Okay, who among us here has “cover[ed] all philosophical [Eastern and Western] materials involving the 'I”'.
Have you?
If so, what then is the definitive understanding of “I” as it pertains to an understanding of human interactions – including motivation, intention and consequences – as this pertains to a definitive understanding of conflicting human behaviors out in a particular world revolving around a particular context most of us will be familiar with.
As this succeeds in closing the gap between what you think you know now about the “human condition” and all that would need to be known about the existence of existence itself in order to subsume all the current “unknown unknowns” into the TOE.
In other words, take what you construe to be the optimal [or the only] rational understanding of “I” and situate it “out in the world” of actual human interactions.
Because [again] this is always the chief aim of the discussions that I seek out in venues such as this.
That and [on this thread] connecting the dots between the behaviors “I” choose on this side of the grave and what “I” construe my fate to be on the other side of the grave given the manner in which “I” have come to construe the existence God.
Describing “bundle theory” analytically is one thing, situating it out in the world of extant conflicting goods another thing altogether.
Or so it certainly seems to me.
How would I go about convincing you when I cannot even convince myself that my dilemma above is anything other than just another existential contraption?
I am still waiting for you to take what you deem to be [technically] a proficient philosophical understanding of these relationships out into the world of conflicted goods.
Instead, you come back to this:
Which can only prompt me to ask, “what on earth does this mean”? In my view, you steer clear of mockery by aiming the discussion in the general direction of “serious philosophy”. Technical, analytical philosophy that revolves largely around pinning down the precise definition/meaning of words that “out in the world” are often understood [existentially] only from particular, conflicted points of view rooted in dasein. At least in the is/ought world. And then rooted further in political prejudices. Your argument/analysis [so far] is construed by me to be just another rendition of Will Durant’s “epistemologists”. A world of words.
In other words:
But I repeat myself…
With respect to issues like abortion, animal rights, the role of government, homosexuality etc., note the sort of discussion that those on both sides of these issues “here and now” might commense in order to attain this Middle-Way frame of mind. What would a win-win solution look like if not one embedded in moderation, negotation and compromise? Which is an entirely political contraption.
In other words, embedded in democracy and the rule of law. And here only those who have the power to enforce a particular narrative prevail. As opposed to those human communities in which brute, naked power prevails. Or one in which philosopher-kings prescribe and proscribe the optimal human interactions.
But then [as I see it] you head straight back up into the clouds of abstraction:
How is this not just an “intellectual contraption” that encompasses a “general description” of human interactions. An interaction of words that do not involve substantively an examination of actual existential interactions that come into conflict over value judgments in a No God world?
Try to imagine it…
You are among a congregation of Dreamers [in America] watching intently as the bickering between liberals and conservatives in Washington may well result in a policy that sends them packing.
Sell to them your notion that, first and foremost, the starting point is to get the concept/idea of “what is ‘I’” in its proper perspective.
Now, my problem, given my dilemma above, is that I recognize this political conflagration as just one more example of conflicted goods that propel my own particular “I” down into it. My values here and now are embedded politically in the “liberal” narrative. But I clearly recognize that they were once deeply embedded in the “conservative” narrative. The part that revolves around my current understanding of dasein. And I surmise in turn that philosophers/ethicists are unable to propose a resolution that reflects the optimal or the only rational manner in which mere mortals [in a No God world] are obligated to aim their behaviors.