Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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Namelesss
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Namelesss »

Who is I?

~~~ 'I' is a soap bubble, reflecting the entire Universal Self!
Forever!
When you look at this soap bubble, you see the display on the surface and imagine 'stuff' (spirits, souls, minds...) 'within'.
That is 'me' (as distinct from 'you').

When the bubble of (ego) shifting images pops/dies, what happens to that which is within?
Wayne92587
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Wayne92587 »

Nameless You are making it to complicated.
Namelesss
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Namelesss »

Wayne92587 wrote: December 9th, 2017, 7:24 pm Nameless You are making it to complicated.
It's all (actually, a very simple) metaphor.
What disturbs you about my metaphor?

"To speak is to lie! To teach is to lie with conviction!"
Thus the necessity of perceiving 'Reality' (as perceived) as metaphor.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Sy Borg »

When I look at who "I" am, I see an amalgam of qualities generic to life, animal, human and culture with very little in the way of individuality, more akin to an unusually free ant or bee in a colony. "I" is basically incomplete, just parts of wholes.

The "I" at its most basic represents life - breathing, eating, the purely physical, energetic side. Another aspect of "I" is an animal - consciously pursuing sensations and things. Another aspect of "I" reflects humanity generally - sharing the same bodies of knowledge and I am therefore just as prone to regurgitate my conditioning conversation as anyone else. Another level of "I" is the culture that I reflect, with a whole suite of ingrained social norms and often-unconscious behaviours.

What's left? One particular way that life, animals, humans or white middle class people in Sydney can organise itself. A unique combination of non unique attributes. When I die, every aspect of me will be replaceable by the body of humanity. Everything I do or have done will be done by others after I go, and probably done much better. Likewise, every thought I have had or will have either has already been thought by others, or will be.
Namelesss
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Namelesss »

Greta wrote: December 9th, 2017, 9:18 pm A unique combination of non unique attributes. When I die, every aspect of me will be replaceable by the body of humanity. Everything I do or have done will be done by others after I go, and probably done much better. Likewise, every thought I have had or will have either has already been thought by others, or will be.
Look deeper.
You seem to miss that we are unique Perspectives of the One, all inclusive, unchanging Reality, every moment of existence!
That means that no one, ever, 'sees' things as you do, your unique Perspective every unique moment!
There is no 'replacement', every unique Perspective is necessary to Know the Self!!

"The complete Universe (Reality/Truth/God/'Self!'/Tao/Brahman... or any feature herein...) can be completely defined/described as the synchronous sum-total of all Perspectives!"
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Sy Borg
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Sy Borg »

Namelesss wrote: December 9th, 2017, 10:53 pm
Greta wrote: December 9th, 2017, 9:18 pmA unique combination of non unique attributes. When I die, every aspect of me will be replaceable by the body of humanity. Everything I do or have done will be done by others after I go, and probably done much better. Likewise, every thought I have had or will have either has already been thought by others, or will be.
Look deeper.
You seem to miss that we are unique Perspectives of the One, all inclusive, unchanging Reality, every moment of existence!
That means that no one, ever, 'sees' things as you do, your unique Perspective every unique moment!
There is no 'replacement', every unique Perspective is necessary to Know the Self!!

"The complete Universe (Reality/Truth/God/'Self!'/Tao/Brahman... or any feature herein...) can be completely defined/described as the synchronous sum-total of all Perspectives!"
I appreciate where you are coming from and, yes, we will never quite be repeated.

Rather than be repeated, our attributes will over time be ever more refined by others after we die, beyond our wildest imaginings. Consider a particular caveman. He will never be exactly repeated. However, his ideations will tend to be quite unformed and basic compared with those of modern people, who have the benefit of humanity's shared learning in the thousands of years since.

So, yes, we are part of the shared perspective of "The One" - the one universe, and our one galaxy, solar system and Earth. We are also part of the one biosphere, of chordates, of mammalia, of primates, of great apes, of humanity, and of our culture. We are parts of all of these wholes.

It's satisfying to say "we are all one" but in truth we are both one and many; there are definite conflicts of interests between the many within The One, which is even the case within our own bodies, but somehow it all seems to work out :)
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Namelesss »

Greta wrote: December 9th, 2017, 11:27 pm
Namelesss wrote: December 9th, 2017, 10:53 pm Look deeper.
You seem to miss that we are unique Perspectives of the One, all inclusive, unchanging Reality, every moment of existence!
That means that no one, ever, 'sees' things as you do, your unique Perspective every unique moment!
There is no 'replacement', every unique Perspective is necessary to Know the Self!!

"The complete Universe (Reality/Truth/God/'Self!'/Tao/Brahman... or any feature herein...) can be completely defined/described as the synchronous sum-total of all Perspectives!"
I appreciate where you are coming from and, yes, we will never quite be repeated.

Rather than be repeated, our attributes will over time be ever more refined by others after we die, beyond our wildest imaginings.
It is our 'attributes' that is the mirage, the 'make-believe', the lines painted on the blacktop that we may navigate and explore. Without the markings, the pavement is black and empty, qualityless, featureless. We imagine 'qualities', yet they do not exist for more than a moment, just a matter of one Perspective and ignorance of all other Perspectives of the same unchanging Reality.
What is under the shifting colors, all those 'qualities' that we perceive flitting about on the surface of the ego bubble/mirror.
The entire (ego) bubble lasts but a moment, it is that which is 'within' that transcends the shimmering qualities that we call 'life' and 'death', 'time' and 'space', 'personality'...
Consider a particular caveman. He will never be exactly repeated. However, his ideations will tend to be quite unformed and basic compared with those of modern people, who have the benefit of humanity's shared learning in the thousands of years since.
We do not manufacture 'thoughts' in our brains, we perceive that which is before us, whether the sun, thoughts, dreams, whatever...
We reflect, and the Universe reflects back!
Our eye and the Universe/God/Nature... Self!'s eye is one and the same!
Every Perspective in Universal existence is unique and a necessary feature of complete Self! Knowledge.
Whether the Perspective of an idiot or an Einstein or Davinci, all are equally uniquely necessary. One is not 'better', all are of Reality!
Some Perspectives see the lithic technology, others see the nano and quantum; same Reality, different Perspectives.
So, yes, we are part of the shared perspective of "The One" - the one universe, and our one galaxy, solar system and Earth. We are also part of the one biosphere, of chordates, of mammalia, of primates, of great apes, of humanity, and of our culture. We are parts of all of these wholes.
I Am/We Are that We Are!
All these 'apparent' 'subsets'/parts/divisions... autonomies and individualities are only thethoughts/ ego perceiving/imagining the 'lines on the blacktop'... The fruits of very (inherently) limited Perspectives.
It's satisfying to say "we are all one" but in truth we are both one and many; there are definite conflicts of interests between the many within The One, which is even the case within our own bodies, but somehow it all seems to work out :)
"Every kind of partial and transitory disequilibrium must perforce contribute towards the great equilibrium of the whole.." - Rene' Guenon
*__-

All 'distinctions' are mirage, transitory, conditional, limited.
The One Self! is unconditional, transcendental, without any limits, definitions, names...
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Sy Borg
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Sy Borg »

Namelesss wrote: December 10th, 2017, 2:57 am
So, yes, we are part of the shared perspective of "The One" - the one universe, and our one galaxy, solar system and Earth. We are also part of the one biosphere, of chordates, of mammalia, of primates, of great apes, of humanity, and of our culture. We are parts of all of these wholes.
I Am/We Are that We Are!
All these 'apparent' 'subsets'/parts/divisions... autonomies and individualities are only thethoughts/ ego perceiving/imagining the 'lines on the blacktop'... The fruits of very (inherently) limited Perspectives.
I occasionally have meditated with the aim of a kind of mono-identification with reality, to identify with all reality per se. In an oblique sense, it is us who are colliding with galaxies, going into supernova, raising waves, having Earthquakes, spawning life, committing genocide, destroying habitat and doing many brilliant things, just that we only grasp them abstractly, not via the senses. We are part of the universe, so what the universe is doing is what we are doing (thank you Alan Watts lol) in the same sense as what we do is what our cells do - up to a point, anyway.

So, yes, this is a grounding way to meditate - as long as one lets it go afterwards. However, I find that some people fall in love with the "it's all nothing, just froth and bubble" mindset and then they can't stop repeating it; it's a meme that effectively negates all others when taken to its logical conclusion. No doubt declaring our reality to be illusory and basically worthless is a happy thought for those who'd would otherwise be disappointed with their lives and global problems.

That our senses are incomplete has been noted for centuries at least but I personally see no reason to think of everything as illusory aside from "The One" of which we must all logically be a part. However, reality obviously isn't illusory, hence shared perception between numerous entities. Maybe our perceptions of time, life and death are biased, but that still doesn't render our perceived reality to be unreal.
Tamminen
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Tamminen »

Namelesss wrote: December 9th, 2017, 7:11 pm Who is I?

~~~ 'I' is a soap bubble, reflecting the entire Universal Self!
Forever!
When you look at this soap bubble, you see the display on the surface and imagine 'stuff' (spirits, souls, minds...) 'within'.
That is 'me' (as distinct from 'you').

When the bubble of (ego) shifting images pops/dies, what happens to that which is within?
You are not me, so it seems. Your experiences are your own, I am not having them here and now, they are absent. So there seems to be a violation of symmetry here.

When the bubble that I am vanishes, what is left? Other bubbles. But what are those other bubbles? If there is symmetry between all bubbles, I must be another bubble after vanishing.

So, if there is something after my death, I cannot vanish.

Those old Eastern thinkers were not stupid.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Sy Borg »

Heh, a horrid thought - that after all the toil and trouble of this life we are thrust straight into a new one without a chance to recover. To go through the fears of childhood again. The teens. The struggles of getting established. The repeated loss and grief as loved ones die. Sickness and decrepitude.

Who has the strength to do all this over and over again? Surely such a Sisyphean fate would even break Chuck Norris!
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Tamminen »

Greta wrote: December 10th, 2017, 6:05 am Heh, a horrid thought - that after all the toil and trouble of this life we are thrust straight into a new one without a chance to recover. To go through the fears of childhood again. The teens. The struggles of getting established. The repeated loss and grief as loved ones die. Sickness and decrepitude.

Who has the strength to do all this over and over again? Surely such a Sisyphean fate would even break Chuck Norris!
What we call reality is sometimes horrid, sometimes beautiful. But logic is inescapable.

Let me return to my favorite syllogism.

1. If I did not exist, there would be nothing.
2. There is something, obviously.
3. Therefore my nonexistence is impossible.

Now sentence 2 is obviously true. The conclusion, sentence 3, is pure logic. What is left is sentence 1. Its truth can be questioned and even denied straightforward, but for me it is self-evident. I admit that it demands some kind of an insight to become convinced of its truth, and it may be one of those clear ideas that are almost impossible to translate into words, although the structure of the sentence is so simple. It is possible that if one has not had that insight, the only way to see the truth of it is to only wait and hope that the insight comes.

So simple. So revolutionary. The Copernican revolution of Kant completed?
Wayne92587
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Wayne92587 »

No One can seem to explain what the question" who am I" means.

I should not bother to try to speak of every aspect of my being, of Who I am.

The only question is, am I a material or Immaterial Reality?
What happens to me when I dies, to I go some where or do I just hang around for a while and then what, do I return to the Earth as a different being, is I eternal?

The question is, am I more than a mere animal.

If the answer is yes, please explain.
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RJG
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by RJG »

Tamminen wrote:Even I have had some clear thoughts that are extremely difficult to put into words. So I think thoughts precede language.
But what are these thoughts composed of? What makes a thought a thought?

Aren't individual thoughts themselves composed of bits of sensory experiences? ...arranged and glued together by the rules of language? ...so as to then give "meaning" (i.e. create a"thought") from a bunch of random sensory experiences?

How can we "know" our thoughts without some language to decipher (make some meaning of) them?

Without 'language' we can't know we had a thought!
Tamminen
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Tamminen »

RJG wrote: December 10th, 2017, 12:46 pm
Tamminen wrote:Even I have had some clear thoughts that are extremely difficult to put into words. So I think thoughts precede language.
But what are these thoughts composed of? What makes a thought a thought?

Aren't individual thoughts themselves composed of bits of sensory experiences? ...arranged and glued together by the rules of language? ...so as to then give "meaning" (i.e. create a"thought") from a bunch of random sensory experiences?

How can we "know" our thoughts without some language to decipher (make some meaning of) them?

Without 'language' we can't know we had a thought!
I would define language as a tool for communication. So we must have something to communicate: thoughts and other experiental phenomena. We express our thoughts with language. Even if our thoughts are made for communication in the first place, there must still be the sequence of thought and its expression. How this all happens is a scientific question, not philosophical. But all this depends, of course, on how we define language. There has been a need to separate the concepts of thought and language, though.

The structures of thought and the structures of language are similar, but this is just because language expresses our thoughts.

I can remember a thought structure without words. I would not say this is language.

Also I would say that thoughts have meaning and language expresses that meaning, if we define the concepts as I suggested.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

Post by Sy Borg »

Tamminen wrote: December 10th, 2017, 9:06 amLet me return to my favorite syllogism.

1. If I did not exist, there would be nothing.
2. There is something, obviously.
3. Therefore my nonexistence is impossible.

Now sentence 2 is obviously true. The conclusion, sentence 3, is pure logic. What is left is sentence 1. Its truth can be questioned and even denied straightforward, but for me it is self-evident. I admit that it demands some kind of an insight to become convinced of its truth, and it may be one of those clear ideas that are almost impossible to translate into words, although the structure of the sentence is so simple. It is possible that if one has not had that insight, the only way to see the truth of it is to only wait and hope that the insight comes.
In other words you are saying you are the universe. Re: #1, unless you are referring to yourself as the universe then, if you did not exist, there would still be everything and everyone else rather than nothing.
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