Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 4:57 am
See, me, I think that there is only I. There is only "I" for everybody. 
--A
--A
It is true that there are "other understandings". A person might really set fire to London in the belief that their life is a dream. That IS "an alternate understanding". But it is not a sane one. So when speaking of other understandings, we have to ask whether they are true or not.Fist and Faith wrote:But you accept reason and logic as postulates, even claiming your faith is reasonable and logical, yet you abandon those postulates at every turn. So are you insane?
See, the thing is, your and Chesterton's understanding of "there is no 'I'" are no more the only understanding of those things than my understandings of your postulates regarding logic and reason are the only understandings. You think they accept those postulates, then ignore them in practice. I think you accept those other postulates, then ignore them in practice. But they are accepting those postulates in practice - just not by your understanding of those postulates. And I am forced to assume that you are practicing logic and reason, even if it is as far removed from any I can recognize.
You can speak of "other postulates" and if your chain is true at every point, then you can speak of my ignoring true postulates. If, however, a person has begun with the premise that "life is but a dream" (the insane proposal of "Row Your Boat"), then his appeal to our denial of his following postulates is vain. He has begun from the wrong point and so all his calculations are wrong, however carefully calculated.