"...each of us, reflecting ... must admit that one very large fact seems to have been omitted from its description: the fat that a particular person in it is himself. what kind of fact is that? what kind of fact is it - if it is a fact - that I am Thomas Nagel? How can I be a particular person? ... It can seem that as far as what I really am is concerned, any relation I may have to TN or any other objectively specified person must be accidental and arbitrary. I can't be a mere person ... the experiences and the perspective of TN with which I am directly presented are not the point of view of the true self, for the true self has no point of view ... Something essential about me has nothing to do with my perspective and position in the world. "
It's in a review of, and taken from a novel called 36 Arguments For The Existence Of God by Rebecca Goldstein. N.B. I'm not going all religious on yer, but this is a useful contribution I hope you agree, and if we remove it from the context of that title (the novel itself is not necessarily religious of course) it seems to mean something other than religious anyway, it's like something Proust or Bergson might equally have said.
It's in a review of, and taken from a novel called 36 Arguments For The Existence Of God by Rebecca Goldstein. N.B. I'm not going all religious on yer, but this is a useful contribution I hope you agree, and if we remove it from the context of that title (the novel itself is not necessarily religious of course) it seems to mean something other than religious anyway, it's like something Proust or Bergson might equally have said.
