Some string, the self, Independent objects and difficulties for empiricists

We spent some time trying to get our heads around the slightly tricky notion that we cannot get the concept of independently existing physical objects through experience. When we experience something the experience happens in our heads and is not, therefore, 'independent' of us. So, something existing independently of our experience is by definition beyond our experience and therefore unknown to us. 

So, if you get all your ideas through experience, then how do you get the idea of an independently existing physical object? This kind of thing is obviously a problem for  Empiricists and there are marks:) for remembering it. 

Other problematic concepts include: causality and the self. 

Now, the concept of the 'self' seems like the most obvious thing that could possibly occur to a human bean (sic), but nothing's obvious anymore - not in the crazy old world of philosophy (ha, ha, ha!! they laughed ironically!) According to Hume, and he's got good point,  'Just as there is no mind independent of perception, there is no self independent of perceptions'. We tend to think of the self as 'having' or at least 'containing' our experiences, but if you think about it this is actually  rather stupid, after all how could you have a self if you hadn't ever experienced anything - no thoughts no nothing. No self. Even if something did 'have' or 'contain' the experiences and thoughts, that something wouldn't be part of the self. Imagine a bucket of water: the water equals perceptions / thoughts etc and the bucket equals the thing that contains the thoughts; it is clear that the bucket is not part of the water and in the same way the thing that contained the perceptions wouldn't be a perception/experience/thought and therefore wouldn't be part of the self!!


Is this making sense to anybody except me??


And of course we can think of the the various perceptions / experiences / thoughts as being like the strands in a ball of string: none of them run the whole length of the string none of them constitute a 'self' existing as one thing, one identity through time. I need to stop my brain becoming numb. :)