Notes for 2-12-02 Metaphysics 203
Announcement: Ethics of eating, Wed Feb 13 4:30pm rm 217 sc bld.
Reviewed test scores & q’s. We are no longer going to do web board postings. Print them out if you have done some and create a journal with them. Six double spaced pages are due at the end of the term. Next exam will be shorter but very soon. Prof. passed out the new reading list.
Discussed the Buddhist reading: The question is “Is there a substantial or real self?” Buddhist teach an-atman, which means no-self or no-soul. Consider the question, are shadows real? Well, they have a dependant existence-light and an object. the Buddha says we have a soul, but they are dependent on the physical. This is where the five things that make up the self come in: (physical) form, feeling, perception, (decisions, intentions) formations (acts of will), consciousness. The “self” is just a convenient label for these five concurrent processes.
When you die you cause another being to be born, but it isn’t the same you. “I am angry” – where is the “I” ness. There is no “stuff” that is angry – anger is a process. The point: there is no enduring spiritual substance, the “spirit” is just a process. They assert you can not claim a process, ex. “I am angry”, you cannot say “I have a lot of wind”. Anger and wind are not substantial things.
Buddhists are very much like functionalists- structure with computational power-mind. Class discussed how valid western interpretation of these thoughts are and how much we can gleam from one little piece of writing.
Buddha - these processes change us constantly- we are not the same person from moment to moment.
Locke says, though we lose and gain molecules constantly we are always the same person because we maintain constant structural form.
Buddha -no personal identity- nothing which makes you the same person over time because there is nothing which makes you a person period.
Locke- Memory and psychological characteristics define personal identity