Am I the only one on this subreddit with an actual self-directed sense of identity? I can take inspiration here and there, sure, but ultimately the only one that paints on my canvas is me.

I can't help but feel this is projection. Perhaps it's rare but some people are able to be (more or less) fully honest with themselves and live authentically.

I agree with everything you just said, but I'm not sure I get the implication. Are you saying the "holistic self" as we're calling it, or the Western analog of it it is risky? Because I wouldn't necessarily disagree (I'd really have to think about it), but surely there's a best of both worlds here. Something like Jungian psychology or perhaps something based on Nietzschean philosophy that could potentially identify who would benefit from intentional "self-finding" and who would be better off not worrying much about the self at all. Just because something is high risk doesn't mean it's bad - it just takes a specific type of person.

Oh no need to apologize for sounding condescending, I do that all the time lol

>But I would argue that if the nature of self is always changing quickly no matter what, then why would we need to emphasize on it, develop it in a particular way, or stroke it.

Well, I'd ask in return, if a river is always rushing why attempt to control its flow with dams and stabilize its banks to prevent erosion? Often letting the river just do whatever it does is the best thing to do, but sometimes it's also best to rein it in.

I'm going to continue with this terrible analogy because I like it. The "Easterners" might say, "why the hell did you build your house in a flood plain?" And the "Westerners" might say, "why the hell would I want to walk two miles to get water?" They're both perfectly valid questions and the answer depends on an individual's needs and, as you said, cultural factors. If Easterners can be satisfied without worrying about a Western conception of self, great. If a Westerner can be satisfied with their own concept of self, also great. I personally find a holistic concept of self to be useful for clarifying my path in life, speaking as someone who used to struggle with depression and derealization - I'm not even sure how I would function without such a concept.

>"The main obstacle to finding your true nature, true "self" if you'd like to call it, is obsessing over it."

This I would absolutely agree with. But I do think finding the self takes contemplation - I'm not sure if one can find it without thinking about it at all.

>The modern world romanticizes finding yourself, your style, your type, etc.

>Ironically, dwelling on this image of “self” neither helps you find your true nature, nor to find your role in the larger world.

I'm a bit confused, couldn't "your true nature" just be taken to mean "your true self"? The vibe I'm getting from this article is "there is no true self, that's an illusion, but if you acknowledge the self is plastic and changes over time it's actually totally real, also be nice to people."

It seems like you're just saying "the true self isn't static like many think, but evolves over time" which I would agree with, but you've muddied the point by using obfuscatory language to shoehorn in an attempt at dunking on ignorant, vain, shallow westerners (low hanging fruit) and glorifying Buddhism - and, ironically, it comes across like your own ego stroking. Not saying this is what you intended or that I 100% understood what your article is about, but this is what this comes across as to me.

In my view, given that at the end of the day everyone just wants to be satisfied with their own life, "finding your true self" just means finding the version of the self that is most satisfying now and putting yourself on the path to be satisfied even as the self evolves. (Of course the lay public fails miserably at that task, because they fail miserably at everything that requires careful contemplation - but that's not an indictment of whatever philosophy they're attempting to carry out IMO). And in this context finding the "true self" would then be extremely important. Of course we should attempt to experience the holistic world as it truly is - but are we not a part of said world? Can we truly understand the world if we don't understand ourselves, and vice versa?

>attachment to something impermanent and untrue must cause suffering

I totally agree with the Buddhists here. But the self doesn't need to be defined only in terms of who we are at the present, transient moment, which can result in suffering (not that I believe all suffering should be avoided, but that's beside the point). The self can also be defined in terms of our past (including the old "false" self that we were) and who we want to be and at one point wanted to be in the future, and whoever we end up being. Instead of arguing against the concept of self, perhaps we should be advocating a more holistic view of the self instead?

>information cascades

I think this term and concept will be very useful to me. Thanks for sharing!

Your example still falls prey to the problem of inverted spectra. Hypothetically, two people could have phenomenal experiences of sight and color that are exactly opposite of each other, and if these experiences were otherwise isomorphic (the relationships between each color still proportionally the same) they could produce the exact same work of art but both percieve it differently.

Regarding bats, though blind humans are apparently capable of some form of echolocation, there's no way to know if their phenomenal experience of echolocation is the same as how bats experience echolocation. If their brains and brain activity are sufficiently similar we might reasonably infer that that's the case, but it's probably impossible to ever say for sure. Same with dogs; we can reasonably infer that dogs experience affection, but who can say whether the subjective feeling of affection is the same for dogs as it is for humans? This is where Mr. Berns has failed to properly address Nagel's question.

I might say affection is a sort of sweet feeling. You might say it's more red, to someone else it's gold or a feeling of levity. A dog might consider affection savory or warm. We all have experienced affection, but we may all experience it differently.

That analogy is way better than mine lol

Example #136,742 of a scientist misusing their authority as an expert of a scientific field to assert they've disproven an influential philosophical concept that they don't understand. This is the equivalent of an idealist philosopher saying they've disproven evolution by natural selection because animals only exist as impressions in the mind and thus can't be said to physically reproduce or die, or something.

Sure but it's a bit different when it's the government doing the selecting.

Nope I'm too uncooperative

Selecting for cooperativeness sounds like a slippery slope to Orwellianism tbh

Most people would point to the great 'achievements' of the human race in fields such as philosophy, architecture, astrophysics, aeronautics etc.

...But then you have to wonder what justifies the supposed superiority of the 98% of humans that have made no such great achievements.

>They word”my” comes from the Sanskrit word “Maya”

Source? I'm seeing that the word "my" comes from proto-Germanic mīnaz (meaning "my") which itself comes from proto-Indo-European méynos (also meaning "my"). PIE predates the Sanskrit language so it doesn't seem there's a shared etymology at all.

Which is pretty much what I expected. The idea that a "myself" could exist is a more intuitive and basic assumption than that "myself" is illusionary; it would make no sense for this equally basic word to stem from such a philosophical perspective. Not that English borrows much directly from Sanskrit anyway. It sounds like someone is trying to push the idea that our 'wiser' ancestors 'knew' the self was illusory through this bad folk etymology. On the contrary I'm pretty sure most of our ancestors would've had a very strong sense of self lol

Hell if you don't want em get one in a live trap and I'll take it off your hands! I love fishers. Totally beautiful animals and yes, pretty feisty. Takes a lot to survive in those woods as a weasel with pretty much no body fat! A couple days without food and you're a goner, I'd be pissed off too lol

Don't worry about those sounds, they're harmless. Just, uh, keep your doors locked. For peace of mind, y'know

Maybe if they've been smoking a pack a day for 30 years lol, but it's definitely not the "banshee" scream most people say it is

You are welcome!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ-0i98zv1M

This video covers pretty much every fisher sound you could be hearing (be warned the wind gets really loud at points so careful if you're using headphones lol). Basically deep roaring growls, a demonic version of ferret dooking, and some otter squawking, in addition to that first video I just sent.

How else do you think Boston avoids getting swallowed up by the ocean? Unholy rituals. Fishers are the scapegoat.

Not a fisher. Fishers don't scream as New Englanders commonly believe. This is as close as they get.

Not a fisher. Fishers don't scream as New Englanders commonly believe. This is as close as they get.

Not a fisher. Fishers don't scream as New Englanders commonly believe. This is as close as they get.

Maybe he's right and you're actually the one that's biased? No, no, that couldn't be it 🤔

I'm not sure we're operating with the same definitions and/or understanding of physics here. By 'phenomenal conscious experience' I mean qualia. Qualia is a (by?)product of brains but not necessarily a property of physical matter, hence why I'm a dualist. I'm not sure how a molecule would change phenomenologically because I don't attribute such conscious phenomena to them in the first place. All of the afterlife stuff has nothing to do with observable (physical) reality, but is an addition to it; it's the statement that observable reality is not the total sum of reality.

>Or you can construct a logically, or even empirically consistent theory of reality which is consistent with both your assertion and these observables.

That's what I've done. This is what I've been trying to say; you can fully accept a scientific understanding of the physical world and also incorporate a belief in non-physical phenomena (through the direct observation of one's own arguably non-physical consciousness/qualia), and through some reasoning and epistemological coherentism deduce the existence of an afterlife.