Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Writings from Late Notebooks' and 'Causation'

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2 ideas

16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
The 'I' is a conceptual synthesis, not the governor of our being [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: The 'I' (which is not the same thing as the unitary government of our being!) is, after all, only a conceptual synthesis - thus there is no acting from 'egoism'.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 01[87])
     A reaction: Compare Sartre in Idea 7116. Since I am inclined to define the self as the controller of the brain, I am intrigued by the remark in brackets. Presumably he considers the self to be a fiction, and that animals don't have one. I think, probably, animals do.
The 'I' is a fiction used to make the world of becoming 'knowable' [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: I take the 'I' itself to be a construction of thinking, of the same rank as matter, thing, substance, individual, purpose, number: that is, only a regulative fiction used to insert a kind of 'knowability' into a world of becoming.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 35[35])
     A reaction: Personally I consider the 'I' to be a very real brain structure, which controls the multitude of brain operations, and focuses them on the survival and success of the organism.