It’s a good thing a distraction (the digression it entices you into (is just one trajectory among others (think: Frost’s Path Not Taken (because you guys are distracting me from points I should be making on my present reading of Rorty’s Objectivity, Reletavism, and Truth. I can only hope that the fact (and may the wrath of Strunk rest in its grave (that we are on the pragmatic board feels like salt on the wound.
Are you feeling the cut, guys? Anyway:
“There are some serious alternate paradigms on the problem of self - for instance Panpsychism, which is probably closer to Deleuze’s ideas I imagine D Edward Tarkington” –Chris
“Am i missing something here? Panpsychism sounds like complete bogus.” –Jan
While Chalmers and Panpsychism has been forever on my to-do list, I’m not sure I would not totally dismiss it –that is without having the info I would like to have. As a guest on a Philosophy Now podcast on the mind (philosophynow.org/podcasts/Free … _the_Brain) enlightened me with: we can’t dismiss the possibility that particles, at the atomic level, are capable of carrying data. And we have to put in mind here that what we experience as consciousness is rooted in the grunts and silences in the meat of the brain: the cumulative effect of various cells in the brain that are either active or not.
As to whether Deleuze subscribes to panpsychism, Chris, that would require an expertise on Deleuze I’m not sure anyone can achieve. As I understand him, he subscribes to the same kind of qualified materialism (think: machinic and social production(as Rorty for the sake of a social agenda based on discourse unimpeded by transcendent criteria (territorializations such as objectivity or “the scientific method”: power discourses (that, via the momentum created by the exchanges of energy, can facilitate our evolution as a species. It’s basically Hegel without the fixed endgame.
At the same time, Chris, I can’t totally dismiss your point since Deleuze does seem to work from an rhizomatic interchange at an atomic level. It’s something we’ll have to explore.
“As Descartes said “I think therefore…”, we must necessarily take self for granted, that we exist, and to avoid solipsism accept others exist, too. With self comes all the things we do, such as having ideas and forming logical cause and effect relationships.” –David
I’m not exactly sure where David stands here, but I have to go with the school that has abandoned Cartesian dualism. For instance, I believe we need to concede to the materialists and neuroscientists and stop talking about Free Will. What we should be talking about, rather, is participation: that which I believe lies in Chaotics and that subtle point at which the determined transforms into the random and the random transforms into the determined. Here we can see the possibility of a participating (sort of (self in the interface of consciousness that occurs between the brain and the environment it has to adapt to in order to protect the body and its genetic legacy. Doing so, we can downplay the Causa Sui argument offered by hardcore materialists by pointing out that it is based on an outdated linear understanding of causality as compared to the feedback loop we are talking about here. I mean why would a participating self necessarily need to be an uncaused cause?
In Dave’s defense, he does go on to say:
“I agree self cannot experience self. Self is what does the experiencing. Just as the idea of self love is a farce.”
What I see here is a point made by Dennett in Consciousness Explained against the notion of the Cartesian Theater: the multiple drafts theory in which the brain brings in data and passes it around different modules until, through an additive and revision process, the mind arrives at a final understanding. And it seems legit to me. However, it doesn’t eliminate the idea of the Cartesian Theater as much as make the actors the spectators as well: a theater troupe performing purely for its own satisfaction.
So why couldn’t we experience “self love”, Dave? And it has been suggested that narcissism is a quality embedded in our very make-up.