snip The concept was not created for that > > purpose. > > Curtis, I seriously doubt it was "created for a > purpose," i.e., by philosophers as a conceptual > tool.
That sounds possible but its origin is presocratic so I don't know if we can get to the bottom of it. It's the sort of thing any thoughtful > person could come up with on their own and wonder > about, and I'm sure many have. It is a radical conceptual departure from our everyday experience. I think my characterization is accurate for how it is used in modern philosophy but I could be wrong. > > It doesn't have to have any reference to > enlightenment, nor is adopting it as an assumption > even necessarily pathological. I agree as an intellectual assumption. In a case of pathology it would not be a pure intellectual version of the perspective anyway. But a person who believes that no one exists outside his own mental world may not be functional in the world which tends to deliver some concrete counterexamples. It doesn't have to > change anything about how you interact with the > world; it just changes your understanding of the > meaning of "interact with the world." > This is a cool point. I agree and acknowledge my limits in speculating at this level of abstraction. It is also why I have little interest in theoretical physics, I know my limitations.
