Now the original post I wanted to make.
A B
Here is a camera obscura pointing at a tree. Now from our perspective outside we can see the tree outside and the image inside and we can clearly see that it is pointing at a tree (A). Turn it around and point it at a house and hey presto a house appears as the image. Voila. We on the outside see the image as a result of the object pointed at.
But from the camera's perspective it is slightly different. It is just seeing a tree (B), and then it is seeing a house. Then it is seeing something else. For the camera it is always "seeing" something, and has no other perspective: what it sees is what it sees. That outside perspective of having "real" things that are seen as images is missing. There are only the things seen, these are reality. There is no distinction between "real tree" and "image of tree" for the camera itself. The outside observer can see that for the camera the image is now more important than what it is pointing at! Indeed the Camera seems to holds all the tricks.
Is this not the World/Self dichotomy where we feel that we exist separately from the world and are more important than the world. While people on the outside see it the other way around? A hardened Nazi prison guard can kill people without even really noticing, or a US bomber pilot can nuke Hiroshima and be completely oblivious of all the cameras frying below. From the outside the camera images are very much secondary to the reality.
If nothing else how extraordinary that what seems like a complex and profound metaphysical thing can be expressed simply in terms of things and images! That is very much the insight I wish to express here.
But nevertheless we add all kinds of metaphysics to this dualism to back up the two sides of our view of the world. We add consciousness and identity and souls and self to the camera images to make it seem different from the world. To give us some greater standing in the face of "objectivity."
Okay it is true the analogy is not complete and camera is not conscious. But suppose for illustration that it is. Subjectivity is just a more sophisticated image isn't it? A new piece of technology that doesn't present the image for the outside world to see, but which processes its own images and comes up with wishes and desire.
Not getting bogged down in the complexities of as yet still unknown consciousness, the point is that whatever features of the camera we wish to add they never become more than just features of the camera. And the camera can get stuck in the same idea that somehow it is more important than the image.
The other thing to note, and the real motivation for this blog, is that the camera can never not be itself. It is always the camera. So during its life it has many images get created on its screen. It seems to the camera it is an intrinsic part of its own world. Accompanying everything it has ever seen is itself. The screen on which the image falls is always its own screen. The camera seems to be the fundamental part of its "life".
And this is true. Its a contradiction to say that the pin hole and the screen of this camera are not intrinsic parts of itself. That is actually trivially obvious. If this camera is forming an image everyone can see the pin hole and the screen must be present. But the added thing that the camera cannot get outside its own screen, it always only ever sees the images formed on its own screen is also trivially obvious. The camera that forms images on another screen is another camera. So these intuitions of the camera (if it could have them) that it is intrinsic in its own existence are all correct. That is the nature of existence.
But what the camera can't then do is deduce from this a "self". Its a fact that each camera has its own components and forms its own images. But we don't deduce from this that each camera has a soul. Well traditionally in fact we do. Animism which is the oldest form of thought says that existence comes from having a soul. That has become the idea of essence where things embody some substance which makes them the way they are. Essentially its the physical manifestation of the "name." In modern thinking we only give True Names to humans and pets, and some big machines like boats and planes, oh and we do houses as well like the Red Fort in Old Delhi or Buckingham Palace in London or World Trade Centre once in New York. And the demise of the WTC was very much seen as a physical death and loss of a soul to the Americans. So we still think like Animists. But originally everything was like this from a camera to the Sun to our child. Everything had a personal soul. Its actually a very respectful and truthful way to think and we've been on descent into the impersonal and the brutal ever since so that millions can die in warfare now and just end up as uniform printed names on stone memorials. No soul at all. But I digress while we can (and should) give the camera a soul in one sense, the specific thing that leads to trouble is to put a *separate* soul inside things like the camera.
For the animist when a thing breaks or an animal is killed that soul returns to the world. This is direct analogy to modern recycling, and in Judeo/Christian practice the "ashes to ashes and dust to dust" we all come from one world and we return to one world and one creator. There is no separate soul that lives on as separate*.
* but if this is true how can we be judged and suffer after death? Okay that requires some reading about the original ideas. It could be that suffering was achieved by becoming a ghost. But being a separate soul somehow without a body is clearly problematic.
Somehow and I need to look into how and when this happened mankind started to think that individual identity continued after death. The animist is truthful. A camera has a soul while it exists, and that soul is what makes the camera what it is. But when the camera no longer exists what use is the soul?
I would guess it is to do with Capitalism. Once ownership happened, souls became more permanent to do the owing, and eventually so permanent that they survived death. So the camera continue sto be a camera even when it isn't a camera. Queen Victoria continues to be Queen Victoria even after she is dead. Well in one sense yes. Who commissioned the Prince Albert Memorial in Hype Park. Correct answer Queen Victoria. She still has a name, and that kind of suggests she still has a soul. But you can search the universe and you will not find Queen Victoria and she is no longer commissioning statues. Her soul strictly has gone back to where it came. Queen Victoria now refers to history, not to a living person.
But the camera may disagree. While it is working and filling with images it has this sense that "the whole world" depends upon it. That is the "whole world" as it knows it, falling on its screen. It naturally seems to be the centre of the world simply through the physics of being something, in a place, with a pin hole and a screen. That "self" that is all critical during its life it may think can't possibly suddenly stop when I break. It is everywhere. I look this way and the images falls on MY screen., and that way and the image falls on MY screen. Everything is MINE. How when I break can I not exist?
This is the interesting thing I wanted to highlight in this blog, the facts of what seem a "self" are set in the very physics of existence, or having and eyes and senses and a brain and even thoughts and consciousness. All this like the camera we have. And as a result quite naturally all this is the centre of our world, because we depend upon all this framework to live and exist. This is a very reasonable animist like soul that we have. And all is good. If we lose our sight obviously the images stop just like the camera getting a rip and losing its pin hole. This is all simple and obvious. The problem though is that we tend to add something else to these simple facts. A soul inside all this, a soul that somehow is greater than all this framework, that is bigger than the camera and the images, the eyesight, all the things we are. A soul that is disconnected from all this. Like the previous post a soul that can leave the plane to see what flying is like. This is a fake soul. It has forgotten that it is built 100% from the camera and the eyes and the body and thoughts and consciousness. When these things fail so will it. They are the same!
Oh woe on woe this self thinks. I am not immoral, I will die. I must struggle to keep healthy and stop this body dying because I depend on it. Wrong! This body is you, these sights, sounds, thoughts, consciousness ARE YOU, They are your soul. There is nothing else. But woe on woe I am dead already then, the fake self cries out. Except you remind it that the real self was born of the world and will return to the world. Just like the camera, it may become broken and no longer form images, but nothing really has changed. The atoms are all there, perhaps someone will give it a new pinhole and it will work again, or perhaps it will be broken down completely and used for spare parts. And now the fake self is struggling. Is it still "me" if I get a new pin hole? Where does "me" go if I am broken into parts and go to make up 10 other cameras? Am I now 10 "mes"? These are all problems for the fake self. The true soul is just what is. You fix the camera and it has a new soul. You might give it a new name, or keep the old name. The camera doesn't care it is working.
So hopefully done a bit of teasing of the know of self. And in particular the feeling when things are happening, because they are necessarily being sensed by us, that they are happening to an "us"! Everything that we sense is obviously happening, its being sensed. But that sneaky trick we add of it happen to a soul hidden inside all this, that is the sneaky trick which is unnecessary and needs to be called out. Why can't things just happen, and the "to us" become just a necessary fact that these particular senses, eyes and brain are involved on this particular occasion.
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