Dialog: Looking Inward

Looking inward what do you see?

I don't see much, it's the same darkness. I can't see anything that I can't see outside as well. All my inner reflections seem to be based on my outer experience.

That shouldn't be right, you have to find some guidance in your inner world, at least that's what is said by others.

Do you think it's possible for a human to think outside of the experience he has? We build out thoughts from that experience. That's the fabric, right?

Ah, the old rationalist/empiricist dialogue.

Yes, maybe, though I said fabric and mind is the scissors that's applied on this fabric. So when some person defends rationalism, we point to the fabric, when a person lauds empiricism, we point to the scissors.

Scissors and fabric philosophy, you say. Both are required or what? Which one is the basic?

Neither of them, or both of them. Our problem in determining the source of thoughts is that this investigation is always post-hoc. We have some thoughts, some mental state and we are trying to come up with an explanation. This explanation has to take one of these aspect primary as it's a linear explanation. You can't say both otherwise you're accused of being vague. However when you look for the primary cause, you can find both of them, or any mixture of them as the primary cause.

So there isn't a primary cause, or both?

The reason we are looking a primary cause is political I think. It's mostly about thinking a leader or a king. We are trying to find a ruler for our mind, are we citizens of nature as an empiricist may claim or a subjects of mind?

Nowadays everything is political, so there is no surprise that you reduce this debate to a political one.