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What Constitutes "me"?
#181
Posted 18 November 2006 - 12:07 AM
-Infernity
#182
Posted 26 January 2007 - 01:40 PM
#183
Posted 26 January 2007 - 11:16 PM
-Infernity
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#184
Posted 28 January 2007 - 02:27 PM
My opinion is that "Me" is all your memories, if you wont have memories or you'l have difrent memories it wont be you because those memories that you have they are your expirience of life and they makes all the difrence between the people.
First, I must say that the question that is brought up in this thread ("What constitutes "me"?) is one that has been bugging me too for many years now, and I think it is very interesting.
And then to your post:
I agree that if I had experienced something different than what I actually did in my past, then I would have been different than I am today. You can even say that I would have been a completely different person (seen from a 3rd person point of view), and this is the important part: The person that would have been different would still have been me. Different, but still the same being. Next week, I will have experienced other things than I have done up until now, but I can still look forward to something that will happen in my future, can't I(?), because I will surely experience it (if I survive and am conscious), even if I have changed a bit. From my 1st person point of view I will still be me.
The question is then, what factors are labeling my 1st person point of view (that is referred to as "me") to this body and senses, and not e.g. to my neighbour's body and senses? In the history before my existence, what factors occured that lead to my 1st person point of view, and not some other random child's potential 1st person point of view?
I think we should look more in that direction. What you talk about (if I haven't misunderstood you completely) is personality. What I (and many others in this thread) talk about is the fact that I (seen from everybody's own 1st person) exist, as an alternative to not exist.
I have actually read this whole thread, and to sum up, this is what different people think:
"I" am:
-The total of mass. But: The mass is not constant. I do not consist of the same atoms that I did last week.
-A pattern. But: What happens if two individuals with the exact same pattern happen to exist at the same time?
-A specific continuity. But: We do actually break this continuity many times between our birth and death, e.g. when we sleep or are unconscious.
-We die every planck second, and just believe that it was me that existed one planck second ago, because we share the same memories. But: That sounds wierd (which in fact is not the greatest argument in the world. [lol] )
So a conclusion is still hard to grasp.
#185
Posted 14 April 2007 - 06:40 AM
#186
Posted 14 April 2007 - 11:28 PM
So, if someone could elaborate on what exactly it means for self to be illusory, it would be greatly appreciated
#187
Posted 15 April 2007 - 12:18 AM
Maybe it means that the feeling of consciousness is similar to the sensation of a phantom limb experienced by many amputees, the feeling that the missing limb is still there, is moving, and is itchy or painful.I was always wondering, what does it mean to say that a "self is an illusion"?
I've just started reading a book by Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop. If you're not comfortable with the idea of an illusionary "self", then Hofstadter's description of consciousness as an "hallucination perceived by an hallucination" may be a bit difficult to wrap your mind around. From a recent SciAm review:
...Among this library of simulations there is naturally one of yourself, and that is where the strangeness begins.
"You make decisions, take actions, affect the world, receive feedback from the world, incorporate it into yourself, then the updated 'you' makes more decisions, and so forth, round and round," Hofstadter writes. What blossoms from the Gödelian vortex--this symbol system with the power to represent itself--is the "anatomically invisible, terribly murky thing called I." A self, or, to use the name he favors, a soul.
It need know nothing of neurons. Sealed off from the biological substrate, the actors in the internal drama are not things like "serotonin" or "synapse" or even "cerebrum," "hippocampus" or "cerebellum" but abstractions with names like "love," "jealousy," "hope" and "regret."
And that is what leads to the grand illusion. "In the soft, ethereal, neurology-free world of these players," the author writes, "the typical human brain perceives its very own 'I' as a pusher and a mover, never entertaining for a moment the idea that its star player might merely be a useful shorthand standing for a myriad infinitesimal entities and the invisible chemical transactions taking place among them."
If you want to dig into that philosophical path, see if you can get a copy of Perfect Brilliant Stillness.Obviously right now I'm writing this post, being fully aware that this is *me* writing this post and not someone else and then I have all of you guys thinking of an answer to my question - you're all obviously not me. If that is an illusion, then aren't we all a single universal superself already?
#188
Posted 22 April 2007 - 09:21 PM
-BWU
#189
Posted 23 April 2007 - 12:25 AM
#190
Posted 23 April 2007 - 03:55 AM
In what context are you disputing equality? The concept of "equality" as expressed in the assertion, "All men are created equal" in the U.S. ConstitutionLet us clear away an age old misconception: We are not all equal, why?
http://en.wikipedia....e_created_equal
was a statement of equality of rights and treatment under the law, not a statement of physical equivalence. It is a form of equality to be upheld *despite* other obvious inequalities, such as the ones you cite.
#191
Posted 23 April 2007 - 04:10 AM
The way that statement has sometimes been used around this place is to mean that persistence of self over time is an illusion. For example, the belief that the person you remember being in your childhood continues to survive today as you is an illusion. Taken to an extreme, some argue that survival as a distinct self even from moment to moment is an illusion. Considering the tumult of our ever-changing mental states and material composition, such a view is understandable, even if most people choose not to be that nihilistic.I was always wondering, what does it mean to say that a "self is an illusion"?
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