Who has a "Self?"

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goog points undefineable.
now to clarify - i reference a discussion of the arts in a lot of the debates here on Wp because it is my special interst, my profession (as a painter) and it is how i live and it is also how i make my money. I don't clain the arts, philosophy OR esoterica as our own. however, i woul dmake the point based on empirical knowledge that many of hte best artists i know have autistic traits. now that is entirely separate from having an ASD.....i simply maintain that those who are highly individualised in their arts practices are usually those who lean more towards an individualised type of thinking that is akin to what many autistic or AS people in the arts can exhibit. (not always ...but can.) it would be terribly simplifying to maintain the arts was purely an autistic domain.

however, i would also question your tendency to assume some forms of arts and sciences are weighted against ASD people. (EG. LITERATURE AND BIOLOGY. just ask nehamaruach or acacia!)

great to read all your views.

I didn't mean to imply we can't get involved in those pursuits, though I might have come across that way. It's just that the deeply 'neuro-typical' always have a contribution to make in those fields, as well as the visual arts (and possibly even the technical sciences )

oh ok....i understand you there.

i agree wholeheartedly with the above also, and find the strict adherence to an ASD/NT dichotomy a little tiresome at times. so i really do see your point. all people have contributions to make, as you say. it's actually nice to read that on WP>

Another story about looking at things versus people: (sorry, I guess it´s a little off topic)- but after my last post, where I explained that I was fascinated by cameras, I had a memory of my parents giving me my first camera. I believe I was around age 10. I was obsessed with taking pictures, so I took them constantly, and used up a lot of film. Everything revolved around what I could take a picture of. Anyway, I remember my Mom sort of yelling at me one day, that I was wasting my film and I should not take pictures of things (like my toys) anymore, but I should be more selective, and only take pictures of more "important" things- like people! She basically forbade me to take any pictures of things. Shortly after that, my interest in cameras and photography waned- (but I´m not positive if it was for that, or another reason). To this day, I don´t own a camera, nor do I take pictures.

when you die, i hope you go up to the big camera store in the sky

i read this post of your's and it is so typical of my childhood - just about everything i loved flet as if it was stifled and crushed so i might appear more normal

Just realized that I don't count. Everybody else seem to have some overnatural, or something to their post. Well, I don't. I'm me. And that don't count.

Wow this used to happen to me exactly! Mum would always tell me off for taking photos of nature, and objects and stuff whenever I had the camera, said I was wasting film and that I was supposed to take photos with people in them.

And me.
This is spooky.
I often received this complaint too.
I usually take photographs of objects, scenery, plants or animals.

I don't take photos of people unless they specifically ask me to.
It just doesn't occur to me.

It's bizarre, I find the idea of taking pictures of people even family and friends strangely intimidating. This is especially strange if really like the people and care about them. It's not embarrassment exactly: it's like a weird hybrid of embarrassment and terror. Maybe it's because I have to look into their eyes?

Well I guess your mother didn't know what was going on with you, but she did have a point - Objects are just objects, but people are also the apprehending of objects

I actually belong more with the NTs when it comes to these issues, as I've never seen my 'interests' as anything other than a way of becoming more in-sync with the social world (and that even goes for philosophy), or a way of killing time between more interesting - i.e. social - pursuits. But the rest of you don't feel the same way, and that's just the way it is

http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Lang/LangSpad.htm


Some of you were having a fascinating conversation about 'language'....and so I thought you might like this philosophical paper on language.

Sola

I pod this in another topic, but I figure it was well suited to here...

Anyways, it is like I am 2 people: The socially awkward 18 year old, and the 5 year old that is hidden from the world. I really do feel like an intelligent mature 5 year old.

thank sola, i will read it when my son's dad gets off my case and stops telling me i belong in an asylum.......

it is one of those days for an AS person.....

Well I've been thinking about self as I've been reading this thread. As I said about 7 pages ago, I didn't realise that people actually believed that they had selves. And the more I think about it, the less convinced I am that the I even exists. What makes one thing a self and another thing a not-self? I don't think this computer has a self. I don't think my garden has a self. I don't think an anthill has a self, and nor do ants. Where is this elusive self?

I certainly don't have one. [joke. partly]

Some people here have said that their self is fragmented. However they still seem to have some kind of 'I' - it is just a plural I. Their sense of self is dependent on their environment, and can disappear under stress, but it is/they are still definitely there. Is this correct, or have I misinterpreted?

In short, does the 'I' actually refer to something, however plural/transitory/fragmented it is, for you people?

Because I've realised that it means nothing for me. It's just a word to aid communication. There is an animal, but animal has no I. animal is like the trees that can be seen out of the window, or the ex-trees that make up the fence that animal has been staring at (the wood-grain-pattern is nice). animal just exists, responds to stimuli in different ways (sometimes that stimulus is inner and comes in the form of thought). animal just uses 'I' as an unreality, a game that people like to play for some reason. animal now realises (can animal realise if animal has no sense of self?) that the reason it/she/whatever didn't realise that people thought they had selves was because animal never really thought a self existed in animal. So it was hard to imagine it in others.

This is getting really clumsy. As people said earlier, language appears not to be conducive to communicating this type of thing. Maybe because others have no need to communicate? Language, according to Wittgenstein, has meaning due to consensus, so something that is only experienced by one person (or a few people who cannot contact each other) cannot have a meaning in verbal language. Is this being explained clearly?

Maybe we need to reach a consensus on some new definitions of words. Then we will be able to talk about these things.

So the question [which I would appreciate some answer to, if you feel so inclined] is:
Does some kind of 'I' exist for you (a fragmented I, a sometimes absent I, a changing I, a relational I)? Have I interpreted this thread correctly in supposing that the answer to the first question is yes?
Or do others find 'I' to be an alien concept? Do others not have an 'I'? Or am [yet again] I alone on this one?

Jeasus Christ, language is annoying.

well who knows??

Hmm...

This sounds like it's verging on anthropocentrism!

Who decides what's "important"?

Since no two people can agree on what is important, the only possible consensus is that nothing is ultimately important; things are only important to individuals.

The trouble with voicing opinions such as "people aren't important", however, is that there's no reason why you shouldn't then say "therefore, I swat people dead as others do flies, and I might just do that to you right now ". You need to show how your worldview makes the latter argument unlikely if you are to avoid genuinely scaring people_

Animal, you're not alone as such, just liable to be venerated by millions of buddhists, given their belief that only the Buddhas are free from the illusion of selfhood.

But again, there's this comparison of people to inanimate objects that I'm not comprehending. Do you feel your senses - which dead wood clearly lacks - are separate from you? Or can you all see that there's just more to a human being than there is to dead wood?