Selfhood and Otherness: A Duologue

Prologue

What separates living things or more specifically Human beings from other things is the ability to do certain activities with an intention and to be conscious of what they do. This is why these other things are called dead or non living. This distinction between the living and the dead is of great philosophical interest. Humans are sentient, i.e. they are aware of what they do and what happens around them. By around I mean the surroundings and observance of nature which Humans as a spectator do. And this includes all the natural things as well as living things including plants, animals, insects etc. What separates Humans from others, for there do seems a difference between objects such as a rock table etc, organisms which includes animals, plants etc and Human beings on the one hand and my self. The point here is to understand and explore this distinction between the living and the dead. Or if I be more specific, the special feature or quality in Humans that separates them from every other thing in this nature, so what it is to be self and to be alive and how it is different from another thing which may not be alive? How are they different from each other? For if we fail to give an answer or reason for why we think like this, then though despite of noticing this distinction, we will fail to take it as a knowledge claim, and perhaps might just end up taking it to be like a folk psychological view.

In the hope of describing such confused matters carefully and clearly, an attempt is bestowed in the form of conversation between two persons in order to deal with the philosophy of simplicity, where the first mind or character Q, due to his curiosity and desire to know is unaware and the other person P, whose basis of knowledge is his simple is a disciple of life as proposed by the other self. Here the oblivious person due to his unknowingness is inquisitive and thus he can only find solutions of his doubts by either asking these queries to himself or to any other being. On the other hand, the other person, who is also desperate knowledge seeker, plays a role of learned for the time being, yet they may change their roles at times and this is agreed by the acceptance of both the persons. A major thing pertains from the nature of both these fictitious characters, and that is the importance of questioning in our lives. Questioning is normally a verbal act which is probably used to collect an amount of data to clear your doubts. Questions are addressed in two ways, firstly to the self and secondly, by to people other than you. Both Q and P follow both the ways, however, generally, it is considered that a person involved into self-questioning is deeper by nature. But this is only true and such a situation arises only, when one really accepts or knows that he is aware of something. Greek philosopher Socrates (469-399 B.C.) always questioned others in order to reach understanding. This was because he firmly felt that he knows nothing so how can he obtain his answers by questioning himself. However, in my opinion for the refinement and to increase the range of mind, one has to contemplate and hence has to reason, which is the cause of questioning. Therefore, in addition to the contemplation, both the characters follow that a query shall be put-forwarded to both, i.e., to themselves as well as to others.

The Duologue

Questioner- Good morning friend! Today you seem quite involved, and if I am not wrong, there is no one to share this involvement of yours.

Philosopher- That’s true,

Q- Since, I seldom find you sitting with someone and unoccupied, can I sit and spend some time along with you.

P- Well, I am always preoccupied with my thoughts and you are always welcome to have my company. But before you say something, please tell me, what made you to decide that you want to spend some time with me?

Q- It is a human need to share what he thinks and experiences about the world, every man talks to convey his message or to clear up his thoughts. And in the same way I felt that you are quite aware about life, you are the one who can fruitfully discuss on what I want to confer as I have often seen you giving confident answers to other people.

P- So you expect confident answers from me?

Q- Yes, why not? You are rational, and a rational being only gives a confident answer when he himself had done an analysis on what is asked to him, and when all the blurredness related to it is wiped out. And if not confident answers then at least questions which clarify the problem further.

P- Whatever you may think about me, but I know that I am ignorant and simply nothing but a naïf. Anyway, that’s my pleasure, but we can really have a worthwhile conversation, only when you will throw some light on what topic you want to confer.

Q- I am not a person, who concentrates and spends time on a continuous and single thought diligently, but in my mind, like sensations, thoughts come and go in different notes of time. Still like you, I also attempt to think of some or the other topic during long periods of time.

P- That’s nothing a cause of disturbance. So, at this very instant what problem you are wondering about?

Q- Yeah, at this moment I’m wondering about the problem of physical contact i.e., the problem of physical touch. I will say that we have a feeling of touch and touch is made physically on skin, i.e., when you make your hand or fingers in contact with my palm, I can sense and feel it, at the same time you also feel my palm. Now, when we are holding each other hands, we are joined by the sense of touch. Now, if some one else comes and hits you at your hand you will feel that sudden touch along with a pain, but I will remain unaffected.

P- That’s true

Q- When the third person hits you, I despite of being joined by the sense of touch with you remains unaffected, I like you have two ears, same one nose, same body and we belong to the same species still you remain unaffected by the sense of touch. Why is it so? When I can feel you and vice versa then how come what you feel I don’t?

P- Since you have noticed and conceived that much, then you must have also noticed that when you move, you carry yourself. I mean to say that when you walk or run, the material thing that you carry is your own body, which may be covered with your clothes, but since you have set upon these clothes deliberately, thus they are not your possessions. Now I can say that all you possess by yourself is nothing else but your body. Now when you talk about the sense of touch, then in every moment of your life and also when you were in your mother’s womb, you always had experienced a continuous sense of touch. Even when you stand naked then also you are in a continuous touch with the invisible air. Now other than your living soul, all the material things are just things, i.e., non-living things, which possess no senses at all. Similarly except for your own body, air, me or any other matter is foreign and thus it does not affect you. You are self-contained only with your own body. You are only true for yourself. Well, briefly I can end by saying that for you, self is your only possession and reality.

Q- I think I am able to collect your notion.

P- Just to explain you in a different way, I will say that each one of us is different individually, this word ‘individual’ is important, though each individual has its own self, which is the reality and commonness. Still, we are real only for us, as just mentioned right before this statement. Thus, I can say that we are different both at the physical and mental level. If we try to make a chain of similarities between any two individuals, then it is certain that this chain will break at a very short length.

Q- I am getting but you said that clothes are my deliberate possessions and not my absolute possessions.

P- Yes, it is quite evident.

Q- Now when someone hits you, while you are in a physical contact with me, I never feel the pain that you experience, unless and until that third person hits me directly. But when I am wearing clothes over my body, and when the other man hits me, still I can feel that pain. Is that hitting is passed from the clothes to me. If yes, then why it does not passes through your body to my body?

P- Listen, you know that clothes can be of cotton and also of wool.

Q- So,

P- So, when you wear a woollen sweater, then on hitting, you feel less pain than when you are wearing a thin cotton shirt.

Q- That’s true.

P- This corresponds that the more thickly the cloth, lesser the pain you feel. This happens because the hitting on cloth affects your body as it presses your body along with it. However, in the case when someone wallops me, you will never feel the pain that I have faced, until I don’t imply my self harshly on to you, or the other person hits directly to you. This is because, no matter where or for how long the other man hits me, the point of contact where we are touching remains unaffected.

Q- But what about my other private possessions like hair, our hair unless disturbed from the root are never sensed by us. Are they really my private possessions? If yes, then why don’t we feel any pain when we cut them? Why you when I am in touch with you is not my private possession? And if you answer no then in what different sense they are attached from my scalp? Why they are my private possessions?

P- As far as clothes and other things are concerned, I have already up to quite an extent cleared that they are with you temporarily. Now hair according to a trichologist is made up of dead cells and thus they have no sensation associated with them, hence we don’t feel any pain when we cut our hair. What I am saying is a biological fact.

Q- But what does dead cell here means? Or moreover, what does dead as an adjective to the word cell means? I am concerned not with the biological properties of the word dead, but with the rational or philosophical concept of it. Now if we consider the conventional meaning of dead, i.e., non-living, then I do not understand that why and how a dead or a non-living thing or in other words a thing with a non-life element is attached to our body and still is dead, and still does not rot... How come?

P- Ah! You know that you indirectly are approaching to the one of the most intriguing and difficult questions that can be asked. Difficult not for those people who are uninvolved and not curious, but to people like you and me, the one who have a thirst for knowledge, and I have been pondering about it from a long time. Here the summary is the distinction between the dead and the living. Say for the case that when we talk in philosophical terms then what a living body functions is equivalent to a dead body as well. We know that a thing is living and the other non-living, but this knowledge about this distinction is something like an immediate inference. When we try to make a distinction in terms of origin, then both living and non-living bodies are reproduced and finally decay. We are born through our parents and similarly a stone is an aggregation produced from minerals and rock material. Like living bodies, non-living bodies too inherit few properties from their original cause and some properties are entirely different from their parents. Say for instance water. Water has a completely different property from its original material, i.e., from hydrogen and oxygen. And further, the basic unit of any body, whether for living or non-living is what scientists assert as atoms, however that’s a different story because there are still no ultimate units known. Thus, why the hair of human shows this dualism is the root cause of what we want to know. The solution of such questions will actually lead us to the distinction between the living and the dead. Biologically, this distinction is favoured by the functional attributes of the body, which is in some way peripheral.

Q- The living bodies, of which you are talking about, are compared with the non-living bodies such as a stone. Can you explain the matter of your worry in terms of an illustration and with a system adopted for knowing this distinction?

P- Yes, I may take the example of a small stone and a plant seed. When I consider them I notice that physically, they except for their secondary qualities such as colour, surface etc are same. However for a botanist a seed may be made up of complex compounds and a stone for a geologist may be an aggregation of minerals and they may be right in their case, but still for me, physically they are one and the same. They generally have comparable weight, size and physical properties. More importantly they are one and the same for me because they both hitherto share a vital similarity between each other and it is that both are dead bodies. But still when a seed is kept in a water or soil, unlike a stone it modifies. These modifications are not the changes which occur due to the chemical alterations, as chemical changes happens with a stone under the influence of other chemicals also, but the modification in which a self functioned parts, i.e., root and shoot develops automatically. And this modification is unaffected temporally. Now the physical objects which were physically similar are completely different after the sowing of the seed. What happens that causes this difference between these two objects? A stone unlike a plant seed, kept in any situation can never proliferate by itself. For a practical man, the idea that these two objects were same is a fallacious idea, but mind it, this idea of physical similarity is not a fictitious one, but based on my immediate observation and the axiom given by Dutch philosopher Benedict Spinoza, which says “Bodies are distinguished from one another in respect of motion and rest, quickness and slowness…”, i.e., known by a change. The answer on how this modification occurs is given by a biochemist, but why or what makes it to be in this state of lifeless to a life-filled body is never answered. As the concept of practical men is itself not substantial because they do not seemed to be much bothered with the above question and this is what the biggest problem that I face. So, in many aspects the answer of the mutual relationship between the living and dead is not known, and if given, irrespective of the fact whosoever gives it, the solutions are more or less unsatisfactory for either of us.

Q- In support of your answer, I would like to add that many practical people place living things in the material world. They support this view by holding that living things are nothing but a very complex form of chemicals and their multifarious actions, whereas non-living things are just a simpler version of them. However I have to mention the inconsistencies related to this, as if today or in future we develop an android, philosophically speaking he is ought to be different from a human being. They are not just internally different but also essentially different. And this affirmation of mine is by a pure faith and not a blind faith that there is a distinction between living and non-living, the same which you talked about a stone and a seed. The will that I possess is indubitably something extraordinary for a rock.

P- I have no problem with your opinion and I readily agree with you, but we need to have a justification for what we state.

Q- What’s in your mind?

P- Well let me read out some portions to you from the notebook that I am carrying, in which I have listed my thoughts. May be that will provide us with some solution or at least will help us to investigate the issue in a better way.

Q- Yes, please go ahead!

P- I Define Credit as the necessary praise or blame that we “attribute” (or is “attributed”) to a cause because of the benefit or harm which that cause provides to us. And by Will, I mean nothing but the subsequent effect of the Credit, which necessarily causes a specific action. Further, that action of the Will is called an Attempt or Volition, which is an inevitable consequence of the Will, i.e. which if follows, follows necessarily and only from Will.

Q- Do you think that really is the case?

P- The Will to do anything arises ultimately from a self-Credit or a Credit attributed by someone to us. For it is clear from the Definition of Credit that unless we don’t praise or blame ourselves (pre)consciously or the (external) cause leading to this effect, it is not feasible that a person may react (Attempt) or act. Therefore, the Will which is the reason for our actions is actually a necessary result of the Credit and nothing else. So by this understanding I say that by a Living Thing I mean a thing possessing the ability of Attempt, and likewise a Dead thing does not possess this ability. Living things are distinct from Dead things in so far they Attempt, or have the ability of Attempt. Such things as far as they Attempt and act or possess this ability are said to be living, and the duration of their living is called Life. So I have attempted to give an answer to your question. Think and we can surely discuss more on this when we meet again.

Q- Well, I will surely think about it, and I am glad that now I have something more to ponder about. You know, it is interesting that these matters that we have discussed right now at the face of it appears trivial and hair trifling, but the moment we go beyond the face value of things, then what we call trivial matters becomes philosophy, and we can learn more. Thank you my friend for ending on such a good note. Thanks and farewell!

P- My pleasure!

Anish Chakravarty is junior research fellow at the Department of Philosophy, University of Delhi. He completed his BA (2009) and MA (2011) in Philosophy from Zakir Husain College, New Delhi and Hindu College, Delhi respectively. He is the co-editor of Metamorphosis: Delhi University Student’s Philosophy Journal (2011). His research interests include philosophy of Spinoza, metaphysical cosmology, human free will and determinism, conceptualism and the meaning of life.