So Where Do I End?

Reflections and Considerations on the Topic of the Self

Part Five of Five

This is just a summing-up kind of conclusion, for anything of substance, read: Part One: Do I Exist?, Part Two: What Am I?, Part Three: I Am a Perspective, and Part Four: Am I One Who Sees?

I can approach my brain as an object in the world, but I cannot approach my perception as an object in the world. I am looking at the world. I am finding the world. I am the activity of finding the world. That is all I can say at the moment. So, in answer to the question that we started with, yes I do exist. I exist as an activity, but not as any known object or substance in the world.

There is a hopeful part of me that would like to think that this activity proceeds from a substance that I cannot approach. If, however, there is a substance that I cannot approach, then I will have just as much reason for believing in it as I do a substance that does not exist. For now, I must be content with where I am at.

I cannot deny that there are slippery areas in this essay, areas that need to be tightened, examined, and scrutinized, but for now, these are the ideas and arguments that I stand by.

I look forward to revisiting this topic, I am certain that I will do so. Now, with a basic notion of my ideas formed, I can have them ripped to shreds by actually reading the literature on this topic. Once I have something else to say, I'll write up another blog (or series of blogs).