Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Confessions of a Philosopher', 'Parerga and Paralipomena' and 'There Are No Abstract Objects'

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2 ideas

16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 3. Limits of Introspection
Why don't we experience or remember going to sleep at night? [Magee]
     Full Idea: As a child it was incomprehensible to me that I did not experience going to sleep, and never remembered it. When my sister said 'Nobody remembers that', I just thought 'How does she know?'
     From: Bryan Magee (Confessions of a Philosopher [1997], Ch.I)
     A reaction: This is actually evidence for something - that we do not have some sort of personal identity which is separate from consciousness, so that "I am conscious" would literally mean that an item has a property, which it can lose.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 6. Determinism / a. Determinism
We don't control our own thinking [Schopenhauer]
     Full Idea: Thoughts come not when we want but when they want.
     From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Parerga and Paralipomena [1851], III:37)
     A reaction: One of my favourite Nietzsche ideas originated in Schopenhauer!