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Originally Posted by grant hutchison
My sense of self was not intact, since I no longer felt myself to be in continuity with "Grant Hutchison".
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You described walking and not being able to stop. Would it be fair to say that it was your behavior at the time that you felt disconnected with? Your example describes a disruption in behavior--a "this not how I normally am."
(Try not to let my use of the word
behavior influence you the wrong way. Nobody is talking about rats pulling levers here, but of the indescribably rich tapestries of human life and all that it entails.)
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You can of course consider things in this way, but I fear you're trying to find a place in the external, objective world for something that is the quintessence of internal, subjective experience.
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Rather, I think "internal" and "external" are primarily metaphors for talking about aspects of our lives. They are handy shorthand for referring to otherwise complex aspects of life. My own situation in the world is unique to me. I may describe aspects of it as if I was necessarily witnessing events taking place strictly inside of me instead of as something I do or that has happened to me and that you do not share in or are aware of.
"Objective" and "subjective" are just handy inventions of the philosophers. The substrate of everything we talk about is our lives in the world. We draw all sorts of pictures in such talk including the pictures of "internal" and "external" worlds. Normally, I would be polite and not point that out, but this is a science forum on a skeptic board. I feel obliged to keep you all on your toes!