Consider the very common phrase "my body." This phrase works on the assumption that your body is something you possess, but not something you are. If you would really be your body, you couldn't meaningfully say "my body."
I wrote: Wynn says: So what do you think, Wynn? Do you believe that human beings have/are disembodied 'spiritual' essences that are distinct from the physical bodies they supposedly drive, and from our always-changing mental states and contents? Does it make sense to speak of removing a self from its body, and from its memories, its knowledge, habits and feelings? How would such an abstracted essence still retain any personal identity? How could somebody distinguish one of these hypothetical things from another? (How could we be sure there isn't just one of them, animating everybody? That was the point of the advaita reference, since they do believe something like that.) How could we even know when a self is or isn't present? And if we insert this hypothetical abstracted essence of person A into a different body and provide it with the different memories, feelings, attitudes, experiences and life-history appropriate to that body, then what reason would there be for continuing to think of it as the essence of person A instead of the essence of some different person B? My point is that philosophical difficulties appear when we try to specify what these hypothetical selves are, what their function is, how we can know anything about them, and how they are individuated one from another. I wrote: Wynn replies: This is from MN 32.25 I'm too lazy to look up a reference for the imaginary constructions part, but you will probably recall the multiple suttas in which the Buddha uses the analogy of a short length of rope in the grass being mistaken for a snake. The transcendental self is likened to the snake that's imagined but isn't really there. Later Buddhist philosophy elaborated that idea at great length.
"My" could be construed as or purely limited to designating "this one" rather than ownership, but I agree that's not what people mean alone as well as lexicon references. Language carries underlying theories with it, or it's not 100% theory-free as former anti-metaphysicians occasionally treated it. Even if some future advanced civilization could extract / replicate the memories and scheme for my current status of "self" and transfer them to a different body, my conclusion was that such a "program" would not function as it would have in the original body. Accordingly, this just emphasizes that to be the particular "who I am" required development in this body and the past circumstances it encountered. There's hardly an option of "Could I have been in a different body" since it would be an instance of consciousness and intelligence developing into a different person-scheme than mine (or "this one"). So to some extent I may agree (with the later Cyperium in this turnabout thread??) that one's usual selfhood pattern is or is stuck with being this body, but there seems little point to ask and bother with the original question (whoever was the source of it) if that's the assumption from the start. Also note that I'm examining this in the context of naturalism / experienced world. I don't reject the possibility of a priori conditions being necessary to make knowledge of nature possible in the first place. But I don't consider transcendental idealism to be a useful concern in science, and neither did Kant. The purpose was to allow some traditional interests and "being human" to survive naturalism while allowing science to "do its thing" unimpeded, whether or not most of us agree with Kant's specific approach to practical reason or rather what he outputted from his employment of it (as initial examples).
"A 'position,' Vaccha, is something that a Tathagata has done away with." Hehe. Not that I assume myself to be on that level, but at this point, I think the most accurate answer I can give to your question is that I neither believe nor disbelieve that "human beings have/are disembodied 'spiritual' essences that are distinct from the physical bodies they supposedly drive, and from our always-changing mental states and contents." Not if our lives depend on it, but we can speculate about these things (as long as we are aware that we are merely speculating). One Hindu solution to this is to posit that a person's real identity is only in relation to God, and can be recognized as such only by someone having the sufficient realization of God. Typically, we Westerners have a problem with this, but those who believe in reincarnation don't. According to them, you are the same person, whether you are embodied as a human male, or a human female - or a cow or a tree or a worm or any other form that living beings can embody in. Sure, I've agreed with that many times. The acknowledging of these difficulties is the core of my skepticism about religious choice. But this is not the same as "whatever a human can possibly be aware of, it's never going to be this hypothetical noumenal 'self'. So there's really no reason to anyone to think that transcendental selves exist at all, except as the products of our own imaginations." The sutta only says that all material forms are not the self (and the Hindus would agree). The passage you refer to doesn't say that there is no self. This is something that later readers have inferred. Actually, I don't know those suttas, so I request a reference for those. I've looked up the simile index at Access To Insight and did a keyword search, but haven't found the suttas you mention.
And hence the "you" it produces is as real as anything. If my body produces me then how can I not inhabit my body? You say yourself that I'm produced by it. It isn't proven that we have free will, but still we take responsibility of what we do. This makes my actions rightfully mine, cause I suffer the consequences of them and there wouldn't be any sense to responsibility if we were unable to do anything about it. Either way, this body is taking actions and makes it seem as if I was responsible for them. If the body is making me responsible then at least I claim the body to be mine (why not if the body claims it as well?). But there are crimes, and victims, if the victim didn't feel anything or wasn't hurt at all, then how could there be a crime? But the truth is that the victim can be hurt, the victim can feel pain and all those consequences a crime can put on a victim. This is because the victim has an "I". I think it's rather you that gets yourself further and further into the problem of illusion. Let me rephrase that to say "How come I am this body instead of any other body?", it doesn't have to imply a "in" as if I could be inside of any other body. You are implying that it involves a structure in the body, or that the body itself is the structure that is "me". That's ok, but it gives problematic consequences that this particular structure is "me". For one, it would imply that if the exact same structure exists in the universe then that would be me. What if two structures that were exactly the same existed at the same time? They can't both be me, yet you are suggesting that it is only the structure that is me. Must be horrible being locked in to such a certain position when there are so many problems with it.
I've never claimed any different. Of course there is a "you" and a "me". My only point is that the question of why am "I" in this body is non-sensical. "You" wouldn't be "you" if "you" were in another body. "You" and you're body are linked at a fundamental level. You are one in the same. In fact, you seem to agree with that stance... :shrug:
I can agree with that stance. I can agree that my body is uniquely me. But it still begs the question why of all other possible bodies (which we can assume are also uniquely tied to a me but that isn't me).
then clearly you don't have even close to half the personality disorders you make out to have .... Advice that you seem capable of accepting, sure .... but given that you are the one advocating all discussions of truth or illusion via the medium of words is not possible it simply makes you appear hypocritical :shrug:
I don't understand why to have a problem accepting the possibility that you are you because you are a particular piece of the universe. If this is true, you couldn't possibly be anyone else. Go outside, pick up a rock, hold it in your hand, and say to yourself "could this rock possibly be any other rock?" The answer is obvious. It is simply the rock that it is. It's nonsensical to suggest that it could have been some other rock instead, because there was no "it" before it existed. What we call a rock is an emergent property of the universe. Consider the idea that "you" are also an emergent property of the universe. That like a rock, you couldn't have been something other than who and what you are because there was no "you" before you existed. What I suggest you do, just as a speculative philosophical exercise, is imagine that it's not you who contextualizes your own existence. That the "first person perspective" so to speak, belongs not to you, but to the universe itself. Then the question is not who and what you could have been, but what the universe could have become. After all, it's more primary than you. It is the source of all life, all consciousness. Nothing exists within it that is not made from it. Every property is one of it's properties. That includes consciousness. That includes you. The universe is the base, the primal element, the seed, of everything that emerges. When a part of it becomes something, that part of it is that thing, and not some other thing. Other things are different parts of the universe that have become something else. "You" are no different.
I want you all to accept that I'm drunk right now, and perhaps my answers aren't as well-thought-out as they used to be. That in mind, let's move on... And a quazillirion are free, so why me? Which is a equally valid question. WHY IN the **** is I'm not you????? Sorry, I didn't mean to sound that desperate ;D but the question remains. I could conseive that it is another rock. Whatever I do to it, it wouldn't matter cause it's just a piece of rock. So the rock wouldn't care if it is this particular piece of rock or another. Though, if we could replicate that piece of rock in all it's glory, then we would find that even if that piece of rock is exactly alike the other piece of rock, it would still be a different piece of rock. Why is this? one reason; 1) it is at another location. I agree to that. In the question I made, I have made no precondition that there has to be an "I" before I existed. It is a interesting exercise of thought though, that could reveal something about how it really is, even if we don't assume it. Interesting line of thoughts. Previously I've thought about if we are "the thoughts of the universe" and that sort of speculation, and it has appealed to me. I don't know though, but I'm interested in speculating more about this. A fascinating thought is that all of this, all of the society and what we call civilisation is just a evolution of the universe. This is also a thought I find appealing. Skyscrapers are touching the sky, all of the economies and all of the politics is simply the universe expressing itself, and perhaps becoming what it are to be.. All in all, I'm not doing this because of religious perspective, I'm doing this because I want to pursue the truth. If it is what I hope it to be then it can't fail me. If it fails me, then I'm bound to find something that is even better. Cause I know one thing for a fact: There is meaning to exist in this world. I agree, but my body tells me that I'm a significant part of it. I just trust it. That's all, also for all of you to be sure of; I'm going to do the best to defend that stance. To better answer your post. I'm going to just tell you how it is. I'm a pretty young guy, 30 years old. Perhaps I will live to I'm 40 perhaps not. I want to do something to express myself in this world. I have found compelling evidence that there is something more. Trust me, or trust me not. I've found it. And this is the evidence, I'm going to spell it out for you and I hope you are eager to listen, cause a scientific forum of all places should be eager to hear the truth of things. Somebody came to me, it was at a party, he wispered in my ear; "what if they duplicated you, which one would be you?", something to that effect. This got me thinking, what if they found the science to duplicate a person, what if all that "Star Trek" nonsense was real? What if they teleported you to another location without destroying the original? It's not a far-fetched thought. That systems can't be exactly alike only applies to the quantum level, the mind is, at least they say, not a quantum system, and thus can be exactly alike another mind, another physical body. I believe in this. I'm going to do the best, but I just hope that somebody understands where I'm coming from, I don't do this because I want to prove something for personal gain, I do this because I sincerily believe that I'm on to something. I'm going to feel bad tomorrow, I just want to apologize to my sober self, but perhaps this is the right thing to do...sorry. Edit: Over a thousand people have seen this thread. Thousand. I hope it was worth it, I hope you gained something from it. I would have, but I can't know if you did. It gets me thinking though. To you thousand people, I wish you the best of luck in your quest of life. I really do, but if I named a thread like that it would get 30 views and no replies. Anyway, best of luck to you all.
Ask any traditional Easterner who believes in reincarnation, and they would find the question perfectly sensible and, in fact, crucial.
They have mistaken the illusion for reality. I understand, it's easy to do. Most people I know believe in a "soul" of some form or another.
So, which one would be "you"? Six weeks later when each has had different experiences, which one is "you"? Sixty years later???
If there's a you for every body configuration (a parallel you-verse?) then there's you before she told you she was dumping you, and there's you sometime later, sitting on a park bench stabbing your forehead with an ice cream cone because your eye-hand coordination hasn't fully recovered. There's you at version t minus x trying to figure out how to tie your shoes, and there's you at t plus x fumbling again, as if it all returns to roost. Given a you-verse, then by sectioning your brain at the cusp of each brain-brane you'd probably notice that there is little or no rewiring of the pons where you mostly really live, but rather it's almost entirely peripheral rewiring, out in the cortex, where you left your car keys and what happened moments before you opened the message informing you you were penniless. It's not just for lack of a cosmic screwdriver that picking your own lock is problematic. Get a friend to go with you, to do the play by play PET scans. You'd get a rendition of yourself as you see yourself, out in the cortex surfing, being Bond--James Bond, and everything else, like now, caught up in the mystery of whether the real you is behind door #1, 2 or 3. On review of the integrated PET scan you-map (Arlo Guthrie's "twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was") you might end up with nothing more than a suspicion that you are merely a collection of nows in a plastic race condition along some cortical configuration at version x dot umpty ump. Although it might take a good long conversation over pints of stout (or whatever you're drinking) before you actually happened upon that particular phraseology. You are synaptogenesis, you are the race condition, and you are now--but only if you subscribe to living outside of the pons, which (ironically) can be a very lonely place to be. That is, is a snail ever pining for anything? Not that you have any choice in the matter. Much as the folks down at the psych ward have no choice in their present configuration. What inhabits those bodies, you might ask. I doubt any of it's plainly rooted in the brain stem. This body or this brain? You as a system can't differentiate, but oddly enough after the lobotomy others perceive you as a collection of modules, only now with a few of them taken out of their misery. That ignorance is bliss--is reflected in the optimism and quick glee of folks afflicted with Down's syndrome. And it's nothing more than a congenital anomaly, so there but for nondisjunction during meiotic anaphase go you or I. Such a person might also ask why they inhabit this body, but not likely in a way that would plague them. "Why is that," you might ask, and from this perspective, which is the real affliction? Apparently the chromosomal duplication doesn't impair the brain stem, a fact that ties you-ness to something that went awry during or after the evolution of tetrapods, that is, reptiles are probably not afflicted by any disorder that converts infrared into a sense of well-being. Undoubtedly anyone who feels left out--that they've not been dealt from the same deck as, say, the King of Saudi Arabia, or, in the worst of misfortune and proclivity to poor judgment, a piss-poor configuration such as mine--there probably does crop up in their minds at one time or another this ponderous question you pose. Then again, the ability to formulate the question itself seems to arise out of little more that the genetic predisposition to ask such questions. So you're also stuck with this other interpretation of yourself as a mere window on the continuum of all selves the preceded you in the family tree. At some atomic level you could regard any instance of the you-verse as a delta from the last, so at stardate yada yada you are a particular axon terminal reaching tenderly for the dubious bliss of joining the synaptic cleft, fertilizing it with serotonin and sweet nothings, from which "then-you", as the delta, are born. Alternatively, you are the emanation of the action potential ushering forth from the marriage, finding yourself (so to speak) in a race condition with countless other incarnations already in circulation. This leads to the more conventional interpretation of you as electromagnetic waves and the pretty colors on the PET scan. Now just imagine they'd given you a coloring book in kindergarten and on every page was the outline of a brain and legend mapping Crayola colors to brain activity. If you weren't stuck choosing between Sienna and Mauve you might finish before they called for the books, then into the cosmic bin it might go and Ouila! here you are, exactly as you colored yourself to be, maybe even a fireman after all. You've gotta love the PET scan, but where's the you-ness in it anyway? If there is a you-verse and each synapse is the delta that branches to the next you, what does it mean? Each wavelet of delta-you racing down its axon, headed for who know's what, or why, probably has a nominal spectrum, and the sum of these ("sigma-you", 1/3 of a fraternity) ought to resemble at least the sum of all cell tower signals in the world, which may seem quite profound until you realize you were probably only wondering what you just ate that gave you heartburn or why some particular fool is responding so moronically to your thread. But since this all seems to emanate so far from the brain stem, it's still hardly you anyway, depending on your definition, of course, and given that the brain stem is hardly a product of semantics. I'd still stick with Sheh's answer, that you inhabit this body and nobody else's because it was your parents who made you and not somebody else's parents. And since each (healthy) body comes with sucking reflex, a bootstrap loader connected to the parietal cortex, and a world of stimulus to fill it up, this moment you're having is inevitable. Nevertheless you're still stuck in the pons, just being, while the rest of you is out there maybe reading Sartre but nevertheless becoming. I suspect it would be more disconcerting to ask: why is this my body and not my sibling's, if parenthood alone were to blame congratulate. Here you would have to back the clock up a few ticks to ascertain why that particular fruit dropped from the tree during ovulation, and why that particular swimmer was lined up on the diving platform, rarin' to go, and why it took the first place trophy. This just goes to show that causality is a beast. You mentioned hypnosis a while back. That, some extreme meditation, and probably psychoactive food of some rare variety alluded to in Altered States might lead you to the well of yourself. That, or deliver you from the quest altogether. In any case, happy hunting. While digging for the rent money I'll be searching among the skeletons in my closet for any additional clues.
Different kinds of 'things' 'exist' in different ways. A stone on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan doesn't exist in quite the same way that Sherlock Holmes (a fictional character) does. I don't think that anyone wants to deny that some poorly-defined but perhaps kind-of intuitive "you" exists in the fictional character sense. At the very least it's a plot device, a useful psychological avatar we might say. The disagreement seems to revolve around whether this conceptual device has any substantial reality and whether it can exist independently of the processes occuring in the body in which it finds itself, and independently of the psychological states and personal history of that embodied individual. Disagreement swirls around whether it even makes sense to speak of 'self A' being transferred to B's body and given all of B's memories, knowledge and predispositions. (What exactly would we be transferring if we did that?) I would argue that if somebody claimed they had accomplished that, that there would be no reason to think of the result as 'self A occupying what was B's body'. It would simply be 'self B' in its own body. In other words, it's likely the history, body, memory, knowledge and attitudes that are individuating the 'self' abstraction. They are what distinguishes one of these 'self' constructions from all the others. The causality that perpetuates the body and its processes and states through time is likely what gives the 'self' whatever temporal continuity we imagine it has from moment to moment. Who else would it be? Perhaps we should say that "you" are the product, the result of your body's history, experiences, knowledge, feelings and so on. These are the qualities that make you you and not somebody else. Other people have different bodies, histories, memories, experiences, knowledge, attitudes and feelings that make them them. This is how we distinguish between different people, it's what individuates them. For those who aren't familiar with the jargon, I'll add that 'individuate' is a term from philosophical logic. It means "the determining of what constitutes an individual: that is, one of something. Principles of individuation are the principles by which things, normally of a kind, are distinguished into single individuals, most often at some given time." (Oxford Guide to Philosophy p. 432) I'm suggesting that individuation of 'selves' might be the crux of the issue in this thread. Duplicating a person is a problem-case that's widely discussed in the philosophy of personal-identity. (We had a thread about it here on Sciforums a few months ago.) My answer would be that if Person A was duplicated, the two duplicates Person A1 and Person A2 would have become two persons, because they would no longer enjoy privileged introspective access to each other's psychological states. But at least initially after the duplication, they would each have equal justification for claiming that they were the continuation of Person A. They would each think of Person A's memories as their own memories. But as time went on, as those earlier memories receded into the past and each duplicate had its own post-duplication experiences that the other didn't, they would diverge and become increasingly different. So we can perhaps imagine the trajectories of their lives as a Y.
