For perception and free will to be possible, the self must be separate from the world. As Kant famously argued, we cannot perceive something unless we can differentiate ourselves from it and we cannot have free will unless we are distinct from the thing we are acting upon. And yet, are we not obviously part of the world? We come out of the world and live within it. The relationship between the self and the world is radically unknown. Materialists claim there is only the world, but they find no place for consciousness or the self anywhere in it. Idealists claim the self is all there is, but then it is the world that goes missing. While dualists claim both the self and the world exist, but how they link remains a mystery.
Should we see the self as part of the world, and therefore give up on the perception of reality and free will as illusory? Should we see the self as separate from the world, and accept that consciousness will never be explained by materialism? Or will the relationship between the self and the world forever remain a mystery?