Is That Voice Inside Your Head Really You? *spoilers*

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I'm willing to suggest that they lack a "Platonic" existence as reitified concept. But I believe that they work and help us navigate basic reality. I would further postulate that some concepts (like morality) have an intersubjective (which is psychological rather than ontological) basis.

Ok, all of this is somewhat true in some sense. However, despite identity really being emergent from neural states, it really isn't the same as the neural states and exists independently of the neural states. Logically our concept of identity can be separated from our neurology but factually our concept of identity MUST be attacked to our neurology. That is to say that our intuitions on identity are dualist, and our science on identity is materialist. Neither is really correct. We can't talk about identity without going to our intuitions, but we can't accept intuitions that disagree with the science. Therefore, I think we have to say that identity lacks any sort of objective existence.


What constitutes an "event"? There is no objective present, so "event" almost seems to smack of a Newtonian physics. Maybe you just mean a coordinate system with points all on the same model? I am fine with that, frankly the way I like to look at the universe is a density distribution, but without the numbers. People invented numbers. However, I think a set of infinite points and an undifferentiated mass end up being the same thing, just described in different manners. I also don't like getting into how relativity even makes lengths relative or quantum probability densities which seem to me more problematic if I went to the atomistic view, which to me is a reason why I move towards undifferentiated masses.

I don't go for neutral monism though. Our neuroscience shows that the mental comes from the material.


Causal relations? I don't like going into that. Causal chains can be very messy. And my notion of events is very atomistic. If I wanted to define an event, it would be around the concept of a single numerical point. (x, y, z, g, etc) where in there is something so incredibly specific. In some sense, I agree with Zeno's paradox and think that there is no logical reason why one can't divide things infinitely, but I don't think that infinities are necessarily a problem to accept in metaphysics, but they are not something I'd really like to have to go back to and deal with conceptually. I don't really know where to begin or end the mind as well. I mean, where do we make an event mental? Consciousness isn't a clear-cut line, but rather consciousness is just a compilation created by the brain from physical things. I'd have to say that I don't think I agree with Russell too strongly.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 20 Feb 2010, 12:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think I agree with what you say. That's why I make the distinction between an objective ontology and convention. Our conventions work, and are even essential for our functioning, but we have to still break ourselves of the Platonizing tendency though, and questions on "whether the inner voice is me or isn't me" tend to require an essence to the self to even discuss. One person might consider inner voices to be separate from the self and another might consider it to be a continuation of the self, and neither point of view is better than the other.

I'd probably scrap the notion of "neutral monism" and just replace it with "physical events" are the sum total of ontology. It's really funny that you disagree with Russell, as he wrote the piece right after coming to grips with the "radical empiricism" of William James Ego destroying philosophy.

Well, the issue is that Russell is being a neutral monist and property dualist, and I tend more towards physical monism and have more eliminative materialist components in my philosophy of mind than property dualist tendencies. I mean, yes, we have to start with our phenomenology but it undercuts itself pretty effectively once we get to the scientific and logical analysis. Also, liking elements of James doesn't mean that I like everything written or inspired by William James. I mean, Alfred North Whitehead's process theism is partially inspired by the pragmatic theory of truth, but I think it is nonsense. Whitehead's notion is that reality is comprised of units of experience, but that doesn't seem true, all of the things comprising reality have to be combined in specific ways to have experience, supposing that each atom has experience in it seems silly.

To quote: all things only exist by convention, except for everything. Everything always exists and will exist long after we leave.

I'm getting from that that "everything exists". I'm still no closer to getting an applicable understanding of this that is workable.


Also as a side note, there's no need to put down my questions as inelegant, that is quite rude. I asked for help, not ridicule. I don't have a philosophy background so I thought I'd ask the experts on the matter. If you asked me if Hooke's law was about stretching stuff, I wouldn't say "that's an inelegant description of continuum mechanics". Tisk tisk.

Ok, let me break this down:
1) Before man existed, there weren't categories. Cats weren't named cats. Mountains had no differentiation between them and hills. Etc.
2) Man comes along, and man in order to engage his reality, must avoid being overwhelmed so he puts it in boxes. Think about this with people. You know, each person is unique, but in order to make things easier, we might say "here are the jocks, here are the nerds, etc" and work with these functional categories.
3) The issue is then that what a jock is, or what a nerd is, isn't an absolute category. I mean, is the football star who loves quantum physics a jock or a nerd? Well, that's indeterminate simply because the category was an artificial construct in the first place, "jocks" and "nerds" is a simplification of a reality in which things are deeper than this.
4) Well, the issue is that this boxing in of reality extends to all things, including selfhood. What this means is that your question is really like the question on whether the football star quantum physics guy is a nerd or a jock, the answer is that neither is really true.


I didn't mean it to be insulting at all. Your question is a good question, but it is a question that I am trying to break down and have been trying to break down for a number of months before you even asked it, and I was trying to persuade MasterPedant that he should be on my side of this matter. My negative comment towards Platonism wasn't meant to be an insult to you for asking the question, only an attempt to use the nature of your question to highlight why my position on the answer should be agreed with. I do apologize if you were insulted though. (I also apologize if I picked up on the wrong response)

Sorry, I did not mean to be insulting.

I saw that movie. I enjoyed it when I stopped expecting to make sense of it and instead looked at the pretty lights and colours. (I imagined there would be a better summation at the end, but it didn't come. Fun while it lasted, though.)

I liked the character Sorter. He did stuff the right way.

It's okay, i'm just in a bad place at the moment.

That voice in your head that said "wtf is he talking about? I dont have voices in my head!"- THATS the voice he's talking about.

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Cartoonists sometimes show a person (with a caption above the person with words like: Should I? Shouldn't I?...do this? ) moving his head back and forth between:

a angel dressed in white sitting on his right shoulder (idea - making a good choice)

vs

a man in a red suit sometimes with a pitchfork sitting on his left shoulder (idea - making a good choice).

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In the movie, Shrek 1, Fiona pulls the pedals off a sunflower to make a decision

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Inner voice missing?

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt101820.html

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Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

- N. Hill

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Napoleon_Hill

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1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4: And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5: And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/pu ... vGene.html (Genesis 1)

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Other

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http://www.beliefnet.com/

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(book)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_monologue

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The Voice Inside Galileo's Head

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/galileo/

Yes - the voice insider your head really is "you". But here's the cavet - there are multiple "you-es"! All these you-es seek to become part of the Grand Big You coalition - consisting of the most promient collection of you-es whose actions have the most prominet effect on other parts of your brain. The "you" that the "YOU (Grand Big You Coalition) is debating at any given moment has less influence (let's say its the Official Opposition Coalition) and seems less "you-ish" because it's influencing less parts of your brain - it's connections are weaker. Naturally, the coalitions of various "you-es" may shift and in time the Official Opposition Coalition may gain enough "you" floor crosses to form the Grand Big You Coalition, unseating the former governing YOU Coalition.

Ontologically, "You" is plural and multifaceted rather than homogenous and total.

I found that whenever I introspect deeply enough I (Grand Coalition) realize how divided and disconnected I am - I see all the contradictions and debates. Part of this may be because I'm a pretty indecisive guy, but part of it I think is a more general truth about human psychology. I've heard that Buddhist monks who go through particularly intense introspective meditation find that the self breaks down into supreme disunity and (agree with AG) in asserting that it doesn't exist - I'd just say it's pluralized.

I hope this variaton of the Multiple Drafts Model has been illuminating.

Sotto voice topic

What I hear in my "head" i can speak, or at least mouth the words. I am aware of doing this, and I avoid as much as possible audibly talking to myself, at least around other human being.

Is this voice me? I am not my voice, but my voice is part of me.