But what is experience, how can you find experience without a self doing the experiencing? I’m not trying to put it on you but it is consistent with your logic, as I understand it
The self is synonymous with experience. It’s why the self is simultaneously a substantial entity and completely without substance. We remember what it felt like to be ten years old and yet every single cell that generated that sensation has long since been replaced by adulthood. People who receive traumatic brain injuries can become strangers to their family and even themselves. The self is a contrivance and an emergent property of a neural network. Ever changing, elusive and yet reassuringly familiar.
Okay, I apologize I went back and read your first post which said something like “the self doesn’t exist is a fun concept to play with” when I was pretty sure you had said just “the self doesnt exist.” I’m sitting here trying to find the thread that connects “the self doesn’t exist” with your seeming acknowledgement of every aspect of it.
I agree its useful to test “wrong conclusions” for the reasons you state. You end up constructing consistent logic justifying it, and can witness for yourself where the reasoning goes wrong, and can speculate as to why. I think it makes relating to people convinced by faulty logic and conclusions easier to relate to, as well as gives you a hint to where their reasoning is off and you cans start to argue against it
I also had the feeling we were talking at cross purposes 😂 Language really shows it’s limits when considering these topics, it’s incredibly easy to mangle a sentence and give a completely different idea.
Impressed that you correctly detected the influence of Harris on my thinking although I didn’t read that text in particular. I’m only just getting into this subject as an amateur but it seems that you have studied it formally?
