Truly, What Is Consciousness?

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Tamminen
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Tamminen »

Consul wrote:It's a tricky question whether the brain as the organ of consciousness is also its subject. To say that consciousness is a property or state of the brain is in effect to say that the brain is its subject. On the other hand, I do no think of myself as only a brain; I think I am larger, having the size of a whole organism. So I think a brain is not the whole subject but only a part of it—that part which is essential to and responsible for an organism's subjecthood.
So we have totally opposite views on this: you say the whole organism is a subject, I say the subject has nothing to do with an organism except that it needs it for its being. You say my view of the subject makes no sense, and I say your view of the subject as a material organism makes no sense. How is it possible that two rationally thinking people are so far away from each other in the way they see reality? Perhaps it is because we have built a strong and satisfactory world view at an early stage, and now all that is totally different seems almost nonsense.

But do you agree with me that neither of our views is strictly scientific, but a metaphysical interpretation of the reality we share? Two ontological standpoints fighting.
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Consul
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Consul »

Tamminen wrote:
Consul wrote:It's a tricky question whether the brain as the organ of consciousness is also its subject. To say that consciousness is a property or state of the brain is in effect to say that the brain is its subject. On the other hand, I do no think of myself as only a brain; I think I am larger, having the size of a whole organism. So I think a brain is not the whole subject but only a part of it—that part which is essential to and responsible for an organism's subjecthood.
So we have totally opposite views on this: you say the whole organism is a subject, I say the subject has nothing to do with an organism except that it needs it for its being. You say my view of the subject makes no sense, and I say your view of the subject as a material organism makes no sense.
If subjects aren't animal organisms, what (kind of thing) are they?
Tamminen wrote:How is it possible that two rationally thinking people are so far away from each other in the way they see reality? Perhaps it is because we have built a strong and satisfactory world view at an early stage, and now all that is totally different seems almost nonsense.
There are metaphysical views which I reject for some reason or other without regarding them as nonsense (such as Aristotelian realism about universals). Substance dualism isn't one of them. The concept of an immaterial soul seems intuitively comprehensible and acceptable only as long as you don't subject it to critical logico-rational analysis.

(Anyway, as opposed to the philosophical concept of an immaterial soul à la Descartes and Berkeley, the naive folk-mythological concepts of souls, spirits, or ghosts aren't really immaterialistic. They had better be called "paramaterialistic", since spiritual beings in this sense still consist of some occult matter, some "thin", "fine", "subtle", or "ethereal" stuff, as opposed to the "thick", "coarse" stuff physical science deals with. But spiritual beings as conceived in academic metaphysics do not consist of any matter or stuff whatsoever, which means that they are spatially unextended, zero-dimensional like mathematical points. Moreover, according to Descartes, they are also spatially unlocated.)
Tamminen wrote:But do you agree with me that neither of our views is strictly scientific, but a metaphysical interpretation of the reality we share? Two ontological standpoints fighting.
Yes, our discussion takes place in the philosophical field of metaphysics/ontology; but my position in the philosophy of mind—that consciousness is a property or state of animal organisms (or their brains)—is naturalistic, being both informed and confirmed by science. Jack Smart wrote that "plausibility in the light of total science is the ontologist's touchstone." And in the light of total science materialism is the most plausible view.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Felix
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Felix »

Consul: For all conscious states, including all "altered states of consciousness", are generated by, located in and confined to the brain
.
So you're saying we could be brains in a vat? - because that is the logical conclusion of your statement.

If consciousness was generated by the brain, I don't see how intuitive knowledge would be possible, i.e., knowledge or information that is not a product of sense mediated learning.
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
Tamminen
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Tamminen »

Consul wrote:If subjects aren't animal organisms, what (kind of thing) are they?
There are no subjects, there is only one transcendental subject and its various ways of being related to the world, and these ways of being in the world is what we call consciousness, as I have tried to argue as my ontological position.
Consul wrote:There are metaphysical views which I reject for some reason or other without regarding them as nonsense (such as Aristotelian realism about universals). Substance dualism isn't one of them. The concept of an immaterial soul seems intuitively comprehensible and acceptable only as long as you don't subject it to critical logico-rational analysis.
My view is not substance dualism, because consciousness is not substance, Descartes was wrong on this. Consciousness consists of intentional relations, meanings, qualia and so on, but it is not any kind of spiritual substance. However, as I said, it is on a different ontological level than the material organism.

-- Updated May 4th, 2017, 9:59 am to add the following --

To be precise: I have used the terms 'individual' or 'empirical' subject to mean the way the subject is related to the world in each case. Therefore the sentence “There are no subjects” was perhaps a bit too provocative. How the identity of an individual gets constituted is another question and from my point of view not very easy one, I guess from the materialistic perspective it may be easier.

A sidekick into language: Proper names denote individual or empirical subjects, but the word 'I' denotes both empirical subjects and the transcendental subject. When we talk to each other, we say “I think”, not “Tamminen thinks” or “Consul” thinks. If I want to ensure the other that I mean “Tamminen”, if for instance the other is blind, I can use the words “I, Tamminen”. The 'I' in itself denotes, perhaps first of all, the transcendental subject, because it does not tell which particular 'I' is in question. Perhaps an indirect evidence and perhaps not so convincing, but a point worth mentioning. Language is clever, wiser than many philosophers.

A professor of astrophysics once started thinking deep, and said he has wondered why the universe has had the big trouble of beginning to exist. And it is a good question, especially for philosophers. For most cosmologists and other scientists the universe needs no reason or cause for its being, and after beginning to exist for no reason, it just evolves accident by accident, according to the “laws” of probabilistic wave functions. And even consciousness is a side product of maintaining some genetic structures that compete with each other.

It is for the solution of these kinds of impossibilities that I have introduced the concepts of transcendental subject and causa formalis.
Gertie
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Gertie »

We all know what subjective experience is, because we all experience it. But subjective experience hasn't been explained, so keeping an open mind is reasonable.

It also has properties which make it a tricky fit with our usual materialistic ways of looking at the world and what we can know - it's inherently private, and there is no epistemological bridge of certainty between the content f experiences and what they relate to - a 'real world out there', including one's own body/brain. So believing anything but the experiences themselves exist is a leap of faith. One we have to take for practical reasons, because believing our experiences represent (if in a limited and imperfect way) a real world out there works.

Once we assume the world out there exists we can make tentative shared/objective observations about what it is and how it works (its 'rules'), and make predictions based on this.

When it comes to subjective experience it doesn't seem to fit with our current scientific ideas, it has no place in the standard model of physics, and there's no current accepted understanding of why or how it comes into being. There's an explanatory gap. However, we do have one major clue - neural correlation. So there appears to be some relationship between what we call the physical and mental. Based on that, the current state of play in philosophy of mind is pretty much a bunch of What If... hypotheses. People like Chalmers call explaining subjective experience the Hard Problem, because it's difficult to see how to get from a bunch of What If hypotheses to a settled testable theory, and I agree, it might even be impossible.
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Consul
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Consul »

Felix wrote:
Consul wrote:For all conscious states, including all "altered states of consciousness", are generated by, located in and confined to the brain
So you're saying we could be brains in a vat? - because that is the logical conclusion of your statement.
I'm saying we're animals/animal organisms, and some of those who share this view (the animalists) think an animal can be reduced to the size of a brain and continue to exist as an extremely mutilated animal. However, it is arguable that a brain alone is not an animal, being an organ rather than an organism. Of course, it all depends on the definitions of "animal", "organ", and "organism"; and there may be a sense in which an organism can shrink to the size of one of its organs and continue to exist. But one thing is certain: if a brain cannot be an animal organism and I can continue to exist as a brain, then I am not essentially an animal organism. But note that even if this is true, it doesn't follow that I am not essentially a body of some kind. (A brain is a body—in the general metaphysical sense of the term—even if it is not an organism.)

Another point is that a disembodied brain cannot survive by itself. A brain in a vat would have the vat as its body, so to speak, and some philosophers have argued that the subject or person would then be the whole brain-vat system rather than the brain alone. For instance, if my brain were implanted in and connected to a RoboCop-like artificial body, it could be argued that I would not only be a brain but a whole cyborg having an organic brain and an inorganic body.

"Could we not coherently imagine a living brain in a vat, connected up to various bits of electronic hardware, seeing what is going on around it in the laboratory by means of prosthetic eyes, and responding to our questions by means of a computerized voice? Perhaps – but then it would not be the brain that sees, that reflects before it speaks, and speaks thoughtfully. It would be the complex being consisting of the living brain of a dead human being and the electronic machinery to which it is attached – a cerebroid."

(Hacker, P. M. S. Human Nature: The Categorial Framework. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. p. 307)

Peter van Inwagen is an animalist believing that animals can be reduced to their brains and survive as brain-organisms:

"A person who suddenly loses his limbs dwindles and is maimed but continues to exist. And we might imagine—though the case would have to be rather contrived—that some complicated train of reasoning or episode of artistic creation that this person is engaged in proceeds uninterrupted through his radical alteration in size and shape and weight.

What about a still more radical alteration? Suppose we cut off your head. And suppose we arranged an elaborate mechanism to keep your head alive: a pump to pump blood at the proper pressure into and out of the severed head along the same route that your heart had pumped it, an artificial lung to oxygenate the blood, an artificial kidney to remove waste products from it, artificial glands, and so on. What shall we say of this case? The same, I think. You have dwindled and are maimed but you continue to exist. You now weigh about ten pounds and would fit in a hat box. If this seems implausible, suppose we tell the story this way. Consider a man who, owing to irreversible damage to his sensory and voluntary nervous systems, is numb and paralyzed from the neck down. Imagine that you are visiting him and that, in response to one of your remarks he delivers some rather complex piece of connected discourse—say,

The First Folio has 'and a table of green fields'. For a long time it was thought that it should be 'and a babbled of green fields'. But actually the correct reading is probably 'on a table of green frieze'; someone corrected a copy of the 1632 to read that way, and that doesn't seem to me to be a correction anyone would make as a guess. It's so uninspired and arbitrary that it's probably right. But most editions keep 'babbled' because it's a fine line.

It takes him about thirty seconds to say these words. Let us suppose that over the course of these thirty seconds a certain demon, as powerful as he is frivolous, steadily removes the paralyzed and numb limbs and trunk of the speaker, finishing his grisly task just at the words 'fine line'. (We, of course, suppose that the demon employs his extraordinary powers to pump oxygenated blood at the proper pressure and along the proper routes into and out of the man he is systematically pulling apart.) Imagine that you are watching a really good film—special effects by Industrial Light and Magic, Inc.—that follows this scenario. Imagine the alert, interested eyes of the speaker fixed on your own (or on the eyes of the character in the film whose viewpoint the audience shares); imagine the rise and fall of the voice—the demon supplies a resonant cavity to replace the vanished chest—and the developing, communicated meaning of the words the voice speaks as it unfolds and is grasped by you. Surely you are confronted with a single mind, one that holds together from the beginning to the end of this speech? And, surely, this mind is the mind of a certain thinking being, one who retains his identity throughout the speaking of these words? And what candidate is there for this thinking being but the living organism whose stuff is being pared away by the demon at a rate of five pounds per second?

Or put the argument this way. No one supposes that when a man becomes paralyzed from the neck down he ceases to exist—not if the newly paralyzed man can talk and think and feel in as normal a manner as is consistent with the fact of his paralysis. No one would doubt that, if a scholar who had recently become paralyzed delivered the above speech about the textual history of a line in Henry V, then the word 'me' that occurred in that speech would refer to a certain man, the speaker, or that the speaker had recently been unparalyzed. But if we concede that much, what importance shall we concede to the paralyzed trunk and limbs of the man? They are causally important, of course, since they contain organs causally necessary to the paralyzed man's continued life. But would replacing them with a machine that did the same work make a difference to the identity of the person associated with the unreplaced head, to the identity of the speaker of the words that issue from its mouth? If you were paralyzed from the neck down, would you refuse the gift of a 'robotic' trunk and complement of limbs on the ground that the replacement of the paralyzed flesh with mechanical surrogates would cause you to cease to exist?

If a man may become a severed head, then he may become a naked brain—the famous brain in a vat. (In fact, I would suppose that a man could become a part of a brain, but I will not discuss the possibility of becoming maimed in a way that is even more radical than that involved in having all one's tissues but one's brain tissue cut away.)

It, the living object in the vat, was recently a 150-pound, four-limbed object. It has shrunk, or, rather, has been whittled down. It was once a normal man. It is now a radically maimed man, a man who is about as maimed as it is possible for a man to be. The case of the brain in the vat is logically not much different from the case of the man who has lost an arm: The latter was recently a 150-pound man and has lost about six pounds of bone and blood and tissue; the former was recently a 150-pound man and has lost about 147 pounds of bone and blood and tissue.

A so-called 'brain transplant' is really a brain-complement transplant."


(Van Inwagen, Peter. Material Beings. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990. pp. 170-3)
Felix wrote:If consciousness was generated by the brain, I don't see how intuitive knowledge would be possible, i.e., knowledge or information that is not a product of sense mediated learning.
How is intuitive knowledge possible if consciousness is not generated by the brain?
Anyway, I think our intuitive (a priori) knowledge is knowledge of analytic truths only, so that its possibility is psychologically explainable in terms of our natural logical and linguistic/conceptual competence and intelligence.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Felix
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Felix »

Consul: How is intuitive knowledge possible if consciousness is not generated by the brain?
Radio sets generate information but they don't manufacture it, that is the distinction I was making. The brain may be both a manufacturer of information, as you suggested, and a generator/receiver of it, like a radio set. I suspect that it is.
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
Tamminen
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Tamminen »

Let's imagine a world with two people A and B, each with consciousness as its material property. You are A.

1. Why are you A, not B? How can anyone explain that? What makes the difference?

2. If B dies, B loses consciousness, but the world goes on. But if A dies, in other words if you die, what happens to the world? I suggest you think it over and not just assume as self-evident. A bit reflective concentrating, please. Remember that you are dead.

I can guess what Consul would say if he wants to say anything, but it would be interesting to see also results from others' reflections.
Gertie
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Gertie »

Taminen
Let's imagine a world with two people A and B, each with consciousness as its material property. You are A.

1. Why are you A, not B? How can anyone explain that? What makes the difference?
The answer is nobody knows.

However, just Making Stuff Up to fill the gap isn't a very satisfactory or philosophical way of trying to work out what might be the answer.

So we look at the evidence. And we see that subjective experience in critters like ourselves manifests as a unified field of consciousness, with a sense of self moving through space and time with a specific point of view. And that the experiential states correlate to neural states, and neurons are linked to our integrated sensory organs, motor functions, organs and so on. So it appears that consciousness manifests in discrete physical units (individual bodies) and is experienced in a way which correlates as discrete physical units (individual selves).
2. If B dies, B loses consciousness, but the world goes on. But if A dies, in other words if you die, what happens to the world? I suggest you think it over and not just assume as self-evident. A bit reflective concentrating, please. Remember that you are dead.
I won't know. But I've known other people to die, and I've carried on living along with everybody else, so the evidence suggests that's what will happen when I die. Just like the evidence suggests the world continues when I'm asleep. I'd be dead surprised if it didn't.

Now in an imaginary world with only two people this evidence might not be available, but anything can happen in imaginary worlds. In this world the evidence suggests there is a relationship between the physical and mental, so that when an individual brain stops working mental states correlated with that brain cease, but those correlated with other brains don't, and the world doesn't disappear for those other individuals still alive.

That just seems to be the way it is. Maybe there's more to it, but that's just speculation rather than following the evidence. Why don't you find this the most likely answer based on the available evidence?
Tamminen
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Tamminen »

Gertie wrote:So we look at the evidence. And we see that subjective experience in critters like ourselves manifests as a unified field of consciousness, with a sense of self moving through space and time with a specific point of view. And that the experiential states correlate to neural states, and neurons are linked to our integrated sensory organs, motor functions, organs and so on. So it appears that consciousness manifests in discrete physical units (individual bodies) and is experienced in a way which correlates as discrete physical units (individual selves).
But why is it you that is organism A? And why are you not organism B? Or why are you there at all, why do you exist in the world of A and B? The world may need organisms A and B to be what it is, but it does not need you. You need the world, to be there, to exist. And 'you' means 'I'.

Someone may say that this is just playing with words, but it is not. The validity and adequacy of the materialistic interpretation of consciousness depends on these questions, and on understanding the meaning of these questions.

Perhaps I have something to say about the second question as well, but one at a time.

-- Updated May 5th, 2017, 9:28 am to add the following --
Gertie wrote:I won't know. But I've known other people to die, and I've carried on living along with everybody else, so the evidence suggests that's what will happen when I die. Just like the evidence suggests the world continues when I'm asleep. I'd be dead surprised if it didn't.

Now in an imaginary world with only two people this evidence might not be available, but anything can happen in imaginary worlds. In this world the evidence suggests there is a relationship between the physical and mental, so that when an individual brain stops working mental states correlated with that brain cease, but those correlated with other brains don't, and the world doesn't disappear for those other individuals still alive.

That just seems to be the way it is. Maybe there's more to it, but that's just speculation rather than following the evidence. Why don't you find this the most likely answer based on the available evidence?
This is how I see the situation:

The basic axiom of existence is this: If I cease to exist for good, also the world ceases to exist for good, and even so that it has never existed. This is self-evident for me, in the spirit of Descartes.

However, it is clear and obvious for everybody that my death does not mean the end of the world.

Therefore, it is necessary that I, as a manifestation of subjectivity, as an individual subject of some kind, must be in the world as long as the world exists, and that means for ever, because there is no such thing as nonexistence. This is what I mean by the universal and fundamental character of the subject-object relation, and the postulate that the subject is the precondition of all being. There are metaphysical consequences of this view, and I have written about them elsewhere on this forum, but they go beyond this topic.
Fooloso4
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Tamminen:
But why is it you that is organism A?
I am sorry but this strikes me as nonsense wrapped up and presented as profundity. You used the term ‘you’ to denote the reader. The ‘I’ is not something that exists on its own and just happens to find temporary residence in a particular organism. If I was some other organism I would not be who I am. But of course I would be who I would be, and that would be very different than the you who is organism A, that is, me.
And why are you not organism B?
Why am I not someone else? If I was I would be me and yet not me as I am now. A human organism is not an empty vessel filled by a ‘you’ who is something other than the organism.
Or why are you there at all, why do you exist in the world of A and B?
Why do you think that is the kind of question that has a meaningful answer? Of course if you did not exist you could not ask such questions about why you exist. Would you consider it an adequate answer to say that you exist in order to ask about your existence? Of course that just generates more whys, and asking such questions does not make you wise.
The world may need organisms A and B to be what it is, but it does not need you.
Both A and B are dispensable and soon enough will not be here. Having known many Bs who are no longer here the world is able to carry on without a hitch. I see no reason to assume things will be different when organism A no longer exists.
You need the world, to be there, to exist. And 'you' means 'I'.
You, and here ‘you’ means ‘you’, have got this wrong. Without the world there would be no you. It is not like you are checking into a hotel that you could not check into if it did not exist.
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Tamminen »

Fooloso4 wrote:I am sorry but this strikes me as nonsense wrapped up and presented as profundity.
In a way I understand the impression you get from my "word games". To remember the famous sentence of Wittgenstein "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann...", I have thought that we can speak even about the unspeakable in some way or other, perhaps a bit poetically, but now I am beginning to agree with the great thinker and admit that my thoughts cannot be expressed with words. So far, at least, no one on this forum has really got the point. Wittgenstein also said in the preface of Tractatus that perhaps his thoughts can only be understood by someone who has had same kind of thoughts. Maybe this is the reason why the differences between philosophical schools are so great that the views of the opposite school look like nonsense.

-- Updated May 5th, 2017, 3:44 pm to add the following --
Fooloso4 wrote: It is not like you are checking into a hotel that you could not check into if it did not exist.
I was going to leave this debate because it seems to lead nowhere, but your metaphor is so good that I have to say this: what you say is just where our views differ. I would say "It is like you are checking into a hotel that you could not check into if it did not exist", because that is a good metaphor for the transcendental subject as I interpret it, and for me it is an ontological concept.
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Tamminen:
To remember the famous sentence of Wittgenstein "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann..."
This statement is much relied on and much abused. It is a position the later Wittgenstein dropped.
I would say "It is like you are checking into a hotel that you could not check into if it did not exist", because that is a good metaphor for the transcendental subject as I interpret it, and for me it is an ontological concept
The “hotel” that is, the world, according to Wittgenstein, is a given. I do not recall him ever speculating about the I existing without the world.
The world is everything that is the case.
The world is the totality of facts, not of things (Tractatus 1 - 1-1).
My world is not the world. My world is mine alone. When I die it no longer exist. The world of facts, however, is not determined by or reliant on me. And so, there is no reason for him to think that the world ends when my world ends.

Now that does not mean you must think as he does, but I think it is important if you are going to appeal to him to understand what he said and know where you diverge from him.

Sorry if I missed this, but your transcendental I sounds like an immortal soul.
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Felix
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Felix »

The “hotel” that is, the world, according to Wittgenstein, is a given. I do not recall him ever speculating about the I existing without the world.


I think that Tamminen is saying the opposite, i.e., that the subject (I) and object (world of objects) are two sides of the same coin, they cannot exist apart from one another, or more precisely, the existence of one cannot be known without the existence of the other.
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
Tamminen
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Re: Truly, What Is Consciousness?

Post by Tamminen »

Fooloso4 wrote:The “hotel” that is, the world, according to Wittgenstein, is a given. I do not recall him ever speculating about the I existing without the world.
Nor do I. As I have said before, there is no subject without the world, but where I differ from you is that there is no world without subject. But I do not differ from Wittgenstein, for
5.62 This remark provides a key to the question, to what extent solipsism
is a truth.
In fact what solipsism means, is quite correct, only it cannot
be said, but it shows itself.
That the world is my world, shows itself in the fact that the
limits of the language (the language which only I understand)
mean the limits of my world.
5.621 The world and life are one.
5.63 I am my world. (The microcosm.)
5.631 The thinking, presenting subject; there is no such thing...
5.632 The subject does not belong to the world but it is a limit of the
world.
5.633 Where in the world is a metaphysical subject to be noted?
You say that this case is altogether like that of the eye and
the field of sight. But you do not really see the eye.
And from nothing in the field of sight can it be concluded
that it is seen from an eye.
5.64 Here we see that solipsism strictly carried out coincides with
pure realism. The I in solipsism shrinks to an extensionless
point and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it.
5.641 There is therefore really a sense in which in philosophy we can
talk of a non-psychological I.
The I occurs in philosophy through the fact that the “world
is my world”.
The philosophical I is not the man, not the human body or
the human soul of which psychology treats, but the metaphysical
subject, the limit—not a part of the world.
6.431 As in death, too, the world does not change, but ceases.
Fooloso4 wrote:My world is not the world. My world is mine alone. When I die it no longer exist. The world of facts, however, is not determined by or reliant on me. And so, there is no reason for him to think that the world ends when my world ends.

Now that does not mean you must think as he does, but I think it is important if you are going to appeal to him to understand what he said and know where you diverge from him.

Sorry if I missed this, but your transcendental I sounds like an immortal soul.
See the above quotations. I really say, and it seems that also Wittgenstein says, that the world would cease to exist for good if I cease to exist for good. And what helps a little from this catastrophe, and this is my view, not Wittgenstein's, is my view that the transcendental subject is really, as you suggested, eternal and only adopts those various ways of being we call individual subjects or consciousnesses. But this goes deep into metaphysics, and I have written about it elsewhere.

-- Updated May 6th, 2017, 5:02 pm to add the following --
Felix wrote:I think that Tamminen is saying the opposite, i.e., that the subject (I) and object (world of objects) are two sides of the same coin, they cannot exist apart from one another, or more precisely, the existence of one cannot be known without the existence of the other.
Still more precisely: the being of one presupposes the being of the other. It is an ontological, not only epistemological issue.
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The Unfakeable Code®
by Tony Jeton Selimi
April 2023

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
by Alan Watts
May 2023

Killing Abel

Killing Abel
by Michael Tieman
June 2023

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead
by E. Alan Fleischauer
July 2023

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough
by Mark Unger
August 2023

Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational
by Dan Ariely
September 2023

Artwords

Artwords
by Beatriz M. Robles
November 2023

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope
by Dr. Randy Ross
December 2023

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes
by Ali Master
February 2024

2022 Philosophy Books of the Month

Emotional Intelligence At Work

Emotional Intelligence At Work
by Richard M Contino & Penelope J Holt
January 2022

Free Will, Do You Have It?

Free Will, Do You Have It?
by Albertus Kral
February 2022

My Enemy in Vietnam

My Enemy in Vietnam
by Billy Springer
March 2022

2X2 on the Ark

2X2 on the Ark
by Mary J Giuffra, PhD
April 2022

The Maestro Monologue

The Maestro Monologue
by Rob White
May 2022

What Makes America Great

What Makes America Great
by Bob Dowell
June 2022

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!
by Jerry Durr
July 2022

Living in Color

Living in Color
by Mike Murphy
August 2022 (tentative)

The Not So Great American Novel

The Not So Great American Novel
by James E Doucette
September 2022

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches
by John N. (Jake) Ferris
October 2022

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All
by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
November 2022

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity

The Smartest Person in the Room
by Christian Espinosa
December 2022

2021 Philosophy Books of the Month

The Biblical Clock: The Untold Secrets Linking the Universe and Humanity with God's Plan

The Biblical Clock
by Daniel Friedmann
March 2021

Wilderness Cry: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe

Wilderness Cry
by Dr. Hilary L Hunt M.D.
April 2021

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute: Tools To Spark Your Dream And Ignite Your Follow-Through

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute
by Jeff Meyer
May 2021

Surviving the Business of Healthcare: Knowledge is Power

Surviving the Business of Healthcare
by Barbara Galutia Regis M.S. PA-C
June 2021

Winning the War on Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure

Winning the War on Cancer
by Sylvie Beljanski
July 2021

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream
by Dr Frank L Douglas
August 2021

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts
by Mark L. Wdowiak
September 2021

The Preppers Medical Handbook

The Preppers Medical Handbook
by Dr. William W Forgey M.D.
October 2021

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress: A Practical Guide

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress
by Dr. Gustavo Kinrys, MD
November 2021

Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir

Dream For Peace
by Dr. Ghoulem Berrah
December 2021