Dasein/dasein

[iambiguous]

And it's not the answers we give that most intrigues me. It's the part where we attempt to demonstrate why our answers -- answers derived largely from what we believe "in our heads" -- are that which all rational men and women are obligated to share if they wish to be thought of as rational men and women.

OK, but you seem to assume, yourself, that at death something that persisted, stops persisting THEN. Have I misunderstood you?

Don't we all assume that? Again, in my view, unless it's just a sim world or a dream world that "we" are interacting in then, of course -- click -- all of us have physical bodies that persist from the cradle to the grave. And most of us interact with others socially, politically and economically. We have accumulated countless individual experiences. Also, most of us have accumulated as well all manner of personal things and personal relationships that are truly near and dear to us.

But, in regard to meaning and morality, believing things about them is not the same as actually demonstrating that what you do claim to believe about them really does reflect the optimal or the only rational things to believe.

But: the distinction I make here between the either/or world -- where rationality is often bursting at the seams -- and the is/ought world -- where reasoning itself is often rooted existentially in dasein and in the Benjamin Button Syndrome -- ia the part that most here seem inclined to challenge me regarding.

I have never seen you lament that it won't be you tomorrow. I have seen you question what an authentic or real self is, but I missed where you have expressed that you worry about the persistence of self through the life. If you do, please let me know. That answers the question.

Lament what? Given what particular frame of mind regarding what particular set of circumstances out in what particular world? And, again, in regard to moral nihilism, while we all come into the world hard wired to experience and to express lamentation, what some lament others might instead actually embrace enthusiastically. Then there are the sociopaths who lament nothing that they do...unless, of course, they don't get what they want. And then, if they do get it, it can be at the cost of great pain and suffering to others. Which they are not likely to lament either.

Are there then behaviors that philosophers can pin down as, say, always lamentable? Which, of course, given my own main interest in philosophy, revolves around how "here and now" I construe the existential relationship between identity, value judgments, conflicting goods and political economy. And if I lament anything at all here, it's that, so far, I have been unable to find someone with a frame of mind able perhaps to actually explain to me how these things...

1] that my own existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless
2] that human morality in a No God world revolves largely around a fractured and fragmented assessment of right and wrong rooted existentially in dasein.
3] that oblivion is awaiting all of us when we die

...are not in fact something that is applicable to them. Given particular personal experiences they have accumulated pertaining to meaning and morality.

And all of our lives persist, of course. Until something happens and we die. Here, in my view, what individuals worry about in regard to this existential trajectory from the cradle to the grave is rooted historically and culturally in dasein. And then embodied subjectively/subjunctively in the lives that we live. Our own uniquely personal experiences.

Then the part where what we do believe in our heads about things like this are rooted existentially in dasein far more than anything philosophers can conclude.

Though, sure, if anyone here believes they have a soul, give it a shot. Let them note, for example, all of the empirical evidence they have accumulated so far to back it up.

I wasn't asserting there was a soul. Who are you responding to here?

Fine. You didn't assert this. But my own emphasis is always on those who not only do assert that souls exist, but insist in turn that if others don't recognize and accept their own One True Path to immortality and salvation.

Click, of course.

You have expressed a - very human - concern about the loss of yourself at death. This implies strongly that you think something/something that is present now, today, continues up until that time of the death. THEN it gets lost. Something that continues or persists, THEN gets cut off.

That, in my view, is how it works in a No God world: Birth...School...Work...Death. And what gets lost is, well, among other things, all that you love and cherish.

] Sure, but then you seem to think there is a self that gets lost AT THE END of life. That there is a persistent self. So, I am asking you about that.

Right now, I believe that when I die, my body [from head to toe] and all of the thoughts and feelings and memories and knowledge, etc., inside my head, and everything that encompasses "I" to me socially here and now will be on its way back to star stuff. Or oblivion as some call that. Unless, of course, one of the religious objectivists here is able to convince me that is not the case at all.

That, in part, explains my reaction to those like IC. He insists that his own belief in the Christian God is not a leap of faith rooted existentially in dasein or another rendition of "it says so in the Bible". Instead, he claims it is something that he insists is actually demonstrated "scientifically and historically" here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... SjDNeMaRoX

William Lane Craig apparently, demonstrates the existence of the Christian God in Heaven here as one might demonstrate the existence of the Pope in the Vatican.

Only don't ask him to actually explore these videos in depth. After all, if you are not able to believe that Jesus Christ is your only personal savior, I'm sure IC laments the fact that you will suffer the "agonies of the damned" for all of eternity in Hell.

What I lament here is the fact that on two occasions I emailed him and his organization asking them to join our exchange in
what I believe is the Christianity thread.

Isn't that why souls anchored to one or another spiritual/religious path are so crucial here? It's the crumbling material body itself that must rationalized.

That's about after life. I am talking about a persistent self. It seems you believe in one.

Again, given free will and the fact that we are not just illusory characters in some sim world or some dream world, or some fantastic video game played by creatures far beyond our comprehension, I believe I/"I" exist physically, mentally, emotionally, etc.

Or, perhaps, "I" reflects the part about identity broached in films like Dark City or The Matrix? Or is it all actually reducible down to solipsism? Sans God.

You worry about the loss of self at the end of life. So, there is something to lose, and it persists up until that point in your estimation. That's not, for example, what the Buddhists believe and they would want an argument that all rational people would believe, perhaps.

So much more to point though [mine] is not what Buddhists claim to believe about the self/soul, but what they are able themselves able to demonstrate to us regarding identity on both sides of the grave.

And from my frame of mind, Buddhism is just one of hundreds and hundreds of One True Paths to immortality. Only the "self" itself is understood differently from how many in the West construe it.

But it's still the mother of all psychological defense mechanisms to me because it is just one of hundreds of comforting and consoling One True paths. Something to believe that anchors the Self to Enlightenment on this side of the road. As for the other side, even if you come back as a fruit fly, that's better than oblivion, right? "I" may be gone forever but not life itself? Plus, for those who are truly, truly, enlightened "I" makes to all the way to nirvana!

"In Buddhism, nirvana is the ultimate goal of becoming enlightened and free from the cycle of death and rebirth."

Seriously, though, how does this all unfold other than in comforting and consoling a leap of faith? And how is it determined whether one comes back as a fruit fly or a human being? If you happen to be an exemplary fruit fly is there then a chance that a few weeks later you might die a bug, but then come back as, say, a dog or a cat?.

What is that self you are concerned about losing?

The part that brings me enormous fulfillment and satisfaction, of course. In fact, when, instead, one's life is filled with enormous pain and suffering, not only are some not concerned with losing whatever it is they think their own "self" is, they end it themselves.

So, you do believe there is a persistent self, one that seems to stop existing at death, but one that persists through time, despite, for example, all the matter in the body being replaced over time via eating/breathing and excretion.

Over and again: what on Earth does it matter what I or you or anyone here believes about any of this, if none of us are able to definitively demonstrate that what we do believe about identity at the existential juncture of value judgments, conflicting goods and political economy, is in fact true.

On the other hand, I sustain my own exchanges here regarding it because over the years any number of very, very important things I once managed to convince myself to believe in [philosophically, politically, spiritually or otherwise], have crumbled. What, I am now able to convince myself that dasein and moral nihilism will bever crumble. I mean on this side of the grave.

Besides, though many here might assume it's just bullshit when I claim I am "for all practical purposes" pursuing a win/win agenda here, or that I am not genuinely attempting to find a more optimistic and constructive frame of mind, so be it. I still have my own assessment "here and now" to fall back on.

What makes you think it is the same you next week, etc.? Or is it just others that think there is a self?

Huh?

My whole philosophy "here and now" revolves around suggesting that from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year we might encounter new experiences, new relationships, new sources of information and knowledge that sends "I" in any number of new directions. And, in particular, in regard to our value judgments.

So,will it be the same self in a year? in seven?So,will it be the same self in a year? in seven?

Will all what be the same? My body, of course, may or may not still be around. And if it is "I" may tumble down into a state of dementia or become afflicted with Alzheimer or conditions like schizophrenia or clinical depression or dissociative identity disorder.

And, again, given autonomy, I suspect any number of men and women will debunk the points I raise in my signature threads regarding identity because a part of them recognizes what the consequences would be if they themselves started thinking as "I" do.

[iambiguous]

So,will it be the same self in a year? in seven?

I recall discussing this with him.

He told me that the Iambiguous that came back from Nam was the same guy that went to Nam.

Uh, tongue in cheek, perhaps?

Over and over and over again, I bring up Vietnam because it's always there to remind me that my once very conservative and very religious True Self reconfigured into a radical atheist in just a couple of months' time at Song be.

Only, of course, for a number of years after, I was still able to convince myself that, in regard to meaning and morality, the Real Me was still intact. It had just been wrong about the One True Path.

Though, clearly, there were any number of biological factors that hardly changed at all. It's not like I came home a different color or had a sex change operation, or shrunk 10 inches, or, physically, was unrecognizable. I still resided in the same house, with the same family, in the same neighborhood doing all the things that virtually everyone does from day to day because we all came into the world predisposed biologically to be only a particular human being. But then the parts here I bring up in my signature threads intertwining identity and value judgments in dasein.

Then those parts given free will that are awash in contingency, chance and change. Also, the crucial distinction I make between being a particular human being in the either/or world and being a particular human being in the is/ought world.

Yet, he repeatedly says how profoundly the experience changed him.

What can one conclude?

Note to others:

Given your own personal experiences, were there or were there not any number of important changes in your life? Some of which were beyond your control, some of which you had only a measure of control over, other things -- click -- that are almost entirely within your control. That's the human condition in a nutshell, right?

Only, given attempts to pin down what this all means "for all practical purposes" given actual human interactions...?

Sure, let someone note an example of this such that in regard to their behaviors they can clearly -- objectively? -- distinguish between the three.

He doesn't understand the ideas behind a non-persistent self?

If you wish to explore all of this in terms of "ideas" up in the philosophical clouds, fine, go ahead. Lots of others here will join you. But the assessments and the conclusions need to be brought down to Earth before they are likely to interest me.

He believes in a persistent true self?

He hasn't thought much about it, in spite of his many posts about identity?

I responded to this above, in my post to iwannaplato.

[iambiguous]

While claiming that when people have issues with him, it's because they can't face what he has faced: death, lack of meaning, moral antirealism, the implications of determinism, etc.

Sigh...

What I note instead is how, given nearly 25 years of exchanging philosophy online, I have encountered any number of moral and political objectivists who, given my own rooted existentially in dasein personal opinion -- and no more -- such that I could only explain their at times truly hostile reactions to my arguments in terms of how they may well have been perturbed themselves by my own conclusions.

As I once suggested to Prom75 over at ILP...

Yep, that has been the general pattern over the years. In particular with the objectivists.

I've narrowed it down to three possible reasons:

1] I argue that while philosophers may go in search of wisdom, this wisdom is always truncated by the gap between what philosophers think they know [about anything] and all that there is to be known in order to grasp the human condition in the context of existence itself. That bothers some. When it really begins to sink in that this quest is ultimately futile, some abandon philosophy altogether. Instead, they stick to the part where they concentrate fully on living their lives "for all practical purposes" from day to day.

2] I suggest in turn it appears reasonable that, in a world sans God, the human brain is but more matter wholly in sync [as a part of nature] with the laws of matter. And, thus, anything we think, feel, say or do is always only that which we were ever able to think, feel, say and do. And that includes philosophers. Some will inevitably find that disturbing. If they can't know for certain that they possess autonomy, they can't know for certain that their philosophical excursions are in fact of their own volition.

3] And then the part where, assuming some measure of autonomy, I suggest that "I" in the is/ought world is basically an existential contraption interacting with other existential contraptions in a world teeming with conflicting goods --- and in contexts in which wealth and power prevails in the political arena. The part where "I" becomes fractured and fragmented.

I've seen nothing of late that might prompt me to change my mind. I merely note that I don't exclude myself from my own point of view here. And then the part where there's not much I wouldn't do to bump into someone able to change my mind about them. Especially if it includes immortality and salvation.

Buddhism, which tends to consider the persistent self an illusion, has all sorts of measures and practices to help people deal with what they know is an idea that can cause a lot of fear. Perhaps when you brought this up you were touching on something he has trouble facing.

Of course, there are any number of factors embedded in human identity that not only persist from the cradle to the grave but do so only given a number of variables inherently/objectively intertwined with other variables that again -- click -- we either do not [cannot] control, control somewhat or control entirely. At least here and now.

And I am still waiting for any Buddhist among us to explain how in regard to things like biological imperatives, demographics, essential needs and interacting with others given the actual empirical world around us, their "self" here is not...real?

Or are they actually able to convince themselves that even here "I" is illusory? Sure, given The Gap and Rummy's Rule nothing can be ruled out. But some things strike most of us as anything but illusory.

[Iwannaplato]

OK, but you seem to assume, yourself, that at death something that persisted, stops persisting THEN. Have I misunderstood you?

Don't we all assume that?

Sure but everyone used to assume there was a god or gods. It's an assumption. Everyone generally assume morals are objective.

Again, in my view, unless it's just a sim world or a dream world that "we" are interacting in then, of course -- click -- all of us have physical bodies that persist from the cradle to the grave.

But that's an illusion. The matter in the body is replaced regularly. Most cells in the body copy themselves in this process. Brain neurons do not do this, but the matter in them is replaced. You're a copy. Or?

All the atoms in most of the body are fully replaced within 1-2 years, including in DNA. In neurons, 6-10 years, including DNA.

And then there are the changes in organization, thoughts, values, memories that you go on an on about related to dasein on top of the completely replacement of all the matter.

[phyllo]

are they actually able to convince themselves

What is that other than a passive-aggressive insult?

Iambiguous liberally sprinkles those kinds of insults all over his posts.

He should include another reason in his list ... 4) People get fed up with the way he talks to them and about them.

I can also think of reasons 5) and 6)

[iambiguous]

John Locke & Personal Identity
Nurana Rajabova considers why, according to John Locke, you continue to be you.

According to Locke, the past identity of a person reaches as far as their consciousness can be extended back to any past action or thought. Anything before that cannot be defined as the same person as long as they do not carry the consciousness of those periods.

All I can suggest yet again for those who believe they understand that point is this: let them explain how it all plays out in terms of their own interactions with others.

From the cradle to the grave, there will be any number of factors that come together biologically, historically, anthropologically, culturally, socially, psychologically, etc., such that certain aspects of one's identity, while evolving over time, basically stay the same.

Our bodies eventually break down. But in so many crucial respects this is beyond our control. In fact, this reminds me of the observation that Lena made to Ray in the movie Dream Lover:

Lena: They say you replace every molecule in your body every seven years. I changed my name eight years ago. No more Thelma Sneeder.

Sure, if you want to think of it like that, even the biological components of our lives may over time completely reconfigure. But, come on, whose kidding whom? There are still many, many, many aspects of our identity that sustain a particular "self" out in a particular world understood in a particular way. Thelma may have reconfigured into Lena "in her head" in regard to how she views herself and others, but that doesn't make all those other varaibles that come together to create a "sense of identity" in her over time go away.

Click, of course.

Put another way, I think of myself typing the draft of this essay yesterday as having been the same person I am at the present moment, because I have the memory of typing yesterday. Had I not any such memory, then I could not have any justification to assert my identity.

More to the point [mine] suppose something truly dramatic/traumatic had happened to Nurana Rajabova such that she found herself actually at odds with her own conclusions the day before. Or suppose she remembered things being in a particular way that others insist are not that way at all, Or, that they are, but should be another way instead.

In other words, in regard to memory, just because your own memory of something begins to dissolve over time, it's not like the events that created the memory suddenly don't matter anymore.

Then back to the part such that what you remember about something is one thing, demonstrating that all rational men and women are then obligated to remember it in the same way another thing altogether.

[Belinda]

John Locke & Personal Identity
Nurana Rajabova considers why, according to John Locke, you continue to be you.

According to Locke, the past identity of a person reaches as far as their consciousness can be extended back to any past action or thought. Anything before that cannot be defined as the same person as long as they do not carry the consciousness of those periods.

All I can suggest yet again for those who believe they understand that point is this: let them explain how it all plays out in terms of their own interactions with others.

From the cradle to the grave, there will be any number of factors that come together biologically, historically, anthropologically, culturally, socially, psychologically, etc., such that certain aspects of one's identity, while evolving over time, basically stay the same.



Our bodies eventually break down. But in so many crucial respects this is beyond our control. In fact, this reminds me of the observation that Lena made to Ray in the movie Dream Lover:

Lena: They say you replace every molecule in your body every seven years. I changed my name eight years ago. No more Thelma Sneeder.

Sure, if you want to think of it like that, even the biological components of our lives may over time completely reconfigure. But, come on, whose kidding whom? There are still many, many, many aspects of our identity that sustain a particular "self" out in a particular world understood in a particular way. Thelma may have reconfigured into Lena "in her head" in regard to how she views herself and others, but that doesn't make all those other varaibles that come together to create a "sense of identity" in her over time go away.

Click, of course.

Put another way, I think of myself typing the draft of this essay yesterday as having been the same person I am at the present moment, because I have the memory of typing yesterday. Had I not any such memory, then I could not have any justification to assert my identity.

More to the point [mine] suppose something truly dramatic/traumatic had happened to Nurana Rajabova such that she found herself actually at odds with her own conclusions the day before. Or suppose she remembered things being in a particular way that others insist are not that way at all, Or, that they are, but should be another way instead.

In other words, in regard to memory, just because your own memory of something begins to dissolve over time, it's not like the events that created the memory suddenly don't matter anymore.

Then back to the part such that what you remember about something is one thing, demonstrating that all rational men and women are then obligated to remember it in the same way another thing altogether.

Safe to say we all explain a memory in narrative form. E.g. I dreamed I was gardening and working the soil so as to grow stronger plants. Or E.g. He got a gun and then he shot the other man. Narratives.

Dasein, which is dynamic and unique to a continuing memory ,likewise is interpreted in narrative form. It's unlikely there be an overarching Memory that tells the authoritative narrative, except for God.

[iambiguous]

John Locke & Personal Identity
Nurana Rajabova considers why, according to John Locke, you continue to be you.

Objections to Locke’s Account of the Self

Locke’s treatment of the nature of self was applauded in his time, and his views remain of interest to philosophers today. He has also received his share of criticism, in particular for reducing the self to memory. Many practical and ethical problems have been brought up against this view both by his contemporaries and by successors.

More to the point [mine] good luck trying to reduce the self down to, well, anything.

And memories of what? And how are the memories we have not in turn rooted historically, culturally, experientially in dasein? Then the part where memories themselves can only really be trusted up to a point.

Memeories, after all, for all practical purposes or not, may or may not be in sync with one or another actual reality.

How about this one:

One such problem was identified by Thomas Reid, who argued that Locke’s memory theory is paradoxical. Reid put forward his well-known ‘Brave Officer paradox’, in which he asks us to imagine a forty-year-old army officer stealing enemy food. At that moment the officer remembers being beaten for stealing apples from his neighbor’s orchard as a ten-year-old boy.

That's how, by and large, it works though. From the cradle to the grave things happen to us all the time . And how we remember our past experiences can often have a profound impact on what we choose to do today or tomorrow. But, again, remembering something doesn't necessarily make it true. Then those who remember it differently and insist it's only their own memories that count in regard to meaning and morality. Then, if they acquire political power, the part where they insist that all social, political and economic interactions must revolve around their own assumptions. Their own memories accumulated existentially into one or another One True Path.

Then Reid imagines this officer as a retired General in his eighties, when he still recalls himself stealing enemy food as a forty-year old, but no longer has any memory of being beaten for stealing apples as a boy.

First of all, how on Earth would the memory of stealing food from an enemy not be reacted to in very different ways by very different people? Then the part where, come on, someone is stealing food from an enemy who is intent on killing them?

And, even here, is there or is there not a way in which, philosophically or otherwise, to pin down the most rational memory?

Applying Locke’s account of the self to this scenario, the middle-aged officer seems to be identical both to the ten-year-old boy because he remembers his action as the boy; to the eighty-year-old retired General, given that the General remembers stealing enemy food. However, also according to Locke’s account, the retired General cannot be identical to the ten-year-old boy, as he has no memory of the action he committed as a ten-year-old boy! Thus, Locke’s account of the self proves paradoxical, Reid argues, since the General is both identical with the boy and not identical with him.

You tell me.

This, from my frame of mind, is more or less just another example of a philosophical assessment that may or may not be far removed from how others construe their own self for all practical purposes.

The boy did what he did. The military officer did what he did. In other words, they accumulated their own subjective memories regarding what they did and why they did it.

But what doesn't change here for me is the Benjamin Button Syndrome. The "butterfly effect" writ large pertaining to many, many, many personal experiences.

[Belinda]

Certainly a memory pertains to the individual who experiences it: Dasein is subjective. Dasein is also dynamic so that for instance despite the officer's remembering he stole apples as a boy, he nevertheless stole when he was a man. Dasein is not an essence it an experience . A memory is a memory including when it's a false or altered memory.

E.g. the modern historiographer, anthropologist, or archaeologist uses proper scepticism to the effect that primary sources are more respected than secondary sources. Dasein is unable to produce unwitting testimony because Dasein is subjective.

[Iwannaplato]

are they actually able to convince themselves

What is that other than a passive-aggressive insult?

Iambiguous liberally sprinkles those kinds of insults all over his posts.

He should include another reason in his list ... 4) People get fed up with the way he talks to them and about them.

I can also think of reasons 5) and 6)

Yes, for some reason he does not consider his own reasoning psychobabble.

[Iwannaplato]

OK, but you seem to assume, yourself, that at death something that persisted, stops persisting THEN. Have I misunderstood you?

Don't we all assume that?

Sure but everyone used to assume there was a god or gods. It's an assumption. Everyone generally assume morals are objective.

Again, in my view, unless it's just a sim world or a dream world that "we" are interacting in then, of course -- click -- all of us have physical bodies that persist from the cradle to the grave.

But that's an illusion. The matter in the body is replaced regularly. Most cells in the body copy themselves in this process. Brain neurons do not do this, but the matter in them is replaced. You're a copy. Or?

All the atoms in most of the body are fully replaced within 1-2 years, including in DNA. In neurons, 6-10 years, including DNA.

And then there are the changes in organization, thoughts, values, memories that you go on an on about related to dasein on top of the completely replacement of all the matter.

[Belinda]

OK, but you seem to assume, yourself, that at death something that persisted, stops persisting THEN. Have I misunderstood you?

Don't we all assume that?

Sure but everyone used to assume there was a god or gods. It's an assumption. Everyone generally assume morals are objective.

Again, in my view, unless it's just a sim world or a dream world that "we" are interacting in then, of course -- click -- all of us have physical bodies that persist from the cradle to the grave.

But that's an illusion. The matter in the body is replaced regularly. Most cells in the body copy themselves in this process. Brain neurons do not do this, but the matter in them is replaced. You're a copy. Or?

All the atoms in most of the body are fully replaced within 1-2 years, including in DNA. In neurons, 6-10 years, including DNA.

And then there are the changes in organization, thoughts, values, memories that you go on an on about related to dasein on top of the completely replacement of all the matter.

There are two separate meanings of 'personal identity'.
One, how other people identify you is ultimately your fingerprints, DNA, and dental records. Possession of certain documents and other circumstantial evidence is often acceptable too.

Two, how you identify as yourself concerns a feeling. Dasein is a feeling--- it's subjective. Dasein is fed by long term and short term memories. When I say "short term" I refer to what is commonly called 'the present time'.

[iambiguous]

John Locke & Personal Identity
Nurana Rajabova considers why, according to John Locke, you continue to be you.

Other problems with Locke’s account of the self include the fact that our consciousness and memory are constantly interrupted with sleep, drunkenness, or selective remembrance, which raises questions about the continuity of the self, as well as about moral accountability for actions committed during such interruptions.

Not to mention those particularly significant historical contexts that can upend any number of persistent personal perspectives. World wars, economic depressions, pandemics, personal tragedies, etc.

Just think if that shooter had managed to put that bullet into Trump's brain. How would the world we live in today be different?

In response to these objections, Locke provides a somewhat pragmatic answer:

Human laws punish both, with a justice suitable to their way of knowledge; because in these cases, they cannot distinguish certainly what is real, what counterfeit; and so the ignorance in drunkenness or sleep is not admitted as a plea. For, though punishment be annexed to personality, and personality to consciousness, and the drunkard perhaps be not conscious of what he did, yet human judicatures justly punish him; because the fact is proved against him, but want of consciousness cannot be proved for him. But in the Great Day, wherein the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open, it may be reasonable to think, no one shall be to answer for what he knows nothing of, but shall receive his doom, his conscience accusing or excusing him.”

Okay, but beyond philosophical abstractions of this sort, how do you translate this assessment into the actual behaviors that you choose? Pertaining to your own sense of identity here and now. Out in the world of conflicting goods.

In addition to these objections, I observe an even more fundamental problem in Locke’s account of the self. Locke reduces the self not only to memory, but to internal memory.

Which, of course, in my view, is just another philosophical assessment that doesn't actually dwell much beyond the theoretical.

In other words, you tell me how your own internal memories are not the embodiment of dasein. In particular, when interacting with others precipitates moral and political conflagrations.

[iambiguous]

are they actually able to convince themselves

What is that other than a passive-aggressive insult?

Iambiguous liberally sprinkles those kinds of insults all over his posts.

He should include another reason in his list ... 4) People get fed up with the way he talks to them and about them.

I can also think of reasons 5) and 6)

Yes, for some reason he does not consider his own reasoning psychobabble.

Talk about psychobabble!!!

And then the part where I'm the one here who flat-out acknowledges that my own thinking about things like this is "fractured and fragmented".

Next up, the part where [in my opinion] any number of objectivists here react to me as they do because they fear that own sense identity might start to crumble in the is/ought world.

And, of course, the manner in which the objectivists among us often insist the antidote is simple enough. You become "one of them". Well, if they let you. If you don't share their own rooted existentially in dasein assessment of race and gender and sexuality, don't even bother applying. And if you're a Jew? Forget about it.

How about this...

In regard to their own sense of identity, they create a brand-new thread here in the applied ethics forum. They focus in on a particular set of circumstances, and exchange posts exploring their own respective moral philosophies.

I promise not to derail the thread. In fact, I'll follow their exchange, and not participate at all.

Deal?

[iambiguous]

OK, but you seem to assume, yourself, that at death something that persisted, stops persisting THEN. Have I misunderstood you?

I didn't write that. But...

Don't we all assume that?

Sure but everyone used to assume there was a god or gods. It's an assumption. Everyone generally assume morals are objective.

Which is why, over and again, I champion the distinction between what we assume/believe to be true "in our heads" regarding meaning, morality and identity and what we are able to demonstrate that all reasonable men and women are obligated to assume/believe as well. Then the part where this becomes entangled in politics. The "or else" frame of mind whereby some simply refuse to tolerate any point of view that is not their own. The Satyr Syndrome as it were.

Or in moral prejudices stuffed into our heads as children and [for some] sustained all the way to the grave.

Again, in my view, unless it's just a sim world or a dream world that "we" are interacting in then, of course -- click -- all of us have physical bodies that persist from the cradle to the grave.

But that's an illusion. The matter in the body is replaced regularly. Most cells in the body copy themselves in this process. Brain neurons do not do this, but the matter in them is replaced. You're a copy. Or?

All the atoms in most of the body are fully replaced within 1-2 years, including in DNA. In neurons, 6-10 years, including DNA.

Yes, that was Lena's point above:

Lena: They say you replace every molecule in your body every seven years. I changed my name eight years ago. No more Thelma Sneeder.

My own reaction to that was this:

Sure, if you want to think of it like that, even the biological components of our lives may over time completely reconfigure. But, come on, whose kidding whom? There are still many, many, many aspects of our identity that sustain a particular "self" out in a particular world understood in a particular way. Thelma may have reconfigured into Lena "in her head" in regard to how she views herself and others, but that doesn't make all those other varaibles that come together to create a "sense of identity" in her over time go away.

Back to the conundrum embedded in the Ship of Theseus paradox?

And then there are the changes in organization, thoughts, values, memories that you go on an on about related to dasein on top of the completely replacement of all the matter.

Ah, the actual real world!

And my own rendition of dasein here revolves around the points I raised in these three threads:

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/a-man ... sein/31641
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/moral ... live/45989
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/back- ... lity/30639

Finally, the part where, given a particular context, members here explain how and why my points here are not applicable to them.