Brent Jenkins had written to me briefly on the ego and the self; he had referred to the work of Lacan and Wittgenstein
5.30.2007
Hi Brent
Witty (Wittgenstein) said ‘The world is my world.’ In that world (I say) one perceives self, other and everything else; that is the—typical—perception but it does not follow from the perception that the things perceived are objective. Anyway what does it mean to say that ‘self is objective?’ And what do I mean be ‘self?’ The two questions are interconnected. If I doubt ‘self’ or ‘perceiving self’ what concept is it that I doubt? Stable perceiving self—precisely or even imprecisely what is meant by that? And is instability-fluidity of self a ‘bad’ thing? Does it mean that there is no stable knowing or that knowing can adapt? I am a little different when I am thinking and writing philosophy than when writing this and different again when I am at work… At home, in nature the ‘self’ whatever it is—is fluid, more free and at work it is less free, not as fluid. I can hear Phil Crandall thinking ‘I pay you $16.40 an hour so I own your ‘self’ and it had bloody well better not be free and fluid while I’m paying you.’ We’ve remarked on that attitude at the nursing station e.g. I get all my work done (usually) etc. so what’s the big deal about being on the computer? ‘We own you’ is the attitude and not ‘this is a trade: results for money.’ (I know I digress from the original point.) ‘No you don’t own me buddy’ is my response. And it’s vastly more than an ego thing. A human life, talking perhaps idealistically—and that’s part of what ‘I’ am and part of what it is perhaps to be human—is infinitely more than eight hours of work, five days a week… The ‘I own you’ attitude is a moral crime of high magnitude
Back to the self. So it’s not altogether fixed in nature, it’s not like a rock. But even if self is compared to rock, the comparison is twice metaphorical self-rock and rock-rock solid; for the rock itself on impact or over eons is not solid and a Leibniz or even a Mitra might think that the parts of the rock have little bits of mind—Mitra thinks that this is not pan-psychism for he feels that that term should be reserved for the idea that the mind aspect of a rock or an electron is a miniature human or animal mind which is no more being said than the assertion that materialism is the claim that electrons are miniature Empire State Buildings. At some extremes of disintegration, selves are fractured so that nothing seems stable and the self of one moment does not even recognize that of another (fugue states.) My being a different person at home versus at work is a little like that; but I seem to have a stable identity that despite the difference between a lovely moment and a moment of extreme shame or embarrassment and despite any desire that I may have to not recognize or feel that it is the same person, I do. I still perceive that, though different there is some identity between the person writing this note and a ten year old boy in India riding his new bike around the garden. The question of identity is multiply interesting. Why should I feel shame? Embarrassment? I might be a different—perhaps more realized—person without petty embarrassment. And though you and I are different in that your experience is not mine, your identity different from mine. Vedanta says that is not so for all identity lies in Brahman
The limits of my language are the limits of my world—true there are things that we probably could not ‘touch’ with our senses and that the perceptual system could not reconstruct as objects of intuition and therefore that could not be named. But, setting aside the objection from symbolic algebra—the idea that symbolic systems may overcome the limits of intuition, what are the limits of intuition? Intuition and self are interwoven and at what degree of stretching must they break rather than adapt? You may imagine that the author of ‘Journey…’ may have some thoughts on such questions stemming from reflection based in the metaphysics of immanence but he is refraining from that indulgence in this note—though of course the ideas are there in the background
The very critical attitude of analytic philosophy is interesting. That kind of attitude defines a world. I suppose Wittgenstein might call it a language game or family of games. What I find interesting is that some philosophers seem to regard the analysis-critical-world as (1) a rather barren and rigid world and (2) the whole world. Is the world like that? In certain parts of mathematics there is a risk of paradox due to certain assumptions regarding the infinite; to eliminate the paradox would also be to eliminate ‘fruit.’ So many mathematicians regard the risk as worthwhile. I have the further thought that if paradox is encountered, it will not necessarily be the end of anything for it is a paradox within our system of thought
This line of thinking is not put forward as a rational approach to the void. The logic is rather like ‘The void exists.’ ‘If the void exists as conceived, then, in consequence, it must have so and so properties.’ And the properties and the consequences of those properties are the most amazing thing; quite stunning even to the person who thinks he is the author of them; so stunning in fact that the author thinks—surely it is no personal quality that has made this ‘new world’ possible; he thinks—surely every reasonably able person could derive the same new world with enough diligence and interest; what’s more, the new world—its theory—itself implies the availability of that world to all individuals. Step A, ‘the void exists’ is where doubt arises—even though the process of showing it seems logical
That there is being cannot be doubted—without being there cannot be experience. That there is difference cannot be doubted—without difference experience would be uniform. Therefore there is part or domain—which is marked by difference. The void is the domain that contains no part
What is the source of the doubt? The transition from part to smaller part may be different from the transition from small part to void. Here the self is not altogether stable. One day it seems obvious that the absence of being exists—perhaps encouraged by the desire to believe it—but also because the complement of any part of the universe exists therefore the complement of the universe itself, which is the void, must exist. The second source of doubt is the thought that there is so much from so little—from the existence of the void flows, by inexorable logic, much of the Theory of being. While this provokes search for rational doubt it is not itself a reason for rational doubt
It is remarkable that the extreme critical attitude may be taken to suggest the existence of the void. Hume says that from the occurrence of regularity the further occurrence of regularity does not follow (obviously true even though perhaps not obvious to his contemporaries.) I.e. that regularities such as causal behavior is merely what has been observed and is not a characteristic of nature—or, better, from the observation, the fact of nature does not follow even though it may be a fact. From data, laws are induced but do not follow. If no regularity follows because they are only local regularities, it follows that the entire universe is absolutely indeterministic; if it were not then there must be regularities. But, as shown in jib, absolute indeterminism and the existence of the void are equivalent—in fact, absolute indeterminism is one of the most interesting properties of the void
Regard faith as the most productive attitude toward doubt. If one acts only according to what has no doubt, one is taking no existential risk. If one suspends doubt, one opens up to both risk and ‘paradise’
I suppose I might end here
Anil