the entire story of ethics and the self, rides on the simpler notion of causality. — TheMadFool

It seems that the self is bound up with consciousness. We are only a self in terms of consciousness which is our relationship with the world.

Perhaps we have a self but it isn't much if it is not in a relationship to something. The ever changing river is the relationship between us and the world. That seems to be what the self is. — EnPassant

Perhaps, but then, there is Husserl and Derrida and those in between and the idea that eternity is not some infinite succession of moments, but rather the absence of time, and time is what is produced when memory surges forward with its history of events, language, culture and so forth, into an unmade future. This stream of future making events IS time; and we are not in time, but we, our personality, predilections to act, think and feel, ARE time. This is Heraclitus' world.

But what of the self? This fleeting being constantly in flight into the future caught in a temporal dynamic? This is where actuality is, in this fleeting process' center. The eternal present, as Kierkegaard thought of it.
This might sound far fetched, that is, until one takes up meditation, the act of annihilating time. There is something to the strong claims made by Hindus and many Buddhists (Mahayana) that say, in the deepest meditative states, something qualitatively distinct steps forward that is more real, so much so it makes eveydayness look pale by comparison.

eternity is not some infinite succession of moments, but rather the absence of time — Constance

Physical time is a physical object just like a chair or table except it has an extra dimension. If physical objects disappear so will physical time. An analogy would be an oak tree and the molecules that make it. If the molecules that make it dissolve into atoms, the oak tree will evaporate and disappear.

t's my supicion, well-founded or not (you be the judge), that the entire story of ethics and the self, rides on the simpler notion of causality. An event takes place and instincitvely we seek a cause. This desire to pin down a cause transforms into an ethical dimension while the cause itself is rendered by the mind into a self. — TheMadFool

There may be something in this. But it ignores the essence of ethics: pain and pleasure, suffering and bliss. This may fit into a causal matrix in our general affairs, but they are not mere causal events, reducible to the principle of sufficient cause. I mean, that screaming pain from a spear in your kidney, how can causality explain this? It is, after all, that pain which is the essence of the ethical prohibition NOT to inflict it on others, or yourself. All ethics has this feature: no pain, pleasure (of some kind or another) at stake, then no ethics!

which is the essence of the ethical prohibition NOT to inflict it on others, or yourself. — Constance

For me the cornerstone of morality is the sacredness of life. One should not harm life because it is sacred (humanists - replace sacred with worthy, valuable, etc)

Physical time is a physical object just like a chair or table except it has an extra dimension. If physical objects disappear so will physical time. An analogy would be an oak tree and the molecules that make it. If the molecules that make it dissolve into atoms, the oak tree will evaporate and disappear. — EnPassant

But to add: that oak tree dis present not out there in some remoteness from experience, but in experience itself, and experience is generated from one moment to the next. Experience is Heraclitus' stream that one cannot step into twice, or even once (Porphyry). time is not "out there" but in here, experience. Einstein knew this very well having read Kant when he was 13 or so.

time is not "out there" but in here, experience. Einstein knew this very well having read Kant when he was 13 or so. — Constance

It seems to me that there are many kinds of time. The most obvious is physical time. Another is mental time. Also mathematical time. Mathematics IS time of we define time as the relationship between objects in 'space'. There can be mathematical objects in abstract spaces. Logic is also time. Any order is time of one kind or another.

There may be something in this. But it ignores the essence of ethics: pain and pleasure, suffering and bliss. This may fit into a causal matrix in our general affairs, but they are not mere causal events, reducible to the principle of sufficient cause. I mean, that screaming pain from a spear in your kidney, how can causality explain this? It is, after all, that pain which is the essence of the ethical prohibition NOT to inflict it on others, or yourself. All ethics has this feature: no pain, pleasure (of some kind or another) at stake, then no ethics! — Constance

I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. My point is simple: causality is about cause and effect and ethics is just an extension of causality given an ethical twist with the assumption or inference that we're autonomous (free) agents.

It seems that the self is bound up with consciousness. We are only a self in terms of consciousness which is our relationship with the world. — EnPassant

I doubt that the self can be equated to consciousness because within a framework that entertains the possibility of souls, there are periods (between lives) that we're not conscious and yet we still believe the self exists. Also, what about children, infants - they're conscious but they need to attain a certain age before they pass the mirror test.

there are periods (between lives) that we're not conscious — TheMadFool

Can you be sure we are not conscious in these times? We are conscious in dreams but don't generally remember.

Can you be sure we are not conscious in these times? We are conscious in dreams but don't generally remember. — EnPassant

I' not sure but that blade cuts both ways - are you sure that we are.

It seems to me that there are many kinds of time. The most obvious is physical time. Another is mental time. Also mathematical time. Mathematics IS time of we define time as the relationship between objects in 'space'. There can be mathematical objects in abstract spaces. Logic is also time. Any order is time of one kind or another. — EnPassant

But all of these issue from the origin, which is an agency of human consciousness. All hard sciences, all logical propositions, all that can be said at all! issues first from the agency of experience. Is that air you're breathing? For by the time a breathe makes it into conscious awareness it is a processed event through, to put it in physicalist terms, a 100 billion neuron brain thing.

But all of these issue from the origin, which is an agency of human consciousness. — Constance

That brings us to the question of whether there is an objective source 'out there' that maps into our consciousness.

That brings us to the question of whether there is an objective source 'out there' that maps into our consciousness. — EnPassant

Here is a rather "weird" piece of reasoning. But then, the world IS weird:

In the traditional sense of "out there" there is nothing but repetitious finitude. I seriously think, and this is pushing it for most, that the objective source is "in here". I look out into a starry night and I know that eternity is somehow there but then, intuitively an entirely impossible concept. What IS the delimitation of finitude? I think it obvious: it is a brain, of specified dimension in weight and volume and density. I think I am looking at the "place" where the gray matter simply ends when I put my wonder and curiosity to the matter of eternity. A physical border? But then, if it is the brain that "makes" this border, the brain itself cannot be "in" this made finitude any more than a painting can be in a painting (yes, it could but this would beg the question, where is this painting, in another painting? I mean, you can ask this forever until you get to the Real place which is not a painting at all). The brain must be outside the border it creates, in eternity. And since it is outside, all that is inside the brain is in this outside, and this means that our experiences are eternal and the foundation for all we experience lies here.

One way to look at Wittgenstein's claim that our values and logic have their generative source "elsewhere".

Does the human brain create consciousness or is it a receiver of consciousness?

"My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists." —Nikola Tesla

Does a conscious circle of humanity exist in the world or has it ever existed? Is the lifetime search for Simone Weil for conscious life outside of Plato's cave just a hopeless desire but in reality she was doomed to the cave life of imagination and just attached to the shadows on the wall?

Excerpted from a letter Simone Weil wrote on May 15, 1942 in Marseilles, France to her close friend Father Perrin as she was nearing death:

At fourteen I fell into one of those fits of bottomless despair that come with adolescence, and I seriously thought of dying because of the mediocrity of my natural faculties. The exceptional gifts of my brother, who had a childhood and youth comparable to those of Pascal, brought my own inferiority home to me. I did not mind having no visible successes, but what did grieve me was the idea of being excluded from that transcendent kingdom to which only the truly great have access and wherein truth abides. I preferred to die rather than live without that truth............................

The world we experience is subjective and this subjectivity has been used to create the most preposterous philosophies claiming that the world is not really there at all. What matters here is if our subjective experience faithfully relates something of the objective pattern 'out there'. An example would be colour. We see different colours and these colours faithfully inform us of the electromagnetic pattern out there.

I think the limit of finitude is consciousness, but consciousness grows and can ultimately encompass the absolute.

I agree with Wittgenstein in the sense that the order of the mind is the order of the objective world. Our ability to reason is reflected in the fact that the world is objectively ordered: in our minds there is mathematics and mathemics, in the Platonic sense, seems to be also out there in reality.

My premise is that everything we know is in existence and we know nothing of what is outside it. Therefore any thought or other about what is outside existence cannot be more than speculation (it can only have any value within existence) Phenomenology is the speculation of the unknown and some speculation cannot be anything but speculation. If I said I believed there are angels and demons that exist outside our existence there is no way of proving it because we cannot be outside existence. What we can know (but don't) differs from what we are not able to know because it cannot be known.
My position is that the self has the same premise and is a part of existence that is unknowable. This could take a lot of explaining but our lives as a journey in time and space seems to be part of existence of which we cannot know from outside self.