The Individual

[BabyMachineINC]

Does anyone else ever get the feeling that they do not exist? I have. I do not mean in the emotional way of someone socially forgotten by society, but I mean this in the sense that perhaps the individual is simply an illusion orchistrated by the body inorder to insure survival of the species.

When thinking on the subject of the individual I find it extremely difficult to pin down a precise understanding of who I am. It seems that I have self awareness. I can abstract about myself. But only in a general way. I can not objectively thinking about myself. I do not know everything there is to know about myself. The idea of self discovery is amazing. To suggestt that something exists, but is only aware of some of its existance, suggests that what it is not aware of is not part of itself. Of course it is though. I am beginning to stream.

I am proposing that this thread is used for critical examination as to what the individual is. I am willing to bet that no one really knows at the moment, so I ask that no one acts in such a way. Please post you thoughts.

[luckyj_j]

@BabyMachineINC

Does anyone else ever get the feeling that they do not exist?

I think that a better question for this is how do i know that you exist? I mean i think i exist because i think, i think exist because im typing this post… But how do i know that anybody else is real??? For the thought of existance what really proves that you exist??? You could just be a conjured thing to relay reality… my thoughts just creating something to entertain me… this thinking is called Solipsism… if you want to read more

http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/solipsis.htm

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[Xunzian]

Here is a good starting point:

ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … 42&start=0

Also, check out the ‘active intellect’ as well as some of Durkheim’s sociology. Hume had a good definition for the ‘self’ or individual, but it escapes me right now.

[Rocky]

A person is a compound individual, made up from various “layers” or levels of being. At the very least we speak of the two levels of body and mind, but it’s useful to sub-divide them like this, for example:

4. Mental/rational self
5. Emotional self
6. Biological self
7. Physical self

When a person matures, he/she transcends (but still includes) the lower level and identifies him/herself more closely with the higher level. The lower level processes are usually pushed into the subconscious, e.g. you don’t have conscious control of your stomach working.

Yes, the higher levels are more abstract than the lower ones, but it doesn’t mean they are an “illusion”. I think that reductionistic theories (e.g. selfish genes) that try to explain (or explain away!) higher level happenings in terms of lower biological processes are often silly. Afterall, one can say that biological survival is just an illusion, since at the even lower physical level, dead or alive means nothing - it’s all just matter rearranging itself.

[Satori]

I have the opposite reaction. I often wonder does anyone else truly exist. The human mind can go only as far as its own. I can’t truly imagine walking in someone’s shoes. Granted, I still hold life as important, but don’t you ever get the feeling that people are kind of all fillers in the reality which you call your own? Next time you drive down the road do this: Imagine every other person in the cars going by and what they do, their feelings, their thoughts, and their past, present and future. Then become introspective and compare it to your own feelings, thoughts, actions, and past, present and future.

It blows my mind to think that everyone else is as complicated as me. Or maybe I am just a tad egocentric.

[someoneisatthedoor]

@Xunzian

Here is a good starting point:

ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … 42&start=0

Also, check out the ‘active intellect’ as well as some of Durkheim’s sociology. Hume had a good definition for the ‘self’ or individual, but it escapes me right now.

Hume states in his Treatise of Human Nature, book one, part one, subsection 6:
etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/h/hume/david/h92t/

The simple ideas of which modes are formed, either represent qualities, which are not united by contiguity and causation, but are dispersed in different subjects; or if they be all united together, the uniting principle is not regarded as the foundation of the complex idea. The idea of a dance is an instance of the first kind of modes; that of beauty of the second. The reason is obvious, why such complex ideas cannot receive any new idea, without changing the name, which distinguishes the mode.

Then, same text, book one, part four, subsection 6:
etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/h/ … ter35.html

Unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very experience, which is pleaded for them, nor have we any idea of self, after the manner it is here explained. For from what impression coued this idea be derived? This question it is impossible to answer without a manifest contradiction and absurdity; and yet it is a question, which must necessarily be answered, if we would have the idea of self pass for clear and intelligible, It must be some one impression, that gives rise to every real idea. But self or person is not any one impression, but that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to have a reference. If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that impression must continue invariably the same, through the whole course of our lives; since self is supposed to exist after that manner. But there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time. It cannot, therefore, be from any of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is derived; and consequently there is no such idea.