.....with philosophical implications. — Wayfarer

Readily accessible from the realization “existence” is a category, yet “being” is not. The first is irreducible, the second reducible to the first.

Sorta like.....”Heraclitus and Parmenides walk into a bar......”.

If those two had just sorted this nonsense out, back in The Day, we might not now have been “....strained and ruined by the nonsense of Hegelism...”
(WWR-2, Preface, 1818)

So be it.

Interest is determined by your goals. What is interesting depends on the present goal in the mind. The only interest in knowing about the claims of long-dead philosophers is to know how far we've come since. — Harry Hindu

The first may be true, but the second does not necessarily follow from it. If I don’t know the current state of philosophy, the reading of long-dead philosophers in order to be informed of it, isn’t going to work. Parsimony suggests I might just read long-dead philosophers merely to know what they thought, regardless of their relative antiquity.
—————-

I more than assume dualism; I advocate it.

There is no justification for why they discovered it. — alcontali

We’re not asking about justifications; we asking about the facts. There is a theorem, there is a proof, so the justifications for the why of their reality is completely irrelevant. Actually, the justification for the why of them could very well be sheer accident, although we both should logically recognize it isn’t.

Both were the products of pure reason, within the context of the paradigm sufficient to facilitate it. Fermat reasoned his theorem from Pythagoras’ triples, and the justification for the why of the proof was nothing more than the mere existence of the theorem.
—————-

If it were possible to discover new knowledge by reasoning, i.e. by using a documented procedure, we would have discovered all knowledge already. — alcontali

The fact that we haven’t, and the fact that we understand knowledge is always tentative, makes explicit either knowledge isn’t that which is discovered, or reasoning isn’t the means for it. Reason is a fundamental human condition, so whatever else is the case, it must have to do with reason; anything else is contradictory and therefore absurd. So it follows necessarily that knowledge as a discovery is a false representation.

I’ll leave it there.

But we can't know if they would say something differently. — Harry Hindu

True enough, but irrelevant. Interest is judged by what is, not by what might not have been. It would be irrational to hold an interest in falsified theoretics of long-dead natural philosophers, but it isn’t irrational to hold an interest in theories metaphysicians create that empirical science cannot conclusively address. Don’t have to live and die by it to be interested in it.
—————

you should probably be knowledgable of what people who study the brain are saying when they can make predictions about what you experience when parts of the brain are abnormal. — Harry Hindu

There’s really no good reason to worry about what may never be the case, so it follows that there is no good reason I should be knowledgeable on predictions. Truthfully though, I hope they find a cure for Alzheimer’s before I catch it. Otherwise, I shall deteriorate predicated on the standard process of all biological creatures.
—————

discussing the mind-body relationship on a philosophy forum — Harry Hindu

Can that really correlate to the predictions of cognitive neuroscience, if that paradigm has to with physical mechanics, but philosophy has to do only with simple human rational capabilities?

Don’t get me wrong. Science in general is both fascinating and quite useful. But I, a stand-alone thinking subject, am more concerned with what my mind does for me directly, however abstract that may be, than I am with what my brain does for my indirectly.

So you’re saying Fermat didn’t reason to his theorem and Wiles didn’t reason to his proof? How would you account for either the theorem or the proof, if the cognitive faculties of each of their respective originators were not in play?

one definition....... — Samuel Lacrampe

I like that one....

second definition....... — Samuel Lacrampe

.....not so much that one.

Assignment of a property to an object is indeed the activity of a subject, but I don’t think it is merely a matter of opinion.
—————-

Have you noticed that the propositions “This apple tastes good" and "Samuel thinks this apple tastes good" have the same message, and yet the first one is subjective and the second one is objective? — Samuel Lacrampe

I’ve noticed it now, insofar as the message is the telling of something about the taste of apples. I’ve also noticed that seemingly the first is objective and the second is subjective. I’ll withhold my rebuttal until you’ve assured me you didn’t inadvertently misplace your qualifiers and thereby shown me the error of my ways.

If there is at least one long-dead philosopher who would hold with his claims given what is known today, then if he was interesting then, he would seem to be just as interesting now. Why would such long-dead philosopher give a crap about the claims neuroscientists and biologist are beginning to make, when his philosophy is not affected by them?

Works just as well the other way around. If some guy doesn’t give a crap about what neuroscientists and biologists are beginning to claim, he Is perfectly justified in holding with the same claims long-dead philosophers put forth in their day.

Makes no difference to me personally, as a regular ol’ human being, that one part of my brain communicates with another such that I feel good or bad about something, or whatever else happens behind the curtain between my ears. Actually, I couldn’t possible care any less about it. That a certain neural pathway is triggered by a certain activation potential invokes not the slightest interest in me at all, when it occurs to me it’s time to go check the mailbox.

Just sayin’........

I think it is misunderstanding that is the origin of concepts. Concepts are generated in an attempt to resolve misunderstanding. — Yohan

Sometimes, perhaps. Dark matter was conceived pending a possible misunderstanding of observation or mathematical prediction. Nevertheless, it is pretty hard to de-legitimize the concept of “incline plane” when you see a ball merrily rolling from a higher to lower elevation.

OK.

I'm highly dubious of attempts to 'explain reason'. — Wayfarer

Absolutely. I’ve harped on this forever.......reason cannot explain itself without being used to explain itself. No one is going to take seriously anything to patently circular. It matters not what name is given a particular methodology for the explanation, it still must be derived by reason. At least, as long as it’s a human doing it.

Let the free-for-all begin!!!!

The established standard on reason, understood as the primary activity of the conscious mind, gives no origin or identity to it. Nowhere in any critique, even while giving the fullest account of what it does, its authoritative role in human morality and knowledge, is there a single solitary comment on what it is.

After 50 years of writings, and the development of a very specific philosophy dedicated exclusively to it, containing not one inkling of a definitive formulation for its origin or constitution, I’d be mighty suspicious to see one show up anytime soon.
————

Sorry...I got carried away. You asked about the “origin of the concept “reason””, which is easy enough to answer: understanding. Understanding is the source of all concepts, but the question remains as to whether reason is a concept. The argument has been made that a definition is sufficient to justify the possibility of a concept, but we find so many definitions for reason that conceptual veracity for it diminishes accordingly.

This would be naming a particular, for which the main cause of its individuality is the particular matter — Samuel Lacrampe

Yes, agreed, but reductionism mandates that for the simplest objects, or complex objects perfectly congruent, the particularity of identity reduces to the space and time of it. The irreducible identity of a thing is itself.

Which inevitably leads to an absurdity: rationally, the simplest possible thing can only be conceived as possessing a singular conception, but empirically, even a photon is conceived by at least two, its energy and its velocity. The simplest singular conception is time, and if time cannot be a property of things, then there can be absolutely no things conceivable by a singular conception.
—————

the activity of a thinker is not necessarily a mere matter of opinion; neither in act (it is either true or false that I am thinking), nor in content (my thinking process could be right or wrong). — Samuel Lacrampe

Agreed, not necessarily. I didn’t mean to intend that. The subjective conscious activity is reason in general, and opinions, beliefs and knowledge are mere matters of degree reason judges of truth. A natural condition of rational agency is determinations of certainty.
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Yeah this is could be a whole discussion in itself. — Samuel Lacrampe

Wonder what the opening salvo would be.

Maybe language was originally mostly visual like sign language. — frank

A reasonable assumption, yes. Then came drawings, geographical markers, all sorts of visual aids. Generally though, I think conversants engaged in some dialogue has the listener recalling from his own congruent experiences, images relevant to the speaker’s words.

Not too much controversy there, right? Other than giving the rabid solipsist a gigantic soapbox.

What I thought you were talking about was habit, something in which the subject/object distinction (and even consciousness) often plays no role. — Xtrix

I was. Except consciousness, which inescapable under any conditions of human action whatsoever, depending on what one thinks consciousness to be, of course.

Tying shoes is somewhat simplistic, granted, but if it is the case that instances of imaging is the modus operandi of the mind when there is no need of a subject/object dualism, the question then arises, what is the origin of those images. Psychologically speaking, it is memory; origin, philosophically speaking, it is a priori pure reason, the very thing Hume denies as having any such power.

The reason this matters, is that habit cannot explain the first learning of what may eventually become habitual. Pure reason, on the other hand, has no problem with it. Again, depending on whether one accepts that there even is such a thing, as opposed to pure naturalistic determinism, or the myriad of relative absurdities in between.

Anyway.....didn’t mean to go so far afield.

You say:

At most we could say that our experiences correspond with a world. But no amount of correspondance makes the experience of the real world itself. — Yohan

I say:
The most we could say is that our experiences are merely representations of the world. But no amount of representation makes the experience of the world as it is in itself.

Close enough.

Minor point; you’re gonna get your butt handed to you on a platter if you say “atom of light” in any
less than gracious company.

Maybe we are all different when we come to talk about philosophy. — Brett

Yes, I would say so, when it comes to talking about philosophy. But we’re all the same in obtaining one.

That's a very interesting point and, incredibly, often overlooked when discussing human action. — Xtrix

No doubt, and is the ground for refutation of Hume’s human action by mere habit, or, which is the same thing, convention. I can tie my shoe via mere image without conscious thought because I already know all there is to know about tying shoes, that is, by habit. But that tells me nothing whatsoever about how I learned to tie my shoe in the first place.

The eye can't see itself. — frank

A perfect example of the problem: reason thinks it can see itself, knows it makes mistakes, so informs as to how to prevent them. It’s all a mere chimera: we in our very nature are required to use something to express what we do when we think. But when we think qua thought alone, we require nothing of the sort.

So, no, the eye cannot see itself, but the eye still needs to construct an explanation for what it does see.

Good post, and not all that long. Much appreciated.

you say you saw a brown dog at such time and such place, and I say I saw also saw a brown dog at the same time and place, then we conclude that your dog and my dog are identical, that is, we speak of the same dog. — Samuel Lacrampe

Yes, agreed, but that presupposes we each have the antecedent experience of brown dogs enabling our perceptions to be consistent with each other. The principle works for anything for which we have a common experience. Nevertheless, all we’ve done is identify a general conception.....dog.

If you call out, “here Sparky!!” and I call out “here, Fido!!”, the dog comes to you but ignores me, we have gone further than the establishment of identifying a general conception, that is, we have given an identity to a particular instance of a general conception.

Maybe, in the interest of metaphysical reductionism, we only make the notion of identity such a big deal, is because we absolutely insist on having one for ourselves. At the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, we cannot abide being confused with something that is otherwise identical to us.
——————-

It sound to me you equate the identity of a thing with its name. — Samuel Lacrampe

Close, but a little further down the line. I agree to identifying a thing by its name, which is the same as my conception of it. Or, I identify a thing by means of its concept. But I still may have need to single out a particular thing out of a bunch of things all conceived as possessing the same name. No big deal if I need to pick out Ford from all cars, an even lesser deal if I need to pick out Mustang from all Fords, lesser still if I need to pick out convertible from all Mustangs. But these reductions are all concerned with empirical predicates, easily explained from the fact the conceptions corresponding to each reduction is itself a reduction. In this way, I can reduce to a very specific instance of just one general conception using nothing else but those properties, from which I can give an identity to what I really want to know. Maybe, in the case of a single instance, being identical to and having the identity of.....are exactly the same thing. Maybe, that’s what Aristotle wanted the rest of us to understand.
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The answer, as per Aristotle, lies in the distinction between essential properties and non-essential (or accidental) properties; where if you change non-essential properties, like weight, you retain your identity, but if you change essential properties, like dying, then you lose your identity. — Samuel Lacrampe

Agreed. But what is it that is lost? That is, of what is identity comprised? What is an essential property?
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"Object" is the thing observed, thought about. "Subject" is the observer or thinker. — Samuel Lacrampe

Yes.

So subjectivity means abstract, rational, non-empirical ideas, and objectivity means empirical things, is that more or less correct? — Samuel Lacrampe

More or less, yes. There is objectively valid, which are not empirical things, like equations, geometric figures, notions and ideas, that we think, and, there is objectively real, which are empirical things, like equations and geometric figures we construct, plus anything whatsoever we perceive. For the objectively valid, the conscious activity of a thinker, the internal domain, is responsible for those objects of reason, which is subjectivity. For the objectively real, the world, the external domain, is responsible, for all that which occurs without any thinker.
———————

Objective claims are about reality, and can be true or false, right or wrong. Subjective claims a mere matters of opinions, and cannot be true or false, nor right or wrong. — Samuel Lacrampe

Absolutely. Which is why metaphysical investigations are so much fun. How to tell the difference, and what to do about it when the difference is told.

Took me all day to write this....ho’made chili and cornbread and the Rose Bowl and Mama’s special Eye-talian bubbly got in the way.

Sorry.

Very true. I meant it in the former way. — Xtrix

Cool. I’d add that the subject/object notion isn’t even used in the internal, everyday occupation of the brain. The image of tying a shoe is much more the case than the thought, “I am tying my shoe”. Reason creates the dualism as the means to explain itself internally in thought, or express itself externally in language, the intrinsic circularity of which tends to make reason its own worst enemy, a condition the pure physicalist/naturalist/empiricist exploits, and the speculative philosopher ameliorates.

Humans....what an odd bunch, eh?

Are we choosing it or are we hardwired? — Brett

I suggest we are hardwire for reason; from reason comes philosophy. Experience may mediate, but reason is always the adjudicator, for the adoption or maintenance of a philosophical doctrine.

Nahhhhh.....nothing as exotic like that. The notion of subject/object is me thinking as subject in relation to the world as object, not the world as subject/object in itself, which is how I understood the question, re: “see the world that way”.

Explain away if you’re so inclined; no argument from me.......promise.

Yes, I favor idealism of a certain sort, along other disciplines. But that doesn’t matter here, cuz I’m not arguing anything. Just listening, even though I might ask a question or two.

see the world in this way or something similar to it. — Xtrix

Chalk me up in the pro subject/object notion column, but I don’t see the world that way.

Direct experience does not reveal an external physical world. — Yohan

Why wouldn’t it?
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You actually have to assume metaphysical physicalism in order to have the illusion of experiencing an external physical world. — Yohan

What if I don’t want my experience illusory?

”Two" things are identical or one-and-the-same if they have all the same properties that make their identity. — Samuel Lacrampe

our identities are distinct precisely because you and I have different properties. Matter, for one thing: my body is not yours. Then a few other properties I'm sure, like height, weight, etc. — Samuel Lacrampe

So you’re saying our identities are distinct because we have different properties, as in, your height is this and my height is that. Your mass is this my mass is that. You’re right-handed, I’m left-handed. So you have one identity and I have another. If that is true, are identical twins one-and-the-same? Even if their parents couldn’t tell them apart by their properties, is it permissible thereby to say they have the same identity?

I submit that all empirical predicates are properties, without the least regard to the specifications of them. I doubt you think of yourself as “Samuel LaCrampe” just because you are a certain height, because “Samuel LaCrampe“ has been many heights. Therefore, some other condition must determine why we are separately identifiable as particulars in the set of all general instances. Existence in simultaneous time yet different spaces serves as sufficient conditions to distinguish the individuality of our proprietary phenomenal humanity, but still does not condition that which we each assume as a subjective identity specific to ourselves.
—————-

[...] no metaphysical proposition can be shown to be valid without empirical justification.
— Mww
If by that you mean the original data must come from empirical observations, then I agree. If you mean that the concluding metaphysical claim must be empirically verifiable, then I disagree. What is metaphysical is not directly observable; it can only be deduced. — Samuel Lacrampe

What is metaphysical is not directly observable and can only be deduced.....absolutely. That different times are not coexistent but successive as different spaces are not successive but coexistent, is a metaphysical proposition because it is not directly observable, or, in proper philosophical parlance, is a synthetic a priori judgement. In order to justify that claim, however, to demonstrate an objective validity for it, if there should be one at all, there must be empirical observations sustainable from it. Otherwise, it remains rattling around between our ears, not doing anything useful. A metaphysical claim cannot be proven, but only shown to be non-contradictory in keeping with the principles of universality and necessity, consistent with the current state of our understanding. Case in point.....all mathematical propositions. In fact, any a priori metaphysical deduction. A = A, the LNC, the LEM.
——————-

A thing is real/not real independent of our knowledge of it.
— Samuel Lacrampe

......Then you should be able to tell me about a real thing unknown to you.
— Mww

Of course I can't do that; but I can tell you about a real thing that existed before I knew about it — Mww

I was pretty sure that’s what you meant; just wanted to see what you did about it.
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So in the stool example, it doesn't matter if a subject does not know if the stool was previously assembled or not. — Samuel Lacrampe

.....which is why I covered my ass with, “...but having the experience of chairs (stools) in general...”. With that, he knows it is possible the pieces can become a stool if he puts tab A in slot B correctly.
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Subjectivity by definition refers to the subject of thought, not the object of thought. — Samuel Lacrampe

What do you mean by subject of thought? The answer to this is the beginning of the extrapolation of the notion of identity itself, which is what we’ve been stabbing at for days.

I offer subjectivity to be the conscious rational activity of a thinking subject.

The object of thought is a cognition, an empirical cognition grounded in phenomena is an experience, a rational cognition grounded in abstractions is a judgement, all of which requires a thinking subject, that to which those cognitions, without exception, all belong.
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Could you give an example where we perceive two things which seem identical without knowing what those things are? — Samuel Lacrampe

How about perceiving two things that each have 4 legs, wings, and speaks. It is entirely possible for such things to exist, because there is nothing contradictory about them, which makes explicit the possibility of perceiving them. Damned if I would know what they are, but I certainly could perceive and recognize the properties they have. Identical things only means we already have the intuitions representing their properties in us, such that we know what it means to be identical, even if we have yet to give them a name corresponding to the synthesis of those intuitions in that form. We know dogs so we know legs; we know ducks so we know wings, we speak so we know speech. We just haven’t antecedent experience of an instance where all three of those properties co-exist simultaneously. Another example of the distinction between identical to and identity of.

And if that’s a little too far-fetched, the same principles apply to any circumstance where something is first learned.

Ever onward........

I don't understand why you are bringing knowledge and perception in a metaphysical topic. — Samuel Lacrampe

Because no metaphysical proposition can be shown to be valid without empirical justification.
———————

A thing is real/not real independent of our knowledge of it. — Samuel Lacrampe

Then you should be able to tell me about a real thing unknown to you.
———————

Two" things are identical or one-and-the-same if they have all the same properties that make their identity. — Samuel Lacrampe

Then why are you and I not identical? Are our respective identities really from the properties we have in common?
———————

what is your definition of "identical"? — Samuel Lacrampe

As I said, I don’t have a problem with identical things, if as you say, they all have the same properties, or empirical predicates. But no two things are identical before there is an identity for one thing to which the second may relate, and no one thing can be assigned an identity before the conditions for it are thought, in the case of ideas, notions and such subjectivities for which there is no particular object belonging to it, or before the conditions of things are perceived, in the case of all else for which there is a phenomenal object of some kind belonging to it necessarily. It follows that if either class has even one incongruent thought (properly conception) or perception (properly intuition), the things cannot be identical, for the simplest of reasons that they cannot have the same identity. Assuming correct judgement, naturally.

Furthermore, whether we grant two things are identical or not, we are given nothing from that, that we can use to establish the identity of just one of them. I can perceive two things which seem identical without knowing what those things are. Therefore, being identical must be different than having an identity. The irreducible ground for identity is of course, A = A, in which a thing is equal only to itself, which carries the implication that any A is equal only to its own self. A rose is a rose is a rose may imply rose A is identical to rose B, but does not imply rose A is equal to rose B.

I can muddy the philosophical pond further if you like: being identical invokes the categories of quantity, quality and modality, whereas identity invokes only the category of relation. The former juxtapositions things to each other as they are perceived, the latter juxtapositions things to us as they are thought.

Anyway.......call enough is enough? If you got more, though, I can keep up.

I’m ok, thanks. Nothing against your science; I just prefer mine with a little more rational foundation.

As far as I can tell, all counter-intuitive theoretical and/or mystical talk is parasitic upon ordinary usage. — thing

You mean like this:

“....the nervous system sends 'messages' of a sort to future generations....”

(Sigh)

I don't see it come up much on forums. — thing

Nahhhh......discourse on pure a priori metaphysics never was a popular pastime.

I'm thinking the example of snowball is not adequate — Samuel Lacrampe

Lest we forget where this current dialectic came from, I submit it is quite adequate for a response to the original proposition......

If my status could change from pre-existence to existence, then necessarily my status could also change from post-existence to existence — Yohan

......in which an argument, via snowballs, is constructed in the attempt to show that any arbitrary status post-existence is indeed very far from that same status in existence prior. If “my status” is taken to mean the metaphysical “I” of the OP, and if the argument via snowballs holds, then the claim the metaphysical “I” is eternal, is successfully falsified, insofar as in one form “my status” is this, and in another form, “my status” absolutely cannot be the same this, but is rather, that. The second form has a status, certainly, just not the same status, which serves as sufficient reason to deny the externality of, not so much “status” as a general condition, but the “status of me” as a particular condition.

The logic grounding the falsification is the distinction between identical to and having the identity of. Granting that the common understanding allows, say, re-constructed snowballs to be claimed as identical to that from which it was re-constructed, merely given the sameness of its properties from which relatively indistinguishable appearances follow, does not grant the proper philosophical understanding the warrant to also grant the original and re-constructed snowballs to have the same identity. And because the subject matter has to do with metaphysical abstracts, philosophical understanding should have the floor, the empirical experiment being simply the ground for showing a logical proof is possible.

As to chairs, the argument would be much the same: the appearance of the re-constructed chair is justified in being claimed as identical to the original chair, merely from the fact the material for both is exactly the same material, but that in itself is not sufficient to justify the claim that it is the chair of singular identity. Say, for example, someone else comes into the room and not having the experience of all that material he sees laying around as having at one time been a chair, but having the experience of chairs in general, puts all that material together properly such that a chair is created, will not have any justification whatsoever in claiming the chair he just made, is the chair from which the pieces came. I mean.....as far as he is permitted to say, those pieces were just delivered from IKEA, and they never had been coalesced into the form of a chair at all.

OK, fine. But now we’ve incorporated different epistemological perspectives, which the original argument does not abide. We can overcome that by simply allowing the guy dissembling the original chair, having been called away for something, to return finding a chair, for all his intents and purposes because of the chair’s appearance, comprised of the pieces he left in a heap a few minutes ago. What right does he have to claim the chair he sees now is the same chair (some chair of singular identity) he took apart before? I submit he has no right at all, for he cannot know that someone didn’t bring in a twin-like chair and removed the pieces left strewn about when he left the room.

As long as these possibilities are logically reasonable, claims with respect to identity cannot be determined by them, which makes explicit the truth of identity cannot arise from appearance, which in their turn arise from properties, which in their turn arise from perceptions, which in their turn arise from empirical conditions, or, which is the same thing, objective reality.
—————

From all that, just between you and me and the transcendental fencepost, could you now think that your.....

by "identical", I mean not that they are similar, but that they have the same identity, that is, they are one-and-the-same. — Samuel Lacrampe

........may have an internal inconsistency? Because I think there is an internal inconsistency, I will say you are correct in saying....

I understood that your answer would be no. — Samuel Lacrampe

......in as much as, no, the two chairs do not have the same identity, they are not one-and-the-same.

Instead of ending with admitting I may have misunderstood what you’re trying to say, let me begin with it. If I got it right, the following pertains; if not, please correct me and I’ll go from there.

You’re asking about the initial snowball never thrown, in juxtaposition to the final (re-constructed) snowball initially thrown. This is why I thought the two scenarios too dissimilar: there is no initial snowball never thrown. To have such a snowball never thrown requires two entirely separate events, which has no equivalency at all to the original argument, and which you’ve agreed the two snowballs therein would indeed not be identical because there would have to be “two snowballs side by side”.

But you’re asking from a hypothetical, with respect to one-and-the-same matter constituting the original unthrown and re-constructed final snowballs, as an argument for equivalent identity. But is it exactly the same one-to-one matter? Is it even possible for it to be so? The same kind of matter, sure, but will the gathering of splattered snow material re-constructed, ever perfectly equal the pre-splattered material unthrown, such that the one-and-the-same matter is maintained? And even if it is, we still have to contend with the spacetime non-equivalence, re: can SB1b at t2 have the same identity as SB2 at t1?

Speaking of histories, I’m going to assume you’re familiar with Feynman’s sum over histories, in which he says, paraphrased, if we don’t know which path a particle takes we are permitted to say it takes all possible paths. When you invoke different histories for the snowballs in their taking of different paths, we are permitted to say we don’t know what happens on those paths such that when they end up in one and the same location, something happened to them to make them different from when they split up. We can only be absolutely certain nothing happened if we can be absolutely certain they are exactly identical before and after their different paths, which we’ve already established we cannot.

In short, we should guard against demanding waaayyy too much of our knowledge claims. Conventional human understanding allows the snowballs to be identical and by association have the same identity; proper philosophy, and indeed even physics, will allow no such thing.

Sure you may, and.....thanks.

The two scenarios are too dissimilar to be compared, aren’t they? In mine, the snowball is built, destroyed and reconstructed. This in juxtaposition to yours, in which you’re standing there with a snowball in your hand. 1.) there is a change of snowballs, 2. ) there is no change in snowballs..

But the question is with respect to whether or not we are justified in claiming all the snowballs are identical. If the primary ground for establishing exact similarity, such that all snowballs may be called identical, is the holding of similar properties, then any snowball as such would be identical to any other. All three may be identified as snowballs, as opposed to, say....chicken coops, but each should have attributed to it an individual identity, re: SB1a, SB1b, SB2.

But wait, he said, with child-like exuberance.....what if the justification for itemizing, re: SB1a, etc., derives from that which is not itself a property? If space and time are nothing but pure intuitions, the necessary conditions under which human experience of objects is at all possible, then this becomes the true source of identity proper, for no two objects can exist simultaneously in the same place. That which is here and now absolutely must have a different identity that that which exists there and then, even if it is conceived as being constituted of the same properties.

‘Course, we could just Sharpie a black stripe on my snowball and your snowball, throw mine against the barn, re-assemble it and see where the stripe is compared to the stripe on yours melting away at rest in your hand. Entropy mandates the probability of re-assembling the destroyed snowball with the stripe intact is vanishingly small, so even the inclusion of markings as a form of common property, in some cases is insufficient for being identical, while still maintaining similarity.

Anyway......it’s all fun to think about.

So you are saying if you exist again, then you didn't really cease existing prior. — Yohan

Yeah.......no, not at all. If I make a snowball, heave it at the barn wall and it explodes, it has immediately ceased to exist as a snowball. If I gather up all the snow from the former snowball, make another snowball from that, there is then a snowball containing the constituency of the former, but not the identity of it. A snowball exists again; the snowball really does cease to exist. The arrow of time does not allow snowballs in general to exist, cease to exist and exist again as the same thing. This in response to......

If my status could change from pre-existence to existence, then necessarily my status could also change from post-existence to existence — Yohan

......in which the status of you is the snowball. Rather than being thrown against a wall, you just roll over and die, synonymous with post-existence. It is rather unlikely your splatter will be reconstructed such that your status re-emerges, in the same way the snowball was reconstructed, synonymous with changing your status from post-existence to existence. The point being, even if it could, your status would not be equivalent to the status you had as an existence, which is the same as saying your existence status really did cease to exist. And if your status did cease to exist, and some other status emerges, it would be impossible to distinguish whether the re-emergence was a reconstruction from former existence or born anew from non-existence.

It is not necessarily the case status can change from post-existence to existence in the same way as status can change from pre-existence to existence.
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Tautologies are only worthless if they are obvious. — Yohan

Any logical tautology is obvious to a sufficiently discerning mind. Any proposition with no knowledgable content is immediately obvious even to the common understanding. If I walk up to you, stick out my hand and declare, “this is my hand”, you would be excused for exhibiting a puzzled expression.

If everyone was saying some bachelor's are married, and I pointed out that actually nobody who is unmarried is married...it would be a tautology — Yohan

Propositional error: their proposition has married as a predicate, you proposition has unmarried as a predicate. I don’t see tautology as much as I see inconsistency.
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So a seed implies the possibility for a tree. In a sense though the tree already exists in the seed...it's just undeveloped. — Yohan

....which shows very well....

All proofs involve some form of axiomatic circularity — Yohan

....insofar as trees always arise from seeds, but not all seeds give rise to trees, and, insofar as “tree” contains definitive properties sufficient for the conception of it, those properties themselves do not inhere in a seed, which necessarily holds properties of its own such that the conception of “seed” is entirely distinct from the conception of “tree”.

An undeveloped tree is neither tree nor seed.
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You said if all possibilities exist, they are not mere possibilities.
What is a mere possibility? Is a mere possibility something that could be but isn't? — Yohan

A mere possibility is a thought to which a particular conception, out of the myriad of standing conceptions, has not been judged, or cognized, as consistent with it. In the event where the only perception you have is a noise; any individual cause of the noise, is merely a possibility for it. The conception of the actual cause requires either additional perception, or some logical deduction a priori, dependent on the extant experience with noise in general, re: having experience with firecrackers, from the noise you just heard you are justified in the deduction that it is not caused by a firecracker. In such case, you may know what the cause of the noise isn’t, but you cannot deduce what the cause is from that alone.

If all possibilities exist, they are not mere possibilities. This requires the distinction of categories. That which is possible has a distinct separation from that which exists. If this distinction is not granted, the logical argument dissolves. Nonetheless, if a mere possibility is nothing but a thought having no particular conception belonging to it, and if that which exists absolutely must have a conception belonging to it necessarily, in order to be judged as a thing at all, the logical argument stands unaffected. A mere possibility of a thing is very far indeed from the existence of that thing.
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The one does not necessarily follow from the other. While true you didn’t exist at one time, and did at another, doesn’t mean you came from nothing. — Mww

How is switching from non-existence to existence any different from switching between nothing and something? — Yohan

It isn’t, in general. Both require causality. In the case of your existence from non-existence, the causality is given by standard reproductive mechanics. General nothing to something would also have a dedicated causal mechanism specific to its effect, but what that particular mechanism is could not be conceived until the effect, the something, whatever it may be, is known.
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And then how far back can we go? If we go back in time far enough can we get to a place where I didn't exist? — Yohan

Again, human reason always seeks the unconditioned, that which is the irrefutable, absolutely fundamental ground for all thought. Problem is, that involves infinite regress, for any answer promotes the possibility of an underlaying query as to why such should be the case. In the interest of philosophy in general, and apodeictic knowledge in particular, interest is best served by terminating infinite regress in a logically consistent manner. Otherwise, we can claim nothing whatsoever as a ground. Thus, the question how far back in time can you go before getting to a place (in time) where you don’t exist is easily answered by the certainty of regular human reproductive mechanics: no childbirth, no you. Plain and simple and best of all, non-contradictory. The feeling of being dissatisfied with such explanatory simplicity doesn’t negate its effectiveness.

And, with respect to the title of the thread, there is nothing given from the mechanics of your existence, that wouldn’t apply equally well with the metaphysical “I” with which the title is concerned. Because the question “when is there no “me”” is so readily susceptible to an objectively valid response, if one should wish to manufacture a theory to supplant that which is established from experience, he had best be able to justify it with, not equal but greater, explanatory power.
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Seems nobody is getting my points. Oh well, sorry if it's a waste of time. — Yohan

If you’re going to buck established philosophy, you’d better have something interesting with which to do it. As long as your points can be so easily argued, from a strictly dialectical procedure, which in no way is meant as falsification of those points, is a sure sign you need a more substantial presentation.

If my status could change from pre-existence to existence, then necessarily my status could also change from post-existence to existence(post-non-existence) as well. — Yohan

So no need of the arrow of time? There is no content expectation from pre-existence to existence, but if from post-existence to existence holds, then there should be content expected from the former to the latter. Post-existence implies an existence already done, then to return to it should bring the content with it. If there is no such implication, and the return from post- has no content, how can it be said it is a return at all?
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If that isn't the case, then you have to demonstrate that pre-existence and post-existence in some way hold unique ontological statuses to mere non-existence. — Yohan

Maybe not so much ontological, but certainly temporal statuses. In both pre- and post-, existence is given beforehand, hence its ontology is moot, the pre-and post- merely the time before and the time after such given existence. Non-existence has no such temporal distinction whatsoever, for existence is not given from which a distinction can be made, and furthermore, has no ontological status of its own anyway.
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But if I truly didn't exist before, yet now I do, then I came into being from nothing... — Yohan

The one does not necessarily follow from the other. While true you didn’t exist at one time, and did at another, doesn’t mean you came from nothing. Granting that the mechanics of standard reproduction gives the body, and if no mind is possible without the body, it follows that the possibility of mind is given from the certainty of the body. One would be forced to show how mind absolutely cannot arise from body, or, show how body is insufficient for mind to arise from it, to disallow that it does, which only then makes room for coming into being of mind from nothing.
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My current conclusion is, all things exist except impossibilities.
So what can exist, does exist. — Yohan

Which is it....all things or possible things? All things except impossibilities, or all things that can exist, which is the same as all possible things that exist, do exist? If all possible things actually exist, they are not merely possible. In which case, the proposition is the same as all things that exist, exist, a mere worthless tautology, true by meaning alone and having absolutely no particular knowledge derivable from it.
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Non-existence is an irrational status. — Yohan

My (general) non-existence yesterday is a contradiction; my non-existence tomorrow is not. Non-existence is not an irrational status, but rather, solely the other half of a complementary-pair necessity. Except in the case of an uncaused cause, for any existence, the non-existence of it is immediately conceivable.

It is the conditions under which knowledge claims about non-existence is justified, that may be irrational, that is to say, does not follow from pure reason logically.
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But appearance is not directly related to existence. (...) We already know many things exist which do not appear to us. — Yohan

For humans, the first is catastrophically false, even if the second is true. Nothing whatsoever appears to us that doesn’t exist, and, even if some appearances give false judgements, they are nonetheless derived from the existence of something.

On the other hand, it is entirely possible to think things that don’t exist, but those are not appearances. First and foremost among such thoughts is, of course, that illusive, ambiguous, at the same time ubiquitous, omnipresent “I”.

Things at rest tend to stay at rest
Could we call non-being a sort of being at rest? — Yohan

Hmmmm.......things at rest. Things...objects...spacetime realities. That are not in motion relative to something else. From a Newtonian perspective, fine. No problem. However, can a non-being ever be in motion? If it cannot, its at rest condition is quite meaningless. And if the possibility of motion is contained in some non-being.....how would we ever know about it? From its effect on something we can know about, perhaps by mere perception? All that does is negate the empirical Principle of Causality and still tells us nothing positive about non-being.

Ok, so what about the other necessary condition....time? Can any meaning of time be given to that for which motion is unknowable? Probably not, but here, the effects of a causal non-being may be given a time but not necessarily a motion. First something wasn’t, then it was. If time is a purely rational construct, there is no intrinsic contradiction, even if the unconditioned necessity of time be granted.

Nevertheless, while human reason always seeks the unconditioned, there is something quite disturbing in the notion......POOF, AND THERE IT IS. Empiricists of course, will have no truck with this POOF stuff, and nobody should without some sort of rational justification. Even if everyone grants the primary responsibility for everything human belongs to the brain, no one knows exactly how the magic is done, which just cautions us in the construction of our POOFS.

From the time you hit the elementary school sandbox......

a ground you can build your beliefs on — Monist

......has already been established.

The vast majority of humanity made it through life without ever cracking a book on philosophy, and without giving the discipline of philosophy a conscious thought. Which raises the question, given the lack of necessity or even the obvious usefulness, what does the study of philosophy actually do for those indulging in it? Seems like it would be nothing but a source of somewhat more than trivial information, with respect to how those writing the books, think. In short, merely a matter of relative interest.

Experience will always be the prime determinant for philosophical understanding, but understanding itself, as a purely cognitive faculty, is always theoretical. Every human has experiences, which makes explicit every human already has a philosophical understanding, however unknown its constructions may be to him. It follows that the study of theoretical philosophy with respect to pure thought, as the foundation of how the ground for the building of beliefs became established in the first place, is all one really needs.

And, as everybody knows, there is only one such speculative philosopher worth mentioning, that being the Privatdozent in mathematics and physics, and The Esteemed Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at Königsberg. One may read whoever he wants for background, but he should get seriously involved with Kant, to obtain the standard on which all subsequent cognitive philosophy, whether affirmation or negation, is obliged to follow.

My opinion only, of course.

Simply put, all the “I” was ever meant to do, is represent the human thinking subject, and that to whom feelings belong, and then, for no other reason than to talk about it.

No thought, no feelings, no talking, no “I”, hence no need for its eternity, the proof of which would be impossible anyway, given the current metaphysical paradigm.

situate truth where it belongs... as one precipice of all human thought and belief, and thus of all human understanding. — creativesoul

Concur, without reservation. Problem is, human understanding can be....and usually is....influenced by a posteriori conditions not of its own making.

Case in point, this very opening comment, where the link talking about philosophers being granted resources “...to study how false beliefs take flight and what this means for public understanding of science....”**, is informed by “...coinciding with Trump’s impeachment...”.

Or......how to put forth one thing, supplemented with a tacit implication for something entirely different yet not rationally deductible from it, in an attempt to sway understanding into a connection that doesn’t exist. That such influence is incorporated into the opening comment defeats the fundamental philosophy of truth itself, that being, situate truth where it belongs.

That this cognitive device is rampant is not in question, but is blatantly obvious, insofar the conversation immediately went off on the impeachment, rather than remaining with the content of the link and its concern with false beliefs with respect to science alone.
“....Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest, mmm, mmm, mm-mm-mmm...”
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Rhetorically, for you in particular, as groundwork only, whether granted or not:
“....The old question with which people sought to push logicians into a corner, so that they must either have recourse to pitiful sophisms or confess their ignorance, and consequently the vanity of their whole art, is this: "What is truth?" The definition of the word truth, to wit, "the accordance of the cognition with its object," is presupposed in the question; but we desire to be told, in the answer to it, what is the universal and secure criterion of the truth of every cognition....(...)

Now a universal criterion of truth would be that which is valid for all cognitions, without distinction of their objects. But it is evident that since, in the case of such a criterion, we make abstraction of all the content of a cognition (that is, of all relation to its object), and truth relates precisely to this content, it must be utterly absurd to ask for a mark of the truth of this content of cognition; and that, accordingly, a sufficient, and at the same time universal, test of truth cannot possibly be found....(...)

On the other hand, with regard to our cognition in respect of its mere form (excluding all content), it is equally manifest that logic, in so far as it exhibits the universal and necessary laws of the understanding, must in these very laws present us with criteria of truth. Whatever contradicts these rules is false, because thereby the understanding is made to contradict its own universal laws of thought; that is, to contradict itself....”
(1787)

**https://www.socsci.uci.edu/newsevents/news/2019/2019-12-16-oconnor-weatherall