Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id IAA01461 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 5 Aug 2001 08:22:02 +0100 From: <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 02:25:55 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Macguffin Message-ID: <3B6CAEB3.19584.1A6943A@localhost> In-reply-to: <3B6CF0BC.17E58A2F@pacbell.net> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On 5 Aug 2001, at 0:07, Bill Spight wrote:
> Dear Joe,
>
> > > > > > But illusions of self do arise with thoughts such as "I
> > > > > > might have been a giraffe." The "I" in that sentence is just
> > > > > > a pronoun, not a self. ;-)
> > > > > >
> > > > That's right, but the word "I" does have a referent, that is, it
> > > > stands for something other than itself, which is what words do,
> > > > and guess what that referent is? (Clue: "I" is the
> > > > self-referential pronoun).
> > > > >
> > >
> > > That's from me, not Ted. :-)
> > >
> > > I stated it clumsily, I guess, but what I meant was that the "I"
> > > in that sentence only appears to have a referent, it does not
> > > actually have one.
> > >
> > Oh, it has one, all right, as Heidegger stated, "Dasein is in each
> > case MINE." BTW, if there were no referential self for the pronoun
> > "I", then just exactly who would it be that it would APPEAR to have
> > a referent TO/FOR?
>
> Well, the Dasein of the giraffe and my Dasein are *not* the same. I,
> with MY Dasein, could not have been a giraffe.
>
> OTOH, that kind of statement is not meaningless, though contrafactual.
> But to say what its meaning is is not trivial, and that meaning is
> lost if the "I" refers to me.
>
If a giraffe were self-consciously aware, it would say that it's dasein
(it's being-there-ness) belonged to it, just as you say that yours
belongs to you amd I say that mine belongs to me, and in each
case we are correct, for the truth of our statements is apodictic
(self-evident to the observing consciousness).
> Ciao,
>
> Bill
>
> ===============================================================
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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