"You say in your response to my Entry 335:

‘If autonomy is an illusion of the human mind (as you allude to by saying, ‘we are not autonomous of external existence’), how can we interact with existence through our illusion of autonomy? Where does autonomous interaction fit into an interrelated existence whereby everything is part of an interconnected infinity? How does our self-consciousness give us autonomy, when even our self-consciousness is interconnected with existence? From our causal perspective, the basis for conscious ‘feedback’ (or interaction) is not separate from external existence, but interconnected with external existence...

In summary, we agree with you that by realizing the basic role of interconnection in the identity of things, we are more reasonably closer to truly knowing of who we are, but we argue that we are actually further from truly knowing who we are because knowing who we are requires knowing not only who we are as points in existence, but all the interconnections behind ourselves, including the basis for the interconnections.’

Taking these two together, we must not forget, as I believe you may have failed to consider, that in terms of space and time, no two things can occupy the same space at the same time.

Therefore, the ‘isness’ of any one identity, as defined by the state of being of an interrelated totality redefining its parts, then can only be ‘itself’. By default, the same holds true for the ‘knowing’ of that identity, since none is better suited to knowing oneself than the knower, since none other can occupy the space and time definition of that personal identity.

The question then falls back upon whether or not that ‘knowledge’ of oneself is complete or not. Indeed, for that there is no simple answer, except to remind one that we ’know’ at many levels of which we are not aware. It may seem unreasonable that the reasoning mind cannot influence how the cells of our body form, or how we grow from an egg into an adult, or how the heart beats, or how the stomach digests breakfast. Yet, we accept these phenomena of our being's identity, that we ‘know’ them, though we do not ‘know’ them. It is the same, that though we are not totally aware in our reason of who we are, we do know this, though we may only think (through the illusion of our autonomy from our identity) that we know this. We ‘know’ this as ‘I am’.

By default, through the universal mechanism of interrelationship, being and knowing oneself, even when we do not know this, are the same."

Ivan Alexander May 26 2002

Response:

Rick Rush in Entry 271 takes the same position as you that "none is better suited to knowing oneself than the knower, since none other can occupy the space and time definition of that personal identity." Though Rush argues from the position of oneself being self-contained within their own minds, so that only personal opinion can be known. However, it does not necessarily follow that because an individual is self-contained onto him or herself that he or she is in a better position to know oneself. The critical question, as you alluded to, is in what sense can one know oneself? Also, how can an individual know him or herself solely from him or herself? Further, in consideration of the notion of interconnectedness, is there an actual personal identity we can identify in a particular part of space and time? viz., your position and that of Rush’s assumes a particular point of individual identity which may not necessarily be the case; and if we consider the law of causality which defines our thoughts, we must say no, because a thing-in-itself is less reasonable than something from something else ad infinitum.

Barring our point on the elusiveness of personal identity, we agree with you that within a system of thought based on personal identity, there is knowledge of ourselves which can be known like our biological make-up and conscious identity "I am". Yet what is the truth-value of this knowledge when there is no set point of individual identity, or even if there is, our knowledge appears interactional, thereby representational?

You turn to the "universal mechanism of interconnectedness", whereby you claim that being oneself and knowing oneself are the same. What we think you are contending is that knowing helps determine our being, just as being helps determine our knowing, and therefore they can be considered the same. However, you are assuming that the individual him or herself is a whole, which is clearly not the case based on the premise for your position, the notion of interconnectedness. The key in this issue is identifying who we are, which takes us back to the thing-in-itself versus the something from something else ad infinitum. It appears based on the more reasonableness of the latter position, that there is no identity we can truly say is who we are, because our attempt at finding the identity ends in infinity. So in essence, it appear that we cannot truly know who we are because there is no who we are that can be known, which is not the same thing as saying that we do not exist. To overcome this position, one must more reasonably refute the causal nature of our thoughts.

346. Entry:

Reply to the response to Entry 338

"----quote----
We must conclude from our perspective that experiential knowledge is representational of interaction between receptors and stimuli, thereby the knowledge has limited truth-value. etc.
----end quote----

It took me long thought to clear my mind to understand this. At first I was going to disagree as I had used ‘true’ in the sense of the pair true and false. saying that the experiential is always 'true' and can never be false as far as sense operation, however the use of ‘truth-value’ gave me pause because 'truth' is used when someone is looking for an intellectual perspective, a pattern, an order, the why as to the way. Truth is reflected in those things of creation (experiences) but its origin is higher. I am reminded of the Egyptian god, Thoth, who represents that power which makes the things of creation (logos) correspond to the spoken word of creation (logo) as it exists in the heart of God. Thoth fulfills the function of truth in the Egyptian cosmology. At the end of life a man's life, Thoth (Truth) is the judge in the weighting (correlation) between what is in a man 's heart and reality as it really is.

So yes, you are right, in some fashion, and I will not quibble about words. What we seek is truth, and truth while reflected in things and events and experiences of mind and body, is not in these things. no more than a man's face is in a mirror. Truth is experienced in the ‘I’ and only reflected in mind and sense experiences.
My premise all along has been that the ‘I’ is not and cannot be a subject of sensorial perception, nor of analytics or reason. We can not derive experiential knowledge of the ‘I’ through their use. We can know about the ‘I’ in the same way we can know about anything - but we seek more - we seek and intimate union, experiential and experimental knowledge. A union, a oneness within ourselves.

A Short Summary.
The existential experience of the ‘I’ is not an experience had by sensorial means, nor by means of reason or analytics. Neither the acts of the mind nor the soma can be used upon the ‘I’ because the ‘I’ is the origin of all senses and all acts (the eye cannot see itself, the ear can not hear itself, touch can not touch itself. etc.) No act of conscious can have conscious as it target.

The existential knowledge by which we may know self is not existential or experiential knowledge had by way of any of the senses or acts of psyche or soma. The knowledge we seek of the self is an existential and experiential knowledge of union that is not derived from any sense (of mind nor body) nor any act of conscious (any act of conscious is a going-out from conscious).

------quote-----
To claim that true self-knowledge is innately part of us, at an existential level, does not answer where the knowledge comes from or how we can know it from our causal perspective.
------end quote----

Right. It only maintains that such experiential and existential knowledge - exists and can be known in an experiential way. So it seems appropriate that I should get to that ‘how’ next, but before I do I should like to quickly deal with ex nihlio as it has been brought up and indeed ties in.

----quote----
If we were to accept the notion of self-knowledge created ex nihilo, where could the knowledge come from, and how could it capture ourselves in totality at every moment?
-----end quote----

Let us examine the concept for a moment.

The concept of ex nihilo took a shift in meaning at about the time of the conjunction of Kant (reason is the highest faculty of man), Newton (the creation is mechanical in nature) and Darwin (species transmutate), near the end of the Medieval society and at the birth of science and capitalist society. We are the products of this modern society. Before Science man was the center of creation, he was its cause and its goal. After Science man is just another 'thing' in creation and not really needed at all as things exist without him. Before Science and capitalism economics and work were at the services of man and profit was considered sin, after science and capitalism man is at the service of the laws of economics and he is a replaceable cog in the machine. (By the way I am not against capitalism I merely mention it is a two sided coin for it has brought one form of freedom and a new form of slavery).

When we hear the term ex nihilo we tend to think of its meaning as something like 'creation being made out of zip, zilch, zero, nada, void'. We imagine the emptiness of outer space, somehow producing planets, suns, and all the material of the universe and that simply does not compute. We layout creation in a linear time sequence like the mechanical fall of physical dominos. So science proposes for us a big-bang, a leap of faith event that that brought about the fall of the first domino, and by surrounding that with all kinds of technical jargon and confusing us with reciting so many laws of physics we come to the conclusion that they are very smart people and they must be right somehow and so we leave off trying to understand it.

The original concept of ex nihilo had a different meaning and context all together. First, sequential time has nothing to do with it. The 'time' of ex nihilo is any 'this moment now'. It refers to a causal primacy at this moment now, and any moment now. It is metaphysics, first philosophy, not physics. At any single moment it is the unknowable nature of the ‘I’ which monitors and moves the mind, and the mind in turn monitors and moves the body. It is a simultaneous causal relationship from the inside (interior) to the exterior and time sequence has nothing to do with it. Earlier in its formulation it was often expressed as ‘as above, so below’. Let us examine the term in context of original meaning.

Creation out of nothing.

Better said today it would be ‘creation out of no-thing’. Ex nihilio does not mean 'creation out of zip, zilch, zero'; it simply means that what is created is not created out of other things. 'Things' are considered as those experiences mind and body may have. This is simple when we look at the difference between the words 'create' and 'formed'. When we form something we take some already existing material or substance - and form it to be something else. For example, we take clay and form it into a vase. The Greek word 'form' can be translated into English as 'make' meaning to-make. The Greek word 'create' can also be translated as 'make' and here we have one point of the translation problem.

In the Hebrew, very similar to the Greek, there are two words which we can translate as 'make', they are bere and bara. To bere is to-create and its meaning is 'to-thing' something but not from any pre-existing material or substance. To bara is to form some-thing from other things. For example, we can create a vase (it was not and now it is) and the method we use to make it is to form it of clay. A subtle difference of 'what is the context?'

Bere is used in the opening lines of Genesis ‘In the first, God created-from-no-thing, all experiences of mind and body.’ Jerome uses 'in principato' meaning 'in first principle, God generate.' etc.. Man is the center and goal of creation and all things are defined by his experiences. The Light (the first 'thing' brought into being) is bere while ever after all things are bara (formed out of the first thing, on and on like a chain). I do not bring this up as an article of faith, I simply make the difference of to-create from-no-thing and to-form from existing things to give context to the original formulation of ex nihlio.

The concept of ex nihilo, as expressed in the Hebrew manner of Genesis names two natures, the 'heavens' or spiritual nature of man which is his faculties of phyche-mind and all experience had by mind. And the 'earth' which word here is used to represent all faculties of body and all experience these senses may experience. So it is speaking of these two constituents of man (mind and body) but of these not as objects of science but as human experiences. To the Hebrew as well as to the Greek - these two constituents are the area of Physics or The Law and what is above that in primacy (not location) is meta-physics or 'above' and 'beyond' physic. Physic is Second Philosophy and Metaphysics is First Philosophy or First Nature (in the category of the Greeks). In the chain of the causal natures of these, the first nature is not a thing of mind nor soma - and it is unnamed. It is zero as far as 'things', but not zero in its own un-named nature (we bend a word because the word 'nature' properly belongs to ways or operations of experiences of mind and body). In the math philosophy of Pythagoras '0' is the start of the decade (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) and is a place holder for a positive yet indefinable value. Such is the context for the origin of ex nihlio.

In the metaphysical chain of causality the prime remains un-named because it is un-known and un-knowable by any means (and this is important to its definition) of mind or senses. Mind and senses are not capable of being turned upon their origin. Despite TV and movies there is no physical sense, nor devise which aids physical senses, that can be turned onto and measure or monitor directly - spirit (psyche) or as we say mind. We see evidence of it - but do not grasp it directly as an object.

To move off the complexities of Genesis we are now seeking, in this discussion, the ‘how’ of the experiential knowing of self. We have said that the self (the I or person) is not the mind nor the body, no more than the piano and the music it produces can be the same as the musician who plays them.

Reason and analytics, senses and sensorial perception - cannot target their origin as a subject.

Any acts of the conscious (which acts we call consciousness) is a going-out-from conscious and therefore the conscious (the origin of the act) cannot be their target or subject as an object.

Man cannot long for what he has not known. A man cannot desire to travel to a country of which he has no idea of its existence. A man cannot want to play the violin if a violin had yet to be invented. Yet we long for a experience of self. Much more that just wanting to knowing about - we desire to experience self. As I have said, an original experience of self is the ground of our being in two ways. This unhindered existential experience is our first experience as we develop through childhood, and it remains even now - this moment now - (but now hindered) - within all experiences because at the base of all experiences we know that ‘I am’. ‘It is I who is having this experience of driving, sitting, thinking, etc..’

Our essence (that which remains after all else is cut away) is a knowing-ability. A potential before an act. A conscious before consciousness. And through out life we have moments (some greater or lesser) of the taste of this experience of self. It is ridiculous to say that the only way in which we know that self exists is because of the evidence of self we have through the senses of the operations of mind and body - - - because that lag, that indirectness, would make the very knowing that evidence impossible and inoperable.

Throughout the ages and across cultures the answer or 'path' (if you will) to an existential experience of the real (meaning direct experience) self, has been contemplation (to use the Western term of Greek origin). Philosophers, saints, mystics and theologians, poets (once known as great thinkers) have all pointed to contemplation as the greatest aide toward that un-named and un-knowable which is unobtainable through the grasp of the faculties of mind and body. Most appropriate to us, formed in the Western cultures (Western meaning derived from the culture of the West Empire of Rome) is the concept of contemplation.

As a 'method' it is a kind of non-method. A negation. The Orthodox say it is ‘apophatic’ where whatever can be said about ‘it’ is not it. Hegel seeks it through dialectic negation. It is difficult for us today because we are trained and habituated (programmed) to methods or formula which, when applied correctly, produce - - something. Do this - do that - do this - which results in - that. However the 'work' of contemplation is not a building of behavioral habits which produce a state, neither is it a modification nor manipulation of existing subconscious habits. Contemplation is not an alternative state of mind or consciousness that is brought about or produced (a common misconception), but rather a return to something that is so very natural to us and already 'built in' from the start. It is in reality a ‘I cannot see the forest for the tree’ like thing.

We know contemplation already because it remains at the ground of our being but we have paid it little attention or cooperation for so long that the obstacles to it are strong subconscious streams of beliefs formulated of mind and body - to replace it. These conscious and subconscious obstacles were desired to fit some circumstances as a means to an end (viz., anxiety and insecurity). We programmed ourselves to automatically run these internal programs of pretence (non-reality) for what we had considered survival's sake - but they are still running long after the situation that called for them has gone. The auto mechanism which made them so helpful now makes them just as hurtful. (We may get into this deeper at some other time). The Greek philosopher Plotinus probably expresses well what contemplation is (within our cultural understanding) when he said ‘All things contemplate the Nous.’ The use of the Greek term 'Nous' meaning the intellect which has intellections (we now say conscious having consciousness).

Our sechema.
Intellect (Person/I) - uncreated potential and non-thing
Will (Mind) - the faculties of mind and all things that mind may experience
Memory (Body) - the faculties of body and all things that body may experience

If we like, we can turn that relational triad into this.
Intellect (person)
Reason (mind)
Instinct (vegative-soma)

That activity which is called Intellect in the ‘I’, is manifested as Reason in the mind, and further manifested as Instinct in the bio-colony. ‘As above, so below.’

I will tell you! The day I discovered that Genesis was an ennead (arranged in an array) and that the foundation of it was this relational triad of Intellect, Will and Memory - I will cherish forever.

Simply stated, Plotinus tells us that all things, by nature, contemplate the One. The Unity. The Monad. The First Causal origin. Contemplation is not an effort or a going-out at all. It is not a knowing-about) but rather a existential and experiential 'being-with'.

For the sake of updating a bit, let us call Plotinus' One, the modern term of Reality, for the term reality expresses well all truth, all that is real, all that is. and nothing false, nothing un-real, nothing untrue - all rolled up into one term - Reality - all that is properly experiencential knowledge belonging to the ‘I’. Which term (reality) may also include for us a concept of God as its author if we are so inclined.

All classical philosophy denies the proposal that the ‘I’ is produced by the concerted workings of mind and body. The ‘I’ is not the sum of its acts but the origin of its acts. As Plato said: attunement of mind and body does not produce the better soul (soul here meaning the intellect which binds and integrates mind and body) any more than a better quality of musical instrument makes a master musician a master. Otherwise to train our children in music would simply be to buy them a better instrument month after month.
A summation of Plotinus would be that each 'thing' contemplates the Nous and in its contemplation each thing reflects in itself what it sees in the Nous to its limits of contemplation. This is dramatic in as much as up to a few years ago we would consider that there was no consciousness to the growth of any plant or vegetable but then we were able to measure tiny electrical currents and that has indicated that there is a rudimentary consciousness at work. What keeps a rock being a rock, and a plant being a certain type of plant? These are dramatic questions which are better left alone for now. I do not offer an answer.

Plotinus claims that all that is - contemplates the Nous. For example, the tree grows green and takes form as to its limitation of contemplating the logos within the Nous. For Plotinus, each tree grows and takes its form not because it is hammered into form by external forces but primarily because it is reflecting (an image of) what limited experiential knowledge it has of the Nous. What experiential knowledge of the Nous is appropriate to it. It is a natural attention to and of the Nous.

Now despite the fact that we could argue the definitions and semantics of what I said above, for days, we can all agree that when we have an experience of a truth, of reality, it is an intellecutal experience and we desire to not disturb that intellectual experience - - and so we naturally tend to become still of body and mind, soaking in it, just being with it. And while its results at times is that we are like men who have been lifted to some mountain top and we survey all around us and understand what we survey and feel united to nature by that and at the same time we feel freedom. We cherish the moments of contemplation.

As an immediate consequence of these moments our reason works very well, and we see and understand the reasons why this is like this and that is like that. And we wish that our reason always worked so well and clear and fluid. These moments are indeed the most in-formative (meaning they are THE primary hammer of experience by which the good man of good will is formed).

No matter what poetic words I use, it all comes down to exactly what we already knew, that is, that all our insatiable activity to know ABOUT things (by using mind and senses) have as our goal an experiential union of the ‘I’ with reality, truth, goodness, etc.. (yes, of course there are times we seek pure physical or psychological pleases or respond to compulsive needs - but these pleasures are marked by increased activity and wanted distraction from an internal glance) and when this happy event takes place (contemplation) we prefer by tendency that the chatter of the mind and senses be silent and non-distracting so as not to disturb us from it. It is moments of re-union with all things and a respite from anxiety, aloneness, separation, insecurity, fragmentation and division of self, powerlessness and frustration.

We cannot go back to Eden (the original unity with nature through instinct in absence of reasoning mind). Once the primary ties of nature have been severed by our use of reason and choice - we have gained freedom from the compulsions of nature and we have become an individual (no longer submerged in a self-same identity with nature). But this wonderful freedom and individuality has another side to it, and that is we can know ourselves (in the sense of mind and body) as separate from others, separate from nature, a 'thing' among things, isolation, powerlessness, aloneness.

I have to stop somewhere, this is already much too long.

If I have your permission, I would like to make the content of my next post a look at contemplation through the Greek myths of Prometheus and Odysseus (the journey of Ulysses). And the act of contemplation in context of the modern concepts of reality (what is despite what we wish) and the classical operation of intentionality (the way we are in-formed through experiences of nature about us). I will try to make it as concise as possible so that laying this context to ‘how can we have knowledge of self?’ I may move on to the 'how' and mention unexpected consequences that may be experienced, due to our psychology - which prompt some to leave off just when it is about to progress."

Ray Kaliss June 2 2002

Response:

You appear to be arguing that we can truly know who we are through the "I" itself, in what you call an "existential and experiential knowledge of union" (viz., "contemplation of the Nous"). The thrust of your argument centers around,

1. the concept of ex nihilo, which you define as something from no-thing, thereby leave an opening for something from something else other than "thing" like a God

2. the childhood state, in which you claim the first experience of a child is an "unhindered existential experience of the ‘I’", and thereby an experience of the something other than "thing" behind the "I" viz., the first childhood experience is one of union with the no-thing through the unhindered contemplation of the "I".

So in essence what you are saying is that the "I" itself is in oneness, union with the no-thing, the origin of all things, and that through pure contemplation of the "I" itself, as in childhood, we can truly know who we are.

In defense of your position, you claim that we cannot "long" for true knowledge of self, without previously having true knowledge of self. However, it does not follow that the act of longing for something necessarily equates with previous actual possession of the thing we long for. For instance, we may long for what we imagine to exist e.g., we could conceptually know the self from our perspective without having actually experienced it, while long to experience the self.

In examination of your position, our ability to truly know ourselves fundamentally hinges on the "no-thing" as the origin of all things viz., the no-thing acts as the ground for knowledge with absolute truth-value, which according to you can be accessed through pure contemplation of the "I", so that the "I" itself is in dimensional oneness with the no-thing. However, the main problem with this position is that though you avoid the less reasonableness of something from nothing by defining the origin of things as no-thing, the something from nothing problem remerges when we examine the "no-thing" itself. In other words, upon examination we come to thing and no-thing from no-no-thing, so that you have merely extended, through meta-language, the less reasonableness of something from nothing.

Another potential problem you need to deal with is how, even in a childhood state, we can truly know something, when what we know is based on responses to interactions like a child experiencing the "I", and through interactions on sensorial and neurological levels, attaining knowledge of it. Apparently to get around this dilemma, you claim that the knowledge derived from pure contemplation of the "I" is not from any act of consciousness, and yet without any form of interaction how can we be conscious of the "I", thus truly know it? One way around this dilemma is to claim that the "I" is innate in us. Though the claim of the innateness of "I" would take us back to the ex nihilo problem and the additional problem of reconciling innate knowledge from non-innate knowledge, or if all knowledge is innate, reconciling how all knowledge has absolute truth-value.

347. Entry:

"The fact that we exist into a medium that cannot be measured.
The fact that by observing this medium changes the measurements.
Then we know that we are who we think we are being. And we are being who we think we are.

We are collective macro patterns of energy built by micro- quantum fluctuations in space time.
We know that the very conscious observation of these micro- quantum events changes the measurable properties of these micro-quantum events.
We as humans KNOW we are a part of these micro-quantum events, as our bodies are made up of the same energy as that of table salt.
So we KNOW we are fundamentally unmeasurable. Because by measuring we are changing.
So we can truly know who we are - we are products of the mind. The observing mind.
And by observing, we are being."

John Charles Morzfeld June 3 2002

Response:

You argue that we are "collective macro patterns of energy" which is connected to "micro-quantum fluctuations". From there, you argue that the micro-quantum fluctuations are unmeasurable because as we attempt to measure the properties of the fluctuations, we change the properties. Hence, you conclude that we ourselves, by being connected to the micro-quantum fluctuations, are unmeasurable, and that by measuring and observing, we are changing. Therefore, we are products of the observing mind, and since we need to be being in order to be observing, we can truly know who we are (i.e. unmeasurable collective macro patterns of energy) and be who we are. So your argument is built on establishing with absolute truth-value, ourselves as collective macro patterns of energy which is connected to micro-quantum fluctuations. Your only defense of this position is that "our bodies are made up of the same energy as that of table salt." Yet how can you truly know our energy is the same as that of table salt, or even that we are comprised of patterns of energy? What is your ground for knowledge with absolute truth-value? If everything is unmeasurable, how can you truly know that we have same fundamental energy as table salt? Moreover, how can you truly know quantum things, since the notion of quantum is beyond space and time, thereby beyond our comprehension?

Even if we ignore the issue of quantum, it still does not follow how you can truly know that we are unmeasurable viz., Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle when consistently applied makes the Principle itself uncertain.

In summary, we agree with you from our limited perspective, that by observing through our minds, we are changing, but how can you more reasonably show that we truly know that we change through our observing minds? You turn to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, but as mentioned the Principle when consistently applied makes itself uncertain; and you turn to the notion of "micro-quantum fluctuations", but the notion of quantum is beyond our comprehension.

What you need to do is establish a more reasonable ground for how you can truly know the absolute truth-value of the Heisenberg Principle, existence of quantum fluctuations, or anything else, instead of just assuming it.

348. Entry:

"I think the proposition cannot be overcome because every time people do things that they later regret, this shows that they did not know (were not aware of) themselves when they did them. If they had known (been aware of) what they were doing at those moments, they would not have done them. If people do things they would not do later, that means that they don't know who they are from one moment to the next."

Svetlana Ivina June 5 2002

Response:

We agree with you, in some sense, that in establishing that people do things they would not do later, then we can say that they do not truly know who they are, otherwise they would not have done things they would not do later. However, knowledge with absolute truth-value of oneself does not necessarily mean knowledge with absolute truth-value of all other things, and therefore, it does not necessarily follow that knowledge with absolute truth-value of oneself would eliminate regret with one’s actions. Viz., in our apparently interconnected existence made of many things, there is more to making an unregrettable decision than knowledge of oneself.

Also, it is unclear how you truly know that people do things that they would not do later (viz., what ground do you have for your assertion of absolute truth-value?).

Further, if people regret only some things they have done, does that mean people have true self-knowledge during the other things they do not regret? What is the connection between non-regret and self-knowledge with absolute truth-value? Does all non-regret pertaining to individual action stem from self-knowledge with absolute truth-value? We do not think so, because there are a lot of other reasons for non-regret like having the view that things are meant to be or we have no control over our existence.

349. Entry:

"Through our simple modes of perception we are able to determine that the universe is infinite. (I can explain.)
Once that is established then we know that all things are relative. This means that we know that we are no different that anything else in any way. Therefore, we know exactly what we are, (part of the infinite pattern of the universe) and we are that thing at exactly the same time."

Dylon Paul Storey June 6 2002

Response:

If the universe is infinite, it means that we cannot come to a complete determination that the universe is infinite, without contradicting our determination. Therefore, to avoid contradiction, we can only determine that the universe is infinite from our limited perspective. So your claim that we can truly know who we are by establishing the universe is infinite does not stand.

350. Entry:

"Who we are = analyzing thought to know who we are, and that through this analysis we know who we are. Then the act of being and knowing are the same reality. This proposed action is the exception to the proposed separation of the act of knowing and the act of being that collapses the statement by combining the previously separate actions into:
I know that I am one who is trying to know and that in the state of ‘analyzing’ we are both in the state of knowing who we are and being who we are.

This idea is the philosophy behind a working project called ’delta mapping.’"

Additional comment:

"I place here the proposition of the sixth sense...
whereas the known five senses are input receiving neurons that receive information of the outside world. I propose that the sixth sense is the ability to think about thinking input not received from external stimuli but instead neurons that receive input from observations of the concept world that exists in our brains."

Brian Anderson June 17 2002

Response:

How do we truly know through "analysis" that we are the "analyzing thought to know who we are"?

How do you truly know "I am the one who is trying to know"? Who or what is this "I", and how can you truly know it?

You refer to the "sixth sense" or "thinking about thinking" in which our internal conscious thought process is devoid of external stimuli, and therefore, you establish thinking about thinking or analysis as a whole-onto-itself, which acts as the ground for self-knowledge with absolute truth-value. Yet how can our analytical thought process be considered a whole-onto-itself when it is more reasonably interconnected, at some level, to external stimuli? (Viz., thought based on internal conscious stimuli would not make sense without some connection to thought based on external stimuli or bodily parts which are connected to the external world.) Also, due to our causal perspective, something from something else ad infinitum is more reasonable than something from nothing (or whole-onto-itself).

Entries 338-344 Entries 351-353