The candidates are all just so good! It is amazing that they can convince people that the best they can at the White House Correspondents dinner is grainy black and white footage...
Statism is also closely associated with the rape of children for purposes of extortion, the engagement of the most culpable at the highest positions of officially acknowledged power (slightly below the actual highest positions of power, of course), mass murder, the disappearance and subsequent torture of millions of your neighbours, economic distortions, coteries of parasites making your life miserable, and an enduring legacy of privation. May also result in tooth loss (torture chambers), toe loss (torture chambers and the occasionally vehement cop), scarring, scaring, and incidental cannibalism through poison jab injections. Not valid in all states. Product may settle during transport.
Julie hit the nail. Standing in line to vote for the next criminal?
In fact I was thinking of voting this time, in the local election, for a new governor. But the good one we have has not endorsed any of the candidates and the one I remember him mentioning, is not candidate. So I probably will skip anyway. they will probably vote the billionaire in.
I know. It is very hard to think 'outside the box'. This is how the world is structured, I think except may be for some African villages and Amazon Indians, there are hardly any -free- people in the world left. I recently saw the last nomads in the Himalayas. True freedom is very, very hard, and where the freedom is gone, there are 'overlords'. An uninhabited island would be somewhat inconvenient, as most of us would die for hunger because we lost all knowledge of providing for ourselves. Quite a few of my friends have not even cooked in years!
Fixing this will not happen in a moment. It will not happen in a sudden paroxysm of revolutionary violence. It will not happen by imposing a new system. It is going to take the patient work of generations.
“Actually the title image you chose made me think of Yeltsins visit to an American Supermarket in Texas.”
—Yes, when I was in the USSR, I did daydream about what it would be like to show my Russian girlfriend an American supermarket.
“Omg why can I attach a photo sometimes but not others and tag people sometimes but not others”
—Because Substack has decided to make it appear that we are answering article comments as if they were comments in Notes. So, they both look like we’re in Notes, but sometimes it’s articles. It’s so weird.
Thanks Christopher. I think you're a good guy, and that you're engaged in a noble undertaking. I also suspected that you might be provoked by what I said - provoked into examination I mean - and it looks as though I was right, which is a good sign, a sign of a deep thinker. It's not that I would say that I think you're wrong exactly, or for that matter the other guy who wrote the other piece. It's that I find myself getting irritated - and this is of course MY problem, not anyone else's - with statements that appear at first sight to be profound, but on further examination turn out to be no more than platitudes, or tautologies. For example 'I am myself', or Descartes' 'I think, therefore I am'. I suppose the other thing that I want to 'muddy the waters', or complicate things, about is the idea that you describe below that I have 'authority over myself'. In a certain sense this is of course true, and we have to face the consequences of our actions whether we like it or not. Maybe it's because I have spent many years steeped in reading Freud, because I work in the mental health field and because I'm a nutcase myself as you've no doubt noticed. One consequence of this reading, though, is to question the idea of us having 'self-sovereignty'. In social relations this needs to be the case, yes, but in an ontological sense it's just too ego-centered for me, and I take seriously Freud's disturbing and subversive claim that 'I [or 'ego'] am not master in my own house'. I understand that in your own important work you need to be able to see things in terms of people having agency, and responsibility, but I guess I want to urge that we also pay constant heed to that 'Mystery' you speak of - that for me is the paradoxical name of the ship that I pride myself to be the captain of.
It’s a good name for a ship. In fact, the more I think of it, Mystery is an amazing name for a ship!
For things like “I am myself” or “You are you,” this, too, is primarily a salvo against collectivism and the abuse of the individual human person. You are you; you are not a mere cell in the social body. You are you; you are not a mere cog in the machine. Or, as the Prisoner would say it, “I am not a number; I am a free man.”
You are not someone else’s appendage. You are not a means to someone else’s ends. You are not to be sacrificed on the altar of the “common good” or “social need” or “public opinion.”
While I definitely believe that the reality of the individual is very spiritual and metaphysical, I suppose it is more of a political stance than a metaphysical one. I do recognize, though, that it raises a lot of interesting metaphysical questions, as it has here with us!
Ah, but the whole point was that he was unbroken as a person, in spite of all that.
The real-life version was Viktor Frankl:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
An update - 'because you're worth it'. In spite of the fact that the bitcoin war I spoke of is ongoing, and if anything has gotten worse in terms of entrenchment of sides and intensity of rhetoric, the bitcoin price has held up remarkably well. This is in itself an example of bitcoin's 'anti-fragile' nature: like Darth Vader, when it gets knocked down it comes back stronger - so far at any rate. I like to think that if Shane - an epic, universal, mythological archetype of strength, independence and morality - was around today, he'd have in his head the keys to a stash of bitcoin.
I agree with pretty much everything you say here. It's surprising to me, though, over in Blighty, to read about Americans feeling a need to insist on their individuality and anxious about it being taken away. To many of us over here, America would be a paradigm of individuality, and that that is enshrined in the Constitution. I guess for many of you though there's a perception of constant danger of having one's rights diluted or removed. At this point I could no doubt get into a lengthy conversation with you about the Second Amendment - of how it seems to be seen by many in the US compared with how it's viewed elsewhere. Hopefully we might get that opportunity.
We had friends from Lincolnshire visiting recently. I brought them upstairs, opened the door to my fully stocked gun cabinet, and said, "Welcome to America." Now they want to go shooting!
For me it's a classic, quintessentially American. Though in fact Shane says 'the man using it', not 'the one'. I thought I'd expand it, to be more inclusive, and because there are plenty of pistol packin' mamas out there.
Thanks, and I only mentioned Euclid because the author did. You spoke about 'reasoning', and that is the lane in which logic belongs - i.e. to comply with and to test the validity or soundness of statements and arguments. The category mistake I have in mind becomes apparent, I would claim, in the idea that
'every conscious human being carries around a truth so basic that it feels almost invisible: “I am myself.” It is the first certainty each of us has. You do not infer it or learn it; you simply recognize it. Yet this simple sentence contains the deepest structure of logic, agency, and political philosophy. When you say “I am myself,” you are expressing something that cannot coherently be denied.'
Have you ever, or do you know anyone who has, said to themselves: 'I am myself'? On the one hand the author seems to acknowledge that it's a platitude ('a truth so basic that it feels almost invisible') yet on the other they seek to derive from it 'the deepest structures of logic, agency. and political philosophy'. I would invite the author to explain how and why the statement 'I am myself' is anything more than a tautology.
Trouble is, you've got me going now. I have to take just about every sentence, and analyse each one in turn, so this might take some time - no doubt why I haven't responded so far. Just for starters then, when you say 'You are the captain of your ship' do you have in mind the same kind of distinction that Descartes has when he speaks of the 'pilot of the ship', and where he is distinguishing between 'I' - the mind, the sense of 'self', which for him is the 'pilot' - and the body, which is the 'ship', and which goes wherever the pilot steers it? Or do you have something else in mind, and if so, can you explain the difference you draw between 'captain' and 'ship'? Thanks
You have, as an inescapable fact of nature, personal control over your own thoughts, actions, and choices.
You can be influenced, or circumstances can constrain the range of choices, but only you choose for you.
Your biological substrate might also influence your choices—conditioning in childhood or a greater propensity for alcoholism, e.g.—but you still choose.
In a weird way, even God cannot choose for you. He could addle your mind or heart somehow, but that would not be choosing. Only you can actually choose for you.
So, the ship metaphor can be carried further. Your upbringing and biological substrate are the ocean. External influences and circumstances are the wind and weather. But you still decide how to steer your ship—where, when, with whom, why, etc.
Great, thanks. Three points: 1/If you have 'personal control over your own thoughts', does that mean that there is a 'you', a 'person', apart from the thoughts you have, that exercises 'control' over those thoughts, or is there just you and the thoughts you have? 2/ If we were to consider the notion of the 'unconscious' - especially since cutting edge neurology argues that much of what we 'think', 'choose' and 'decide' is not on a level of which we are consciously aware - then what does that say about the idea of 'personal control'? 3/If at the end of the day we are all - as you declare yourself - 'mysterious', then should we not take that "mystery at the heart of us" into account before making any claim that we 'decide' how we steer our ship?
No offence, and it's a sterling effort, but I'm afraid the answer has to be yes. I think that the attempt to apply logical principles - let alone principles of Euclidean geometry - to human relations, is to make a major category mistake.
I don’t think it’s Euclidean geometry (unless I don’t fully understand what that term means). It’s just reasoning. It’s not much different than the reasoning I do here (https://christophercook.substack.com/p/consentism-voluntaryism-natural-law-truth), except it’s a lot more rigorous. I don’t go as deep as Oxton in my logical arguments, but there doesn’t seem to be a categorical difference between the two efforts.
If I could construct a meme, it would have two sections, one on top of the other. The top one would be part of a quote from Thomas Sowell that was featured in this list of 'Memewear': 'intellectuals have theories that do not fit the real world'. Underneath - to exemplify the kind of theorising that I take Sowell to be talking about - would be a quote of first sentence of the abstract of a work entitled 'The Sentence That Grounds Liberty': 'This treatise rigorously derives the structure of justice from the nature of agency, tracing the logical progression from identity to agency, from agency to self-ownership, and from self-ownership to perfect rights and justice.'
Mighty meme-a-licious!!! I'm waiting for the meme about abundancism vs any moneyed system... Money is a power system, like the psychopathic legal/governmafia system.
Maybe I will create one... Gotta think on how to present things.
I am an American I am not a democrat&republican usefool voter so I need not bother to vote since the democrat&republican corporations are unconstitutional even though they control everything. Thanks democrat&republican usefool voters.
Side note, there is no such thing as "thee government," because it is owned and operated by thee democrat&republican corporations.
250 years and "We the People" still do not have a government of "We the People," because the truth is all we have is a government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations, duh!
One more question, for anyone who feels up for it:
Please explain in what way the statement 'I am myself' is anything other than a tautology - i.e. saying the same thing but with different words - thanks.
Well, my reaction to your response is that it is more than a little defensive and self-justificatory. I think that you are involved in a highly complex undertaking, and that therefore you ought to welcome critical questioning - to tighten up your own argument as much as anything else. If you'd prefer to just have an audience who agrees with you then I wouldn't be an appropriate member. On the other hand, if you're confident enough in your position you should, as I say, be on for challenging questions. So I'll ask one more, and see if you're on for it: You end your essay with the words 'You ARE'. What does that mean? That I exist but perhaps I'm not aware of it, and need someone else to tell me that I exist? Or did you have something else in mind?
I thought I was just answering your objections as best I could. Defending my views, yes, but I did not think I was being defensive. I welcome critiques, questions, and other feedback. I was typing my replies while pulled over to the side of the road, so I might not have included all the normal mitigative niceties that I usually do, but other than that, it was just direct responses.
My point that there are some things I am not trying to address, and do not need to address in order to achieve my purposes, does stand. I am not trying to offer a holistic view of everything or a complete program. Rather, I am trying to figure out how to create circumstances in which diverse people can coexist in peace without having their consent violated, either by criminals or by governments. Religious, spiritual, cultural, and scientific details, unsolved mysteries, etc., are somewhat beyond my scope. Many things make for fascinating discussions, but the answers to them are not always strictly necessary for this particular project/purpose.
That said, I am reading back over our recent comments to see where the misunderstanding lies. Can you tell me where we went wrong? Or, perhaps even more specifically, can you tell me where I have gone wrong in my claims in the piece? Is the individual not all the things I said? Is my conclusion (mostly in the other piece I linked) incorrect in some way?
Is your concern about claims of free will (the degree to which we actually have it)? Is your objection quasi-Plotinian—that we are somehow not as individual as we think (or that I claim)?
As far as I can tell, I am an individual. I feel like one. As far as I can tell, I am choosing. Even if I am driven by substrates and circumstances, I still do make decisions.
And even if all that gets fuzzy or problematic, the one thing I am sure of—and this is one of the bulwarks of my fundamental view—is that no one else can choose for me. No one else can fire those neurons. I am the only one, as a fact of nature, who has authority over myself.
That holds no matter what degree of free will actually exists. And it holds even if there are metaphysical truths about individuality of which we are unaware. As far as we can tell, we are separate, autonomous, unique, irreplaceable, precious, necessitous, vulnerable, mortal beings. We appear to be so. We function so. And when it comes to how we relate to others, what others may rightly do to us, the source of rights, etc., these things matter, so that is where I hang my hat.
So can you tell me where I went wrong? I mean that in an intellectually curious way, not in a defensive way.)
The candidates are all just so good! It is amazing that they can convince people that the best they can at the White House Correspondents dinner is grainy black and white footage...
💯
Statism is also closely associated with the rape of children for purposes of extortion, the engagement of the most culpable at the highest positions of officially acknowledged power (slightly below the actual highest positions of power, of course), mass murder, the disappearance and subsequent torture of millions of your neighbours, economic distortions, coteries of parasites making your life miserable, and an enduring legacy of privation. May also result in tooth loss (torture chambers), toe loss (torture chambers and the occasionally vehement cop), scarring, scaring, and incidental cannibalism through poison jab injections. Not valid in all states. Product may settle during transport.
Fat bottom boys.
That was my wife’s first comment. (She is a big Queen fan.) Then again (as she once informed me), “Love of My Life” is about a woman.
The Zappa version?
I was thinking of the Queen version :-)
Well i’m not much of a Queen fan. Or a baseball fan.😉
So you haven’t been watching the Yankees cruising their way to the best record in the AL? You’re missing out, bro 😄
Are you a Zappa fan? Did you listen to “Thing Fish” over and over while painting houses for a living when you were 20?
Watch baseball? Hardly!
Never painted houses but a number of other things. I always preferred Bongo Fury or Just Another Band From LA
Outstanding collection this week.
🙏🫡
Julie hit the nail. Standing in line to vote for the next criminal?
In fact I was thinking of voting this time, in the local election, for a new governor. But the good one we have has not endorsed any of the candidates and the one I remember him mentioning, is not candidate. So I probably will skip anyway. they will probably vote the billionaire in.
Sure. And no matter who it is, we are still voting to decide which overlord will rule over our neighbors. There is a fundamental moral problem there.
I know. It is very hard to think 'outside the box'. This is how the world is structured, I think except may be for some African villages and Amazon Indians, there are hardly any -free- people in the world left. I recently saw the last nomads in the Himalayas. True freedom is very, very hard, and where the freedom is gone, there are 'overlords'. An uninhabited island would be somewhat inconvenient, as most of us would die for hunger because we lost all knowledge of providing for ourselves. Quite a few of my friends have not even cooked in years!
Fixing this will not happen in a moment. It will not happen in a sudden paroxysm of revolutionary violence. It will not happen by imposing a new system. It is going to take the patient work of generations.
So spread the world, do your part, and be happy!
Actually the title image you chose made me think of Yeltsins visit to an American Supermarket in Texas..
Omg why can I attach a photo sometimes but not others and tag people sometimes but not others 😔
“Actually the title image you chose made me think of Yeltsins visit to an American Supermarket in Texas.”
—Yes, when I was in the USSR, I did daydream about what it would be like to show my Russian girlfriend an American supermarket.
“Omg why can I attach a photo sometimes but not others and tag people sometimes but not others”
—Because Substack has decided to make it appear that we are answering article comments as if they were comments in Notes. So, they both look like we’re in Notes, but sometimes it’s articles. It’s so weird.
Im going to have to read an article on how to substack I sense...
And it keeps changing…
Thanks Christopher. I think you're a good guy, and that you're engaged in a noble undertaking. I also suspected that you might be provoked by what I said - provoked into examination I mean - and it looks as though I was right, which is a good sign, a sign of a deep thinker. It's not that I would say that I think you're wrong exactly, or for that matter the other guy who wrote the other piece. It's that I find myself getting irritated - and this is of course MY problem, not anyone else's - with statements that appear at first sight to be profound, but on further examination turn out to be no more than platitudes, or tautologies. For example 'I am myself', or Descartes' 'I think, therefore I am'. I suppose the other thing that I want to 'muddy the waters', or complicate things, about is the idea that you describe below that I have 'authority over myself'. In a certain sense this is of course true, and we have to face the consequences of our actions whether we like it or not. Maybe it's because I have spent many years steeped in reading Freud, because I work in the mental health field and because I'm a nutcase myself as you've no doubt noticed. One consequence of this reading, though, is to question the idea of us having 'self-sovereignty'. In social relations this needs to be the case, yes, but in an ontological sense it's just too ego-centered for me, and I take seriously Freud's disturbing and subversive claim that 'I [or 'ego'] am not master in my own house'. I understand that in your own important work you need to be able to see things in terms of people having agency, and responsibility, but I guess I want to urge that we also pay constant heed to that 'Mystery' you speak of - that for me is the paradoxical name of the ship that I pride myself to be the captain of.
It’s a good name for a ship. In fact, the more I think of it, Mystery is an amazing name for a ship!
For things like “I am myself” or “You are you,” this, too, is primarily a salvo against collectivism and the abuse of the individual human person. You are you; you are not a mere cell in the social body. You are you; you are not a mere cog in the machine. Or, as the Prisoner would say it, “I am not a number; I am a free man.”
You are not someone else’s appendage. You are not a means to someone else’s ends. You are not to be sacrificed on the altar of the “common good” or “social need” or “public opinion.”
While I definitely believe that the reality of the individual is very spiritual and metaphysical, I suppose it is more of a political stance than a metaphysical one. I do recognize, though, that it raises a lot of interesting metaphysical questions, as it has here with us!
That's the thing though: The Prisoner wasn't free, so his cry was just an impotent howl - probably why the jailor laughed his head off.
Ah, but the whole point was that he was unbroken as a person, in spite of all that.
The real-life version was Viktor Frankl:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Fair enough, and agreed, though I would temper it a bit with Aristotle's caution that 'No one can feel good on the rack'.
Very true!
An update - 'because you're worth it'. In spite of the fact that the bitcoin war I spoke of is ongoing, and if anything has gotten worse in terms of entrenchment of sides and intensity of rhetoric, the bitcoin price has held up remarkably well. This is in itself an example of bitcoin's 'anti-fragile' nature: like Darth Vader, when it gets knocked down it comes back stronger - so far at any rate. I like to think that if Shane - an epic, universal, mythological archetype of strength, independence and morality - was around today, he'd have in his head the keys to a stash of bitcoin.
I agree with pretty much everything you say here. It's surprising to me, though, over in Blighty, to read about Americans feeling a need to insist on their individuality and anxious about it being taken away. To many of us over here, America would be a paradigm of individuality, and that that is enshrined in the Constitution. I guess for many of you though there's a perception of constant danger of having one's rights diluted or removed. At this point I could no doubt get into a lengthy conversation with you about the Second Amendment - of how it seems to be seen by many in the US compared with how it's viewed elsewhere. Hopefully we might get that opportunity.
We had friends from Lincolnshire visiting recently. I brought them upstairs, opened the door to my fully stocked gun cabinet, and said, "Welcome to America." Now they want to go shooting!
Quiz;
Who says: 'A gun is as good or as bad as the one using it, remember that' ?
"Shane."
I had to look it up. Did I even see that movie? I don't remember.
For me it's a classic, quintessentially American. Though in fact Shane says 'the man using it', not 'the one'. I thought I'd expand it, to be more inclusive, and because there are plenty of pistol packin' mamas out there.
One more amendment: Or I was shooting something which otherwise was going to kill and eat me.
Supplementary: Unless what I hunted and shot was going to be cooked and eaten by me.
Correction: 'too', not 'to'.
Note that comments can be edited even after they post. At least in the browser-based version of Substack.
I find that fascinating - all those guns, but apparently not feeling one tad safer. Though I'd love to go shooting to, as long as it's nothing living.
A lot of us feel safer because of the guns. In a whole bunch of ways!
Good morning, Christopher. Yeah, I think I'm getting the hang of this. 🤣
Thanks, and I only mentioned Euclid because the author did. You spoke about 'reasoning', and that is the lane in which logic belongs - i.e. to comply with and to test the validity or soundness of statements and arguments. The category mistake I have in mind becomes apparent, I would claim, in the idea that
'every conscious human being carries around a truth so basic that it feels almost invisible: “I am myself.” It is the first certainty each of us has. You do not infer it or learn it; you simply recognize it. Yet this simple sentence contains the deepest structure of logic, agency, and political philosophy. When you say “I am myself,” you are expressing something that cannot coherently be denied.'
Have you ever, or do you know anyone who has, said to themselves: 'I am myself'? On the one hand the author seems to acknowledge that it's a platitude ('a truth so basic that it feels almost invisible') yet on the other they seek to derive from it 'the deepest structures of logic, agency. and political philosophy'. I would invite the author to explain how and why the statement 'I am myself' is anything more than a tautology.
Have you read this piece of mine? I think it somewhat mirrors what the author was trying to say, albeit mine is in a looser style. Mine is not long at all—take a look, if you will, and then we can check back in…https://christophercook.substack.com/p/captain-beautiful-mysterious-ship-self-ownership-individualism
That's a deal - I'll read it carefully and then come back to you about it - agreed?
Of course! Looking forward to your thoughts.
Trouble is, you've got me going now. I have to take just about every sentence, and analyse each one in turn, so this might take some time - no doubt why I haven't responded so far. Just for starters then, when you say 'You are the captain of your ship' do you have in mind the same kind of distinction that Descartes has when he speaks of the 'pilot of the ship', and where he is distinguishing between 'I' - the mind, the sense of 'self', which for him is the 'pilot' - and the body, which is the 'ship', and which goes wherever the pilot steers it? Or do you have something else in mind, and if so, can you explain the difference you draw between 'captain' and 'ship'? Thanks
You have, as an inescapable fact of nature, personal control over your own thoughts, actions, and choices.
You can be influenced, or circumstances can constrain the range of choices, but only you choose for you.
Your biological substrate might also influence your choices—conditioning in childhood or a greater propensity for alcoholism, e.g.—but you still choose.
In a weird way, even God cannot choose for you. He could addle your mind or heart somehow, but that would not be choosing. Only you can actually choose for you.
So, the ship metaphor can be carried further. Your upbringing and biological substrate are the ocean. External influences and circumstances are the wind and weather. But you still decide how to steer your ship—where, when, with whom, why, etc.
Great, thanks. Three points: 1/If you have 'personal control over your own thoughts', does that mean that there is a 'you', a 'person', apart from the thoughts you have, that exercises 'control' over those thoughts, or is there just you and the thoughts you have? 2/ If we were to consider the notion of the 'unconscious' - especially since cutting edge neurology argues that much of what we 'think', 'choose' and 'decide' is not on a level of which we are consciously aware - then what does that say about the idea of 'personal control'? 3/If at the end of the day we are all - as you declare yourself - 'mysterious', then should we not take that "mystery at the heart of us" into account before making any claim that we 'decide' how we steer our ship?
No offence, and it's a sterling effort, but I'm afraid the answer has to be yes. I think that the attempt to apply logical principles - let alone principles of Euclidean geometry - to human relations, is to make a major category mistake.
I don’t think it’s Euclidean geometry (unless I don’t fully understand what that term means). It’s just reasoning. It’s not much different than the reasoning I do here (https://christophercook.substack.com/p/consentism-voluntaryism-natural-law-truth), except it’s a lot more rigorous. I don’t go as deep as Oxton in my logical arguments, but there doesn’t seem to be a categorical difference between the two efforts.
If I could construct a meme, it would have two sections, one on top of the other. The top one would be part of a quote from Thomas Sowell that was featured in this list of 'Memewear': 'intellectuals have theories that do not fit the real world'. Underneath - to exemplify the kind of theorising that I take Sowell to be talking about - would be a quote of first sentence of the abstract of a work entitled 'The Sentence That Grounds Liberty': 'This treatise rigorously derives the structure of justice from the nature of agency, tracing the logical progression from identity to agency, from agency to self-ownership, and from self-ownership to perfect rights and justice.'
So you think that JB Oxton’s reasoning does not have explanatory value for the real world?
Correction: I should have said 'to human relations and/or to human nature.'
Mighty meme-a-licious!!! I'm waiting for the meme about abundancism vs any moneyed system... Money is a power system, like the psychopathic legal/governmafia system.
Maybe I will create one... Gotta think on how to present things.
I am an American I am not a democrat&republican usefool voter so I need not bother to vote since the democrat&republican corporations are unconstitutional even though they control everything. Thanks democrat&republican usefool voters.
Side note, there is no such thing as "thee government," because it is owned and operated by thee democrat&republican corporations.
250 years and "We the People" still do not have a government of "We the People," because the truth is all we have is a government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations, duh!
~ Lebo Von Lo~Debar ~
One more question, for anyone who feels up for it:
Please explain in what way the statement 'I am myself' is anything other than a tautology - i.e. saying the same thing but with different words - thanks.
Well, my reaction to your response is that it is more than a little defensive and self-justificatory. I think that you are involved in a highly complex undertaking, and that therefore you ought to welcome critical questioning - to tighten up your own argument as much as anything else. If you'd prefer to just have an audience who agrees with you then I wouldn't be an appropriate member. On the other hand, if you're confident enough in your position you should, as I say, be on for challenging questions. So I'll ask one more, and see if you're on for it: You end your essay with the words 'You ARE'. What does that mean? That I exist but perhaps I'm not aware of it, and need someone else to tell me that I exist? Or did you have something else in mind?
I thought I was just answering your objections as best I could. Defending my views, yes, but I did not think I was being defensive. I welcome critiques, questions, and other feedback. I was typing my replies while pulled over to the side of the road, so I might not have included all the normal mitigative niceties that I usually do, but other than that, it was just direct responses.
My point that there are some things I am not trying to address, and do not need to address in order to achieve my purposes, does stand. I am not trying to offer a holistic view of everything or a complete program. Rather, I am trying to figure out how to create circumstances in which diverse people can coexist in peace without having their consent violated, either by criminals or by governments. Religious, spiritual, cultural, and scientific details, unsolved mysteries, etc., are somewhat beyond my scope. Many things make for fascinating discussions, but the answers to them are not always strictly necessary for this particular project/purpose.
That said, I am reading back over our recent comments to see where the misunderstanding lies. Can you tell me where we went wrong? Or, perhaps even more specifically, can you tell me where I have gone wrong in my claims in the piece? Is the individual not all the things I said? Is my conclusion (mostly in the other piece I linked) incorrect in some way?
Is your concern about claims of free will (the degree to which we actually have it)? Is your objection quasi-Plotinian—that we are somehow not as individual as we think (or that I claim)?
As far as I can tell, I am an individual. I feel like one. As far as I can tell, I am choosing. Even if I am driven by substrates and circumstances, I still do make decisions.
And even if all that gets fuzzy or problematic, the one thing I am sure of—and this is one of the bulwarks of my fundamental view—is that no one else can choose for me. No one else can fire those neurons. I am the only one, as a fact of nature, who has authority over myself.
That holds no matter what degree of free will actually exists. And it holds even if there are metaphysical truths about individuality of which we are unaware. As far as we can tell, we are separate, autonomous, unique, irreplaceable, precious, necessitous, vulnerable, mortal beings. We appear to be so. We function so. And when it comes to how we relate to others, what others may rightly do to us, the source of rights, etc., these things matter, so that is where I hang my hat.
So can you tell me where I went wrong? I mean that in an intellectually curious way, not in a defensive way.)