Lets begin by better defining “perimeter.” Necessarily, the perimeter of an identity (paradigm/Psub1) is the demarcation line of what the brain can comprehend primarily by the use of language; Where, everything inside the perimeter, the brain can at least associate (rightly or wrongly, as the “true/” actual empirical world is concerned) with a known construct. Here, allow construct to mean everything from the most quantum unit to the entire lattice of quantum units hierarchically combined and associated within the mind. However this lattice is composed, whether in a well organized or in an extremely gapped arrangement, it’s most minute quantum constituent is allowed to remain/become a constituent due to its intelligibility. Our most primary mode of making our experiences (new and old) intelligible is association with foundational and inherited bundles of constituents (ex: we inherit language and it’s connotations and tones, which underlie a subconscious impartation to the brain . . . and other passively imparted quantum units exist as well). So, whatever can be (even passively/subconsciously) allowed to stick to the lattice of the mind, can only be allowed to do so through its intelligibility, whether it be by mode of language-inheritance or by some other more scientifically precise understanding of the brain’s operations. The perimeter defines the frontier of this intelligibility, per identity, so that the open ends of complex concepts, or quantum units, at the tips and tops and brand-new bases of the lattice begin to bleed off and fade into the unintelligible. This bleeding-off, or fading, is the foggy corners of certain thoughts which send us wanting for new information to round-out a theory, thought, etc or have us desperately craving for an association with already extant constructs. Anything conceived to have the possibility of being actualized (as an action, I assume you mean) within this perimeter is necessarily intelligible, and therefore it resides within the perimeter.
Outside the perimeter are those things at which our “open-ends” are pointing. Gaining new constructs augments, and or warps, the lattice (paradigm) as it as assimilates these new constructs and rearranges existing quantum units to other locations, redefines them in light of the new constructs, or counts them as redundant in light of the new, etc. Therefore, there is a distinction to be made between the processes of associating and rearranging constructs already intelligible (re-associating/organizing the mind) and that of incorporating something which was never intelligible before (migration).
An argument, you ask? We have evidence of our own migrations. We have carried these with us all our lives in memories of our differently composed identities, or phases of a person, we remember ourselves being (as in childhood) in the actions we performed on the convictions we had due to the perimeter of our identities relative to a period of time and to the size and shape of our paradigm at that particular moment. (I use 'phase' for the first time here as a more popular and palatable term for how a modern person might understand themselves as being composed of different identities throughout their life. The term palatability I use to mean exactly that . . . What tastes good to the individual . . . What is easy and agreeable to a particular macro-paradigm . . . What are each most likely to ingest when the requirement to think is diminished or removed?
It is not that there are false identities in the sense that, due to the constant motion of our mind’s migration, we must be static to have authentic identity. Quite to the contrary, an awareness of this migration may just allow an identity to become a more active participant within their own ongoing change (whether for the better or personal/communal harm it is very difficult to anticipate with limited, finite minds). The term “suspicion,” I will suppose was introduced in response to a reflection that certain processes composing who you are may be going on outside of your own awareness. This is an unnecessary and unhelpful term if it contains the element of fear which will permit the identity to accept paralysis or retreat from exploring itself. This analysis will not kill you; it will only tend to challenge the ordered, safe and comfortable perimeter of your paradigm which your self-preservation may interpret to be as threatening as death. If it is meant by “suspicion” that we must be rigorous in our standards as we take active control in guiding our paradigms, then, yes this is a complimentary reaction to such a philosophy.
As for what is meant in light of all this, as being better defined by what we are not, in relationship to what we think we are . . .
We must now know that we fundamentally do not have fixed identities. Why would our identities constantly migrate if we already possessed the power of everything there is to know—if were just the case that all that were needed is to properly arrange/order everything within the present paradigm? Obviously, as Peter Kingsley’s words seem to compliment, there is a longing taking place here. I do not find this some metaphysical longing of a soul . . . the notion of a soul is nothing but a complex of a particular identity’s association of inherited constructs to deal with its own unavoidable dynamic migration. We long because we are incomplete. We are incomplete because our understanding of ourselves in this universe is incomplete. Simply, we long and migrate because there is still room in which to move. We are better defined by what we are not, in view of what the cosmos still promises to tell us, because what we are is still out there. And so it is the shear size that I assume of the “unknown” beyond the perimeter of our most augmented macro-paradigm that necessarily defines us in relation to it.
What is to be said about a “metaphysical holding” as a subject of our predicated properties by substance dualists for grappling at the need for some continuity of identity? My current paradigm has no use for such a concept as the particular functions of such a metaphysical essence, should it exist, are completely unintelligible to me. When I/We are able to empirically approach these supposed operations with border-constructs (“open-ends”) founded on intermediate augmentations or great tangential leaps beyond the extant macro-paradigm, then such a concept may prove to be a beneficial pursuit in understanding who we are and why. From this current vantage though, I cannot make intelligible sense of how that would be useful, even if it is our reality within this universe. I acknowledge my perimeter while looking for ways to augment it empirically.
The only way I see there being a “problem” for a notion of self-consciousness being linked to personal identity is if identity is equated with existence. What I think I am, memories/knowledge erased or scrambled, etc . . . does not have bearing on what I am and have always been but do not currently perceive or have never perceived.
A brief hedge: I have just recently been approached about all sorts of Continental readings I am excited to engage. I started about these convictions primarily due to my reflections about myself (before even reading the term “phenomenology”) while attempting to transition from the Marine Corps back into civilian life and an academic environment. I wish for the time/job to research and write and develop these ideas in the best scientific theory and most powerful thinkers on the subject. I think we can make real progress in the pursuit of these truths about ourselves.
