The Situated SelfPhysics reveals a world composed of events arranged in a fixed configuration, like locations on a map. But where are we ourselves, the creatures who construct the map, to be found in the world it presents? Where, in this seamless fabric presented by physics do we find the fleeting, centered world of experience, rich in color, sound, and sentiment, that we know from the inside? The question of the relationship between the world of physics and the world as seen through human eyes is one of the deepest, and most difficult in philosophy. The difficulty has many aspects. The world of physics is fixed and eternal; the world of experience is transient and changing. The world of physics is structure described in mathematical terms; the world of experience is rich with qualitative properties that can't be captured in mathematical description. The world of physics has no built-in perspective; the world of experience is always experience to a particular someone, from a standpoint in space and time. The problem spans metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and ethics, and expresses itself in the wider culture in the perceived clash between humanist and scientific views of the self. This book displays in a new way the common structure of these different aspects of the problem. An account of the structure of self-locating knowledge serves as the keystone for a broad vision of the place of the self in the physical universe. The vision preserves the completeness and closure of physical description, while leaving room for features of ourselves and our subjective views of the world that are at once real and incommunicable. |
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abuse of notation Anscombe arguments for dualism articulated B-series behavior beliefs body brain c-fibres can’t causal cognitive color color profiles complex components concepts connections consciousness context coordinated criteria of identity Dennett Descartes doesn’t dynamical environment epistemic example explicit expressions external fact Fred Dretske Frege grammatical illusions ideas identify imagine indexical intentional objects intentionality interaction interpretation intersubstitution intrinsic properties invariant Joycean kind labels landscape language look Mary Mary’s McTaggart medium mereology natural notion object one’s ontology palette parameter pathways perception perspective phenomenal profiles phenomenal properties phenomenology physical properties exemplified property dualism Putnam’s question red dot reference reflexive reidentification relations represent representation representationally role self-description self-locating self-organizing systems self-representational loop self-representing semantic sense sensory situated mind sortal space spatial structure subsystem temporal there’s thought tomato transformations unarticulated constituents understanding arguments unified Wittgenstein Z-land Z-landers