Abstract
The aim of the previous chapter was to account for human being in terms of ens and in terms of esse. This definition let me dig somewhat deeper into the philosophical query of what we call the self or the ‘I’. I suggeted that the self or ‘I’ is threefold, consisting of a neurological, a subjective and a transcendent degree of this emergent self. This chapter searches to find an answer to the question whether there might be the sine qua non of human being (in terms of esse). This philosophical question is of course not new and several answers have already been given. Nevertheless, there seems to be space for yet another enquiry on the subject matter. Hence, let us look closer to what has been said and which possibilities are still open. The title of the present chapter reveals that its main topic is about experiencing and experiences; it is about human being as experiencer. I will suggest that experiencing is the sine qua non of human esse; that a human being cannot not experience.
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Notes
- 1.
My translation from Swedish.
- 2.
It needs to be said that neither Sartre nor Schopenhauer uses the term sine qua non.
- 3.
The music is produced by a sonification tool that was originally programmed for sonification of neuronal signals from the human brain. Hinterberger used it as a plant-computer musical interface.
- 4.
See further, Runehov 2014.
- 5.
This is also true for the phenomenon of gravitation and what is hypothesized as the graviton.
- 6.
For a more extensive discussion on the reality of colors see Byrne and Hilbert 2003.
- 7.
See further below on the problem of evil.
- 8.
I will return to this subject matter in the section on justifying experiences below.
- 9.
I explained the ToM in chapter one, but a short reminder does perhaps not hurt. The ToM is the capacity to attribute beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc., to oneself and others and to understand that others may have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one’s own. We attribute mental states to ourselves and others by way of analogical inference, i.e. the idea that other human beings are ‘very like me’. x observes y, y is like x, hence x understands y.
- 10.
Intersubjective communication is not merely established between humans.
- 11.
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Runehov, A.L.C. (2016). The Human Experiencer. In: The Human Being, the World and God. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44392-8_2
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