User:Realityandexistence00/Floating man

Floating man, flying man or man suspended in air is a thought experiment by Ibn Sina that argues the existence of the soul. This thought experiment is used to argue for the knowledge by presence.

= Background = Using his high knowledge, Ibn Sina saved one of the Iranian rulers(Shams al-Dawlah) from death for a while, this caused the envy of many of the courtiers. As a result, after the death of Shams al-Dawlah (the Iranian ruler), Ibn Sina was arrested and imprisoned in a castle between Hamadan and Isfahan. The name of that castle is recorded in the old books as "Fardjan", "Mazdjan" or "Mazdavan". It has been said that Ibn Sina wrote the floating man argument while imprisoned in this castle, in the Iranian province of Hamadan. his tomb is placed in this province and called "Aramgah Boo Ali Sina". Every year, this place is visited by many tourists from all over the world. The building of his tomb is a fusion of two architectural styles of ancient Iran and post-Islamic Iran. Elements of traditional Iranian architecture have been used in the design of this collection. Elements such as the tower, inspired by Qaboos dome tower, gardens influenced by Iranian garden styles, water features inspired by the ponds of traditional houses, and facades with massive and rough Khara stones, decorated with Alvand mountain granite, and the diagram of ancient Iranian palaces.

He reached the conclusion that the soul is immaterial and substantial. He also claimed that all humans cannot deny their own consciousness and awareness. According to Ibn Sina, the floating man could attain the concept of being without any sense experience.

= Concept = The floating man argument is concerned with one who falls freely in the air. This subject knows himself, but not through any sense perception data. Floating or suspending refers to a state in which the subject thinks on the basis of his own reflection without any assistance from sense perception or any material body. This mind flutters over the abyss of eternity.

The Floating Man argument that is known today is the product of three distinct yet related versions. In the early days of its creation, Sina attempts to prove the dissociability of a consciousness and its physical body. In doing so, this initial version focuses on the self and its ability to conceptualize its existence, creating the principle of existential separability. In an attempt to solidify his argument, Sina expands his argument into what is known as the second version. In this updated version, Sina creates a new ideology, namely conceptual separability, which details that because the body and self are perceptible, one is able to conceptualize the self without the associated bodily parts. In the final edition of his argument, Sina brings into question self-awareness and perceptibility.

= Premises of the argument = According to Ibn Sina, we cannot deny the consciousness of the self.“The self is aware of itself in an absolute state and without any condition at all. The self is aware of itself always and not intermittently.”

In fact, it approaches self-awareness with certainty. “certainty is to know that you know something, and to know that you know that thing uncondition- ally. Self-awareness is like that, for you are aware of yourself, and you know that you are aware of your awareness, and you know that you are aware of it unconditionally.”

His argument is as follows:

One of us must suppose that he was just created at a stroke, fully developed and perfectly formed but with his vision shrouded from perceiving all external objects – created floating in the air or in the space, not buffeted by any perceptible current of the air that supports him, his limbs separated and kept out of contact with one another, so that they do not feel each other. Then let the subject consider whether he would affirm the existence of himself. There is no doubt that he would affirm his own existence, although not affirming the reality of any of his limbs or inner organs, his bowels, or heart or brain or any external thing. Indeed he would affirm the existence of this self of his while not affirming that it had any length, breadth or depth. And if it were possible for him in such a state to imagine a hand or any other organ, he would not imagine it to be a part of himself or a condition of his existence.

We can deconstruct Ibn Sīnā’s Floating Man into the following points:


 * 1) The Floating Man is aware of the existence of his self without being aware of the existence of his body.
 * 2) The Floating Man affirms the existence of his self without affirming the existence of his body.
 * 3) The Floating Man is taken without his body; all that is left is his self, which does the affirming [i.e., his self affirms itself].

At this point, one may conclude that:


 * 1) Denying the existence of his self is inconceivable, since it is a necessary condition for affirming his existence.
 * 2) Denying the existence of his body is conceivable, since it is not a necessary condition for affirming his existence.
 * 3) From 1 and 2, it follows that affirming the existence of the self without affirming the existence of the body is conceivable

This argument relies on an introspective thought experiment. We have to suppose a man who comes into existence fully developed and formed, but he does not have any relation with sensory experience of the world or of his own body. There is no physical contact with the external world at all. According to Ibn Sina, this subject is, nonetheless, necessarily conscious of himself. In other words, such a being possesses the awareness of his own existence. He thereby believes that the soul has an unmediated and reflexive knowledge of its own existence. Thus appealing to self-consciousness, Ibn Sina tries to prove the existence of soul, or Nafs. This argument is not supported by the concept of substance in metaphysics. This experiential field shows that the self is not consequently a substance and thereby there is no subjectivity.[ full citation needed] On the other hand some scholars like Wisnovsky believe that the flying man argument proved the substantiality of the soul. Ibn Sina believes that innate awareness is completely independent of sensory experience.[ full citation needed]

= Floating man and Descartes's Cogito = Before the French philosopher Descartes (1596–1650) pointed out the existence of the conscious self as a turning point in epistemology, using the phrase "Cogito ergo sum," the 11th century Islamic philosopher Ibn Sina had referred to the existence of consciousness in the flying man argument. Thus, long before Descartes, Ibn Sina had established an argument for the existence of knowledge by presence without any need for the existence of the body.

There are two stances on the relationship between the arguments of Ibn Sina and Descartes. Some scholars believe that there are apparent similarities between the floating man and Descartes' cogito. Others consider these similarities trivial and superficial. Both Ibn Sina and Descartes believed that the soul and self are something other than sense data. Also, Ibn Sina believed that there is no relation logically between the self and the body. In other words, there is no logical dependency between them.

= Criticism = Adamson thinks that the weakness in the argument is that, even if the flying man would be self-aware, the thought experiment does not prove that the soul is something distinct from the body. One could argue that self-awareness is seated in the mind. In this case, in being self-aware the flying man is only aware because of his mind that is doing the experiencing, not because of a distinct soul. He just does not realize that the self-awareness is a property of his nervous system.