Categories: uncategorized
Date: 28 January 2004 13:59:02
i've just had a philosophy lesson that left me very thortful. deeply deeply thortful. and so, in order to sort out my thorts i am going to wibble on in a philosophical manner for a few paragraphs.
the context of my wibbling thorts today is in betrand russells "problems of philosophy" and on pacge 27. it is the bit where russell says that when we are looking at something (e.g. a puter) we can also be looking at ourselves looking at the puter, or, if we look in the mirror and stare into one' s own reflected eyes, then is one looking at oneself looking at oneself...repead ad.nausium. but is it possible to detach ones self from ones mind (therefore making two minds) and observe oneself. And does this paragraph make any sense at all.
I think...my gut reaction is that, although there are not two minds it is possible to separate minds. My resoning for this is complex, and in the lesson i struggled to find the words to say without giving out personal and hurtful details of my life to the whole class. As I am nice and annnonymouse here (apart from to those of you who have met me, or know me from the ship - and you don't count...for some obscure reason) i have though of an example i can share...
I have mentioned before on here that the story on the JohnHeronProject has been making me think about my dad, and hearing for the first time that he was dead. At that moment i remember feeling quite detached from myself. In my memories of that situation I am never observing the situation as me, getting told, but rather as a passive observer who is watching the action come from above. It is the same in other experiences I have no real wish to talk about...but mainly traumatic, so I am probably blurring the boundrys of philosophy, psychology and religion....
taking this in mind, and assuming that i am not some freak and other people might have had similar experiences does this offer any explaination of what russell was talking about without ending in an infinite regression?
i don't know, and i think my brain may have exploded.
I will now return you to the normal scedual of a mix of depressive rantings and what i have done today comments.
oh, and it's snowing. I said that aloud in my philosophy class without meaning to and almost got the giggles. ooops.