that which conceives itself is mind
this might be a good preliminary characterization
but how can this characterization be explicated?
what is involved here?
clearly that which conceives itself is that which reflects
OK
but again what is it to reflect?
the thing that reflects is that which can see itself
have an idea of itself
and here we are talking about that which has ideas
and
has an idea of itself
as that which has ideas
the having of the idea of the self
is here an idea of an idea
what does this tell us about ideas
that they can be of that which they are not (the world)
and that which they are
that the idea is not defined by its object
its object can be itself or outside of itself
the object is not what determines the idea
the idea is an idea regardless of whether it holds an idea as its object
or a non-idea as object
OK
but isn't it the case that mind is defined by this capacity
this capacity to
reflect on itself and on the world
reflection is two dimensional
yes
but to reflect on itself
to hold itself as object?
you could say well what we are dealing with is two ideas
idea x and the idea of idea x
just two ideas -
no great mystery
the thing is though
how do you separate out the two ideas?
mind and its idea
are there two?
isn't it just mind -
and that mind can and does
it is the nature of the thing to see itself
mind does not step outside of mind to do this
mind conceives itself
this is what it does
is this a primitive position -
that is there is no further explanation?
is this just what awareness is?
and again there is no outside position or perspective possible
the only perspective is mind
that it conceives itself is just what it does
that is what mind is
for the life of me I don't see how this is possible
and by that I mean I don't get what is going on here
mind
holding itself as object
is mind
which is to say
the idea of mind (held by mind) is mind
how can anything be itself
and be that which sees itself?
are not there two entities here?
(I know this is clumsy - but what can I say?)
or perhaps
a function?
does this make it easier?
the function of reflection
OK
still no explication
just a re-statement in terms of function rather than things
mind is this function?
reflectivity - seems more than function - more like essence
the nature of the thing
perhaps we can say - reflectivity - awareness happens
we call this happening - this action - mind
and we try and explain it in terms of subject and object
but really these categories are categories of the mind in action
they cannot be then turned on the mind to explain its action
if you try and do this - you end up with trying to say
x is subject and x is object
and the whole point of the subject / object distinction
is that the subject and object are not one in the same
they are separate - different and apart
so to say the mind conceives itself
is to say the subject is object
this shows clearly I think that such an analysis does not work
does not get us anywhere at all
so perhaps
awareness - mind
is just simply a primitive - unanalyzable
it analyzes - but it cannot be analyzed
we cannot get behind it
there just is no objective position here
objective / subjective again -
categories of mind -
that cannot be used to account for mind
we recognize the feature - but we cannot say anything else
any attempt to do so - is trying to go outside of knowledge to explain it
we are best to face the fact that here we know that mind is -
not what it is
it is the source of knowledge - and therefore its explanation
is outside of knowledge
