The Self as a Highly Functional Illusion

[popeye1945]

It is potential you have a problem with, ok, ultimate reality is the totality but we do not perceive the totality. Does that sit any better with you?
If not, you give me the terminology that expresses the same thing.

[Consul]

What is it you have a problem with, that there is such a thing as Ultimate reality? Is your problem the said ultimate reality is a place of no things?

It is a meaningless, ill-defined concept for starters. Scientists don't use that kind of language in their actual work.

You can use the phrase "fundamental reality" instead.

[Steve3007]

It is potential you have a problem with, ok, ultimate reality is the totality but we do not perceive the totality. Does that sit any better with you? If not, you give me the terminology that expresses the same thing.

If you're talking to me here, no I don't have a problem with potential. Do you understand the points I made in earlier posts about it?

[Fanman]

Hi Steve,

I find it difficult to describe the ontology of potential. Because it is something that exists, but it does not exist at the same time. It's not anything material, yet potential itself is an actual thing. I can get a handle on how to quantify it. Do you think that it is metaphysical?

[Faustus5]

It is potential you have a problem with, ok, ultimate reality is the totality but we do not perceive the totality. Does that sit any better with you?
If not, you give me the terminology that expresses the same thing.

First you'll need to explain why I even need a concept like this in the first place. I don't see that it accomplishes anything to even try to define something I've never had any need for--and that the scientific community has never had a need for. This seems like the kind of thing that only appeals to theologians or New Agers.

[Faustus5]

You can use the phrase "fundamental reality" instead.

If ultimately ends up meaning something like what this scientist is talking about, sure. But she at least is more specific and comprehensible, which is what I'm seeking from this kind of discourse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb0y6MRwmd4

[popeye1945]

Ok, I am missing the boat here somewhere fundamental reality instead of ultimate reality, would that mean then that what we are talking about is that which is implicit rather than explicit, fundamental being the implicit, the unmanifested?

[Consul]

I find it difficult to describe the ontology of potential. Because it is something that exists, but it does not exist at the same time. It's not anything material, yet potential itself is an actual thing. I can get a handle on how to quantify it. Do you think that it is metaphysical?

There is an important difference between a potential, power, ability, or disposition and its manifestation. Potentials, powers, abilities, and dispositions can all be actual or exist without their respective manifestations being actual or existent.

[Consul]

There is an important difference between a potential, power, ability, or disposition and its manifestation. Potentials, powers, abilities, and dispositions can all be actual or exist without their respective manifestations being actual or existent.

I can have the ability or power to do x without ever doing x. Nonetheless, my ability or power to do x is an actual, real property of mine.

[Consul]

Ok, I am missing the boat here somewhere fundamental reality instead of ultimate reality, would that mean then that what we are talking about is that which is implicit rather than explicit, fundamental being the implicit, the unmanifested?

Fundamentality: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fundamentality/

[Fanman]

Consul,

There is an important difference between a potential, power, ability, or disposition and its manifestation. Potentials, powers, abilities, and dispositions can all be actual or exist without their respective manifestations being actual or existent.

I can have the ability or power to do x without ever doing x. Nonetheless, my ability or power to do x is an actual, real property of mine.

I agree in terms of things that already exist, as the attributes you mention already do. But what if we take things a step back and consider the potential for those attributes existing, not actually possessing them yet. How could we quantify potential in that sense? I don’t think there is a clear answer, or perhaps I have misunderstood you.

[Sculptor1]

Well, the Buddhists say that there is no self, I suppose this is saying the same thing in a different way.

“There is no self.”
“Nope, never said that, either.”—The Buddha
https://tricycle.org/magazine/there-no-self/

Most people think of the self as their identity, but you did not have an identity when you were brought into this world, you acquired it from your reactions to your environment. What came into the world was a constitution either healthy and hardy or a little less so and a little frailer. This constitution in the process of gathering through its experience an identity becomes its experience, it becomes a storyline ever developing, ever adding. At some time one probably procreates and renews the constitution, that spark of life which is relatively immortal, your constitution eventually fails your function realized and your experience storyline enters into oblivion, and the process is relatively immortal, as it has renewed itself as it has for eons.

A common enough misconception. We do in fact have a self in much the same way we have a body.
Let me ask you this. If Buddhists think that there is no "self" then why is it that half their teachings are designed to try to make their adherents selfless??
It would be like the fireservice saying that fire does not exist.
No, there are many senses we have. Far more than Aristotle's five big ones. The sense of self is possibly the most important, and has many aspects. We have a sense of direction, touch, proprioperception- enbodyiment (place); hunger; thirst, equilibrioception, chronoception, and many others all contrubute to a sense of self.

When all these things fade, you loose yourself with them; because our body is what our self is.
People with alzheimer's syndrome give witness to the disappearing self. A tragedy to watch.
There is no immoral aspect to this; that is just your fears wishing away reality.

[Steve3007]

Ok, I am missing the boat here somewhere fundamental reality instead of ultimate reality, would that mean then that what we are talking about is that which is implicit rather than explicit, fundamental being the implicit, the unmanifested?

For my part, I was just trying to make sense of a particular couple of sentences that you wrote. That's what I was talking about. You'd have to explain for yourself what you're talking about.

I think it would help if you were more coherent in stating what you're proposing; what the central thesis of this topic is. It seems to have started as the proposition that the concept of self is an illusion because human personalities evolve over time. Or something like that. But then, at least in the parts that I've read, it seemed to turn into something vaguely inspired by some of the headline features of quantum mechanics.

Is the topic still about the proposition contained in its title? If not, where would you like to take it?


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[Sculptor1]

Well, the Buddhists say that there is no self, I suppose this is saying the same thing in a different way. Most people think of the self as their identity, but you did not have an identity when you were brought into this world, you acquired it from your reactions to your environment. What came into the world was a constitution either healthy and hardy or a little less so and a little frailer. This constitution in the process of gathering through its experience an identity becomes its experience, it becomes a storyline ever developing, ever adding. At some time one probably procreates and renews the constitution, that spark of life which is relatively immortal, your constitution eventually fails your function realized and your experience storyline enters into oblivion, and the process is relatively immortal, as it has renewed itself as it has for eons.

But it is your self or this no self which lives your life for you. Should you experience it or ignore it as an illusion?

Albert Einstein — 'The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.'

It's easier to die if you don't mind about yourself. It's not much of a strategy for living.
If you think yourself an illusion then you might as well be dead. This is the Buddhist message. You are nothing so stop using up the worlds substance and go away and be quiet. Die now or later, but stop caring about it. Stop making waves we are all dead men walking.

[Steve3007]

Hi Steve,

I find it difficult to describe the ontology of potential. Because it is something that exists, but it does not exist at the same time. It's not anything material, yet potential itself is an actual thing. I can get a handle on how to quantify it. Do you think that it is metaphysical?

If we define potential in the most general sense of the word (without yet tying it to a specific context like physics) then it's an expression of the perceived likelihood that something is going to happen in the future. For example, I could say that my son has the potential to be a premiership football player. Someone could point out that that's true of all able-bodied 15 year olds. I could then say what I mean is that having assessed his ability level I think there's a realistic chance of him being a premiership football player - a likelihood rather than just the theoretical possibility, in the sense that pretty much anything is theoretically possible.

So in considering the concept of potential in this sense it's pretty obvious why some people would say it makes no sense to reify it - to see it as a thing, in the way that we see matter as a thing. Perceived likelihoods that something will happen in the future are theories or hypotheses in people's minds based on assessments of various empirical evidence. So I guess we could say that, in that sense, it's either metaphysical or abstract or both, depending on precisely how we use those words. But it's not real.

But in other contexts it seems clear to me that it is just as real as other things we call real, like matter and kinetic energy. The potential energy of an object is the energy associated with it due to its relative position (within a field, like, for example, a gravitational field). Kinetic energy is the energy associated with it due to its relative velocity. If one of those things is real then so is the other. It would be incoherent, in my view, to label one as real and the other as abstract.

So I guess the ontological status of potential depends on the context in which the word is used, and the concept or physical quantity to which it is referring in context.