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In an epistemology class once I said to the lecturer "I don't know anything." He said "Don't you know your name?"



Not good enough, point to that which knows. Where is it? Who knows it? If there is a knower to that, where is it.. Keep going with this investigation and realize there is no knower, only knowing.

Eastern philosophy has nailed this thousands of years ago and we westerners are up to this day totally in the dark. We actively treat the I as a concrete object that really exists as an entity. It does not hold any closer examination and evaporates entirely the closer it is questioned.


I know my name just like I make a cup of tea. It's not you who makes my cup of tea, right, so who is it? Well, me—the referent of my name, this person right here.

That's just part of how our language works. It doesn't seem to matter whether I am a "concrete object" or some swirly pattern of becoming or indeed even an illusion! The English word "I" does not refer to an eternal soul or "atman."

If you stare long enough at an ice cream you'll have the marvelous insight that in reality there is no concrete ice cream entity, not least because it melts. Yet people don't go around saying "wake up, there are no ice creams!" Why is that?


That's really not what epistemology is about at all. (Yes, I'm a big Ramana Maharshi fan etc, I know what you're talking about)


Well, given that you don't exist, mind if I eat your sandwich?


Isn't that connaître rather than savoir?

So much philosophy is playing with words.




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