Nowhere Men
Nick Inman wants to know where you’re at.
In Philosophy Now magazine
Actually, the crunch question would seem to be, “why am I who the anthropologists say I am, and what the physical scientists say I am?”
That and how did existence itself come to be such that it evolved into who or what or why others speculate that I am.
Including philosophers.
Of course, we seem far, far removed from an answer that definitive. So what real choice do we have [in the interim] but to explore possibilities short of that. After all, they are no less fascinating to ponder.
Here we start getting closer to the “stuff” that fascinates me the most. The part in particular where we delve into the relationship between brain matter precipitating mind precipitating consciousness precipitating “I”. Is any of that ever really within our command as autonomous matter? Or is it intertwined in one or another manifestation of God or pantheism? The part where wherever you are there is no getting around the most fundamental fonts of all.
Again, aspects of “I” that are applicable to all of us. Given the gap between “I” and all there is to know about all there is to know. But far more fascinating to me is the part where, given some measure of autonomy, “I” and “you” and “they” are not able to pin down what seems to be true for all of us.
And, for some, this marks the end of the discussion. In other words, is this or is this not inherently and necessarily a manifestation of biological imperatives? The part about dasein is merely subsumed by the determinists in the assumption that it is.
Here on this thread though I can only start by taking an intellectual leap to autonomy. Even though I have no capacity to demonstrate that it does in fact exist.