There is no "isness". Sort of. Entitization is a low-level perceptual process that takes more or less random sensory input and creates "things". Take for example a pile of sand. That's one entity. Yet if you separate it into two piles of sand nothing's changed except how it's entitized. Instead of one entity (pile of sand) you have two entities (two piles of sand.)
This process relies on boundaries. For an entity to "be" something, there also must be something it's not. It's not always oppositional in the way that a lot of people assume, it could be as simple as creating a boundary that distinguishes an entity from it's environment. (Sort of pop-up book style.)
You appear to have completely skipped this level of analysis and gone right for the self-world division which is exactly the same process -- but the first. That's a very low, low level perceptual process. It's remarkable that you've intuited it. (I'm assuming you intuited it, but anyway about it, I'd love to hear how you came to this conclusion.)
So, just for fun: on to mayhem. :) The boundaries of entities are flexible. They're fun to screw with. Google "rubber hand illusion".
I'm aware of the rubber hand illusion and find it very interesting.
I have come to this conclusion through trying to understand a few key experiences that I have had. But basically, when you remove words (as in the internal dialogue) from your experience, it completely changes how you perceive the world. Without an internal dialogue one cannot reason and it becomes impossible to make sense of anything intellectually. In fact its difficult to even separate ones self from the experience. I other words, the perceiver and the perceived are one without distinction. So, in such a moment one realizes that the world is truly a mystery, that it is unknowable. In order to combat the fact that life is a mystery and to survive, we use language to make sense of the world. But since we ourselves have created the language to describe our experience then it remains a very convincing illusion. It is essentially a circular argument.
Circular argument demonstrated as a dialogue:
Me: The world is such and such.
You: Why is that so.
Me: Because I say so.
You: How do you know you are right.
Me: Because the world is such and such.
The world starts as a mystery.
Language allows us to understand the world.
But we created the language so language is meaningless.
We could call things whatever we wanted to (change all of the labels) and nothing would change in the world, but the world would become mysterious again.
Thanks, I'm fairly sure I know what you mean.
We, as in all of us?
How do animals reason and solve problems without language? For example, octopi are notorious for being able to solve puzzles.
(I'll tell you what I'm thinking next post.)
You'll probably dig this.
That was really interesting. It awesome when individuals with an understanding of neuroscience have these incredible experiences that they can later explain intellectually to others.
Its a good question. I of course do not know the perspective of animals so I can only speculate. But I don't think that animals "understand" the world, at least not intellectually. Animals do not try to reason about the way things are and they do not pass judgement over their experience. It may be something like what Buddhist's call "being in the moment." Perhaps they are in a constant state of being in the moment? In such a state, an individual can still function and survive as easily as any other organism; they simply do not pass judgement over their experience or try to make sense of it. Again, I can only speculate but it is something to ponder. Good question :)