any situation: For me that ends up in beaucoup sacrifices; I don’t need others added.
And as to modern philosophers who are afraid to posit consciousness actually “affects how we are and what we do”: I think those philosophers are afraid they will not be accepted as “scientific.” But I doubt science has all the answers. Here again, we have science taking the roll of the person who has to be “in control” and can’t “stand” it when it (science or philosophy that wants to be “scientific”) may not have every answer to everything. E.g., Why do all “near death experiences” have to be reduced by “scientists” to some kind of brain firing that happens upon death? I don’t get it. Why can’t science admit that when it comes to “near death,” they may have crossed the border where science ends and have no answers? Then too, I wonder: Do scientists and science have any REAL answer to the self–or is discussion of the “self” across the line of where science ends?
For the life of me I have not been able to figure out why scientists think absolutely all answers must be reduced to science. I have somewhat the same attitude toward physicists at this point: Some of them don’t seem to “get” the point that they are simply going to have to cross over a line into another way of thinking–maybe another dimension of sorts. Taking such a leap is a BIG risk; but without such a leap of thought, “we” will simply never get past the concepts we mull over and mull over and mull over, getting nowhere in a loop.
Well, this may simply be my 2 cents worth–and worth only that in the end. I’m perfectly willing to accept that. However, no matter what I read, no matter how much thought I give to these concepts, I alway come back to these same thoughts. Maybe I’m in my own loop–but then, I think others are too. I’m looking for a step “beyond” the loop–or “out of the loop” perhaps. Time for some really BOLD thinking, I say.
MCS
Comment by Anonymous — November 1, 2007 @ 5:21 pm
Jim,
Now to “the self”:
First of all: I’ve always found the Buddhist concept of “NO self” somehow unacceptable. I guess it’s that the concept of “self” within me is so strong that I can’t see it becoming “NO self.”
I MAY BE able to understand the “NO self” as a concept only if one considers that in the totality of the evolution of one’s “self,” it’s possble that eventually (as perhaps in–back to physics–the end of the universe, one may eventually dissolve into the Godhead–or what may “pass” for a Godhead. However, in my thinking that concept is so distant one might just as well be thinking in terms of the billions of years the universe will last (as in, everything is FINITE).
Then, for ME (and here I may be a majority of one) I have never, ever (even as a child) thought of my body defining MY “SELF.” My “self” inhabits my body–but is not defined by my body.
And yes, there is something “that stays the same”–well, for me it’s my “self”; however, it really does NOT stay “the same”; it grows and develops. Experiences of life add over time to my “self,” add to the experiences my “self” may have through my body–but these “happenings” do not define my “self” either.
Maybe Plato was right–with the forms and all that. Perhaps the “self” is the “soul”; that may be a close definition of sorts.
I often think that the “after life” (whatever form it takes) likely is similar to what this life is (or should be) all about–the growth of the individual person. We may find that when we get to “heaven,” we may “grow as an individual” there too. Now I think that would be an interesting kind of “heaven” and one where I’d enjoy going.
As to making “sacrifices” in order to grow: I have long ago given up on “sacrifices.” Life itself contains enough sacrifices–just live a life trying to grow as an individual, doing the best one can do in any situation: For me that ends up in beaucoup sacrifices; I don’t need others added.
And as to modern philosophers who are afraid to posit consciousness actually “affects how we are and what we do”: I think those philosophers are afraid they will not be accepted as “scientific.” But I doubt science has all the answers. Here again, we have science taking the roll of the person who has to be “in control” and can’t “stand” it when it (science or philosophy that wants to be “scientific”) may not have every answer to everything. E.g., Why do all “near death experiences” have to be reduced by “scientists” to some kind of brain firing that happens upon death? I don’t get it. Why can’t science admit that when it comes to “near death,” they may have crossed the border where science ends and have no answers? Then too, I wonder: Do scientists and science have any REAL answer to the self–or is discussion of the “self” across the line of where science ends?
For the life of me I have not been able to figure out why scientists think absolutely all answers must be reduced to science. I have somewhat the same attitude toward physicists at this point: Some of them don’t seem to “get” the point that they are simply going to have to cross over a line into another way of thinking–maybe another dimension of sorts. Taking such a leap is a BIG risk; but without such a leap of thought, “we” will simply never get past the concepts we mull over and mull over and mull over, getting nowhere in a loop.
Well, this may simply be my 2 cents worth–and worth only that in the end. I’m perfectly willing to accept that. However, no matter what I read, no matter how much thought I give to these concepts, I alway come back to these same thoughts. Maybe I’m in my own loop–but then, I think others are too. I’m looking for a step “beyond” the loop–or “out of the loop” perhaps. Time for some really BOLD thinking, I say.
MCS
Comment by Anonymous — November 1, 2007 @ 5:21 pm