Unless you expect some factual, objective truth to arise about how one should define oneself, it seems fair game for defining in the most beneficial way. It’s physics all the way down, so I don’t see a factual reason not to define yourself down to nothing, nor do I see a factual reason to do so.
Why yes, when I ask who I am, I am indeed interested in objective truth, or whatever objective truth of the matter may or may not exist. What the relation actually is, between our sense of self, and the-stuff-out-there-in-reality. I don’t understand why this seems so outlandish.
If identity really were up for grabs like that, then that just seems to me to mean that there really ain’t no such critter in the first place, no natural joint of reality at which it would make most sense to carve. In that case that would be what I’d want to believe, rather than invent some illusion that’s pleasing or supposedly beneficial.
Why yes, when I ask who I am, I am indeed interested in objective truth, or whatever objective truth of the matter may or may not exist. What the relation actually is, between our sense of self, and the-stuff-out-there-in-reality. I don’t understand why this seems so outlandish.
It might be more fruitful to ask instead “How is my sens of self generated? - Whatever that may be” and “What work do the self preform—might there an evolutionary advantage for an organism to have a self?”
Unless you expect some factual, objective truth to arise about how one should define oneself, it seems fair game for defining in the most beneficial way. It’s physics all the way down, so I don’t see a factual reason not to define yourself down to nothing, nor do I see a factual reason to do so.
Why yes, when I ask who I am, I am indeed interested in objective truth, or whatever objective truth of the matter may or may not exist. What the relation actually is, between our sense of self, and the-stuff-out-there-in-reality. I don’t understand why this seems so outlandish.
If identity really were up for grabs like that, then that just seems to me to mean that there really ain’t no such critter in the first place, no natural joint of reality at which it would make most sense to carve. In that case that would be what I’d want to believe, rather than invent some illusion that’s pleasing or supposedly beneficial.
It might be more fruitful to ask instead “How is my sens of self generated? - Whatever that may be” and “What work do the self preform—might there an evolutionary advantage for an organism to have a self?”