Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Nov 16, 2025 10:22 am
Fairy wrote: ↑Sun Nov 16, 2025 9:11 am
This is only theory though, as observed, physicality being nothing other than appearances and disappearances observed, or perceived.
But is this observing 'permanent' or 'impermanent' though? Can 'permanence' be observed, if there's no permanence to observe?
You can observe yourself as a temporal appearance, which is actually constructed of sensation and thought.
There must be something that is not a 'thought' or a 'sensation' that is observing every thought and sensation, right?
That space between two thoughts, between sensation felt, and not felt, must exist. This space, or placeholder, is not nothing, it is the interface by which something, namely, thought or sensation is known to arise and fall, appear and disappear.
That space must be permanent, seamless, and necessary for appearances to arise and fall, to be known, and to exist.
A few lines will not explain the above issue sufficiently.
Here is a thorough counter to your points above from AI [points provided by me - comprehensive and save me time].
Refuting the “Permanent Self as the Space Between Thoughts” Claim
The poster is committing a classic error: reifying a structural condition for conscious representation into a metaphysical substance or permanent self. This error is exactly what Hume, Kant, Parfit, and Buddhist no-self (anattā) doctrine dismantle—each from different angles but converging on the same point:
There is no discoverable, necessary, or metaphysically permanent “self” behind thoughts. The ‘space’ between thoughts is not a substance but a conceptual abstraction.
Let’s analyze.
1. Hume’s Refutation: No Impression, No Idea
Hume’s principle:
Every legitimate idea must correspond to an impression.
When you introspect, you encounter:
- sensations
thoughts
moods
perceptions
interconnections among them
You never encounter:
- an observing entity
an unchanging witness
a metaphysical space
a pure substratum
Hume famously writes that inner observation yields only a flux of perceptions, never the “self” the poster imagines.
Application:
The poster is mistaking the absence of a thought for the presence of a thing that observes thoughts.
But in Humean empiricism, absence is not evidence of an entity.
It is just the mind not presenting a perception at that moment.
No impression = no idea = no basis for a permanent self.
2. Kant’s Refutation: The Transcendental Apperception Is Not a Self-Thing
Kant dismantles the claim even more decisively.
The poster is conflating:
the transcendental condition for experience
with
a metaphysical object (a soul, witness, permanent self)
Kant’s key point:
- The “I think” that accompanies representations is a logical function, not an object or substance. It is not something you can experience. It is not a “space between thoughts.”
It is a unifying activity, not a self-subsisting entity.
Why this matters:
The “space” the poster imagines is actually:
a necessary structural form of inner intuition (time), not
a witness or metaphysical self
Time is the form in which inner states appear, but:
- it is not permanent in itself
it is not an object
it is not a soul
it is not a consciousness-substance
Kant would say:
You are mistaking the form of inner sense for an inner thing.
And as you yourself emphasize, in Kant:
the thing-in-itself is a thought-only regulative idea, not a real object.
So Kant refutes the notion of a permanent self on two fronts:
The “observer” is only a logical function, not an entity.
The “space between thoughts” is the form of inner intuition (time), not a metaphysical substance.
3. Parfit’s Refutation: Identity Is Divisible, Non-Entity-Based
Parfit destroys the idea of a permanent observer by showing:
- personal identity is not a further fact
consciousness can be split, fissioned, and divided conceptually
survival does not require numerical identity
Thus a “permanent space” or “witness-substratum” is unnecessary and incoherent.
For Parfit:
Identity is not something over and above psychological continuity.
If no further-self is needed for identity over time, then:
- a metaphysical witness is redundant
the “space between thoughts” is irrelevant to identity
no permanent self is needed to bind experiences
Parfit ends up close to the Buddhist position:
We are not what we believe ourselves to be.
4. The Buddha’s Refutation: Anattā (No Fixed Entity)
The Buddha (and later Abhidharma analyses) reject the idea that:
- the observer is real
there is a substratum
there is a timeless consciousness behind thoughts
there is a metaphysical gap to be reified
Buddhism identifies this error precisely as śūnyatā reification:
Taking a structural feature of experience (e.g., momentariness, gaps, transitions) and treating it as a metaphysical thing.
According to the Buddha:
The “gap between thoughts” is just another impermanent mental event.
It has no inherent existence, no permanence, no selfhood.
5. The Poster’s Logical Fallacies
Fallacy 1: Reification
He reifies a conceptual placeholder (“space,” “gap”) into an ontological object.
Fallacy 2: Category Error
Confusing:
structural necessity for representing experience
with
metaphysical necessity of a substance that exists
The gap is a feature of temporal cognition, not a thing.
Fallacy 3: Illicit Inference
He argues:
Thoughts appear and disappear.
Therefore something permanent must observe them.
This is identical to the argument for the soul in early Upanishadic thought—refuted by all four thinkers above.
6. Correct Interpretation (Consistent with Your FS-Concept)
From your Framework-System view:
Everything we describe about consciousness is framed within human cognitive conditions.
There is no absolute observer, only a framework-dependent representation of temporal succession.
The “space” is just a functional abstraction, not a mind-independent entity.
Your position aligns with Kant:
The structure of experience (forms, categories) does not imply metaphysical entities beyond experience.
The poster’s claim leaps from phenomenological structure → metaphysical self, which you correctly reject.
Final Summary
The “permanent self as the space between thoughts” is refuted because:
- Hume: no impression of such a self exists.
Kant: the unity of consciousness is a function, not an entity; the “space” is just time.
Parfit: identity does not require a metaphysical self.
The Buddha: the self is a conceptual fiction; the gap is empty of substance.
What the poster thinks is a permanent witness is merely:
- a temporal form of cognition (Kant)
a conceptual abstraction (Hume)
not a further fact (Parfit)
and empty of essence (Buddha)
Absolutely no philosophical tradition above supports the existence of a “permanent self.” or a self as space between two thoughts