Sunday 21 April 2024

Inside And Outside

"Requiem."

The two preceding posts highlight two different meanings of the words, "inside" and "within." What is inside human beings?

Objectively, physically, materially, empirically:

a brain;
soft material in red liquid.

Subjectively, mentally, psychologically, spiritually:

consciousness/awareness.

Some of those adverbs imply mind-body dualism but I am using the available vocabulary.

The philosophical question:

How does the objective generate the subjective?

Answer:

We do not know and maybe the question cannot be answered. 

Authors of fiction work with the objective-subjective distinction every time they write a narrative with a point of view. Objectively, the temperature is below freezing point. Subjectively, we are informed that one of the characters feels cold and notices that others are also shivering. An account is either objective or subjective but nothing bridges the gap.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I am not sure, I agree, that all philosophical problems will ever get satisfactory philosophical solutions.

Ad astra! Sean