Is there a real you?

[meatsim]

I found this pretty interesting.

What makes you, you? Is it how you think of yourself, how others think of you, or something else entirely?

[YOUTUBE]

 

[onethousandk]

Interesting talk. Anyone interested in this notion from the scientific perspective should read The Biology of Mind. Talks about similar concepts, though it buys into the notion of the mind being an illusion which Baggini doesn't seem to. I like his waterfall analogy.

 

[jbark]

Interesting talk for youths to encourage them to make of themselves what they will and not to feel limited by who they believe they are; however, PROFOUNDLY flawed as a philosophical conceit. How can you speak for 12 mins about the self and NEVER address the notion of consciousness? By way of example, let me leave you with a questioning of his fundamental analogy:

DOES A WATERFALL KNOW IT IS A WATERFALL?

Skirting this question makes the talk what it is: food for thought and inspiration for the under 18 crowd.

JBArk

 

[original_sessions]

DOES A WATERFALL KNOW IT IS A WATERFALL?

Of course not! :d "Waterfall" is a name man made with the use of his conscious/linguistic mind. In nature, nothing has a name (nor is nature conscious to even be aware of its own existence). Man gives things names, and then orders them into classes and categories. Identity (or the idea of the self) is a concept man, himself, created. IMO, identity is merely the illusion of language, which makes us think we are separate from everything else around us.

Great post, jbark. BTW, I hope my post helps answer some of your questions concerning the concept of the self, meatsim.

Best wishes.

 

[DMT Psychonaut]

DOES A WATERFALL KNOW IT IS A WATERFALL?

jbark, how strangely convenient you ask this question using the waterfall analogy 8)

Maybe it does?


I also thought it was funny how he said something about if you had a heart transplant you're still the same person and I just recently watched this which raises the question. (Skip to around 10 minutes if you don't want to watch the whole thing and you'll see what I mean :lol

 

[christian]

I think Burt Harding has a better philosophy.

 

[Walter D. Roy]

DOES A WATERFALL KNOW IT IS A WATERFALL?

I think what he is trying to say is that we are made up of molecules, just like his watch. So all molecules are formed together by a natural process in which we find ourselves. So at a molecular or atomic level is where we experience the self because of indiviual molecule experiences to a lesser of greater degree.

I thought he had a pretty good talk, but I do think he would've taken it a bit deeper. He did mention that it was pretty close to Locke and Hume's philosophy, and probably also to Berkeley's. Over all I though it had some good insights.

 

[Saidin]

Of course not! :d "Waterfall" is a name man made with the use of his conscious/linguistic mind. In nature, nothing has a name (nor is nature conscious to even be aware of its own existence). Man gives things names, and then orders them into classes and categories. Identity (or the idea of the self) is a concept man, himself, created. IMO, identity is merely the illusion of language, which makes us think we are separate from everything else around us.

Nature isn't conscious? Nature isn't aware of its own existence? Think about this one a bit harder as you are claiming that you are neither conscious nor aware of your own existence!

Even if you are speaking of a 'nature' disconnected from man, you still cannot make this assertion with any validity as you cannot possibly know the degree to which nature is/is not conscious.

 

[christian]

According to western views there is a real you, and you are your name, age, body, thoughts, mind, job.

-However, according to enlightened people the truth is the complete opposite.:surprised

 

[Tek]

Who are you?

Those are probably the three most powerful words for awakening that one can reflect upon. Teo once told me in hyperspace that 'who you are can't be described' and that is the most true thing I've ever been told.

Have you ever asked someone who are you before and interject when they resort to the standard name, occupation, sex, religion, etc? People can get very defensive about this idea because I think deep down very few people really know who they are so they hide behind these masks that Chrisitian outlines above. Start making them question the masks they are wearing and you'll find a lot of people will try to change the subject or tell you your being silly without even taking the time to really try the exercise.

Have you done it? You can do it right now where your sitting. Who are you? A name is a word people call you that's not who you are. Your age is simply how many times you've witnessed the planet go around the sun, nothing more. You're occupation is an activity you participate in willingly, its not who you are.

If you're brave enough to take this to the far end of the spectrum, what you end up with is something that cannot be defined (just like good ol Teo said). Clearly, you exist in some way, but if you can't say one thing about your existence other than you exist there is no way to seperate a 'real you' from the entire experience your having, thus resulting in a concept of 'no self'.

What we are, what we think we are, is a mental construct built up by our parents and peers opinions of us and is about as real as actors performing on a stage.

 

[jbark]

Who are you?

The sum total of all I have ever experienced and thought. Anything else is conjecture.

 

[Tek]

JBark, nice answer, but there is a hidden plurality in what you said but its actually just a byproduct of our language. You notice how by even mentioning 'I' in that sentence it immediately makes an unnecessary distinction from the experience itself. In your statement, there is still an 'I' that is having an experience, thus a dualism. This is hardwired into the very way we write and speak and adds so much confusion to trying to convey this concept to the lay person.

Terence McKenna used to talk a lot about language and at first I didn't really understand what the big deal about it was. Then I sort of got it. Notice how you can't even phrase a grammatically correct sentence without using such pronouns? It's like a trick hidden in our very language that promotes a seperatist view of the world. We can only evolve as fast as our language evolves (Terence quote), and with our language being entrenched in nouns and verbs referring to a subject interacting with an object, it becomes nearly impossible to even speak on this concept and be understood.

I believe that's a really big reason why it's so hard to understand, and why those in antiquity chose to convey the concept with riddles and proverbs. You notice how there are these buddhist sayings like 'anyone who says they are enlightened is not enlightened'. It's paradoxical, but only when you try to talk about it. It's impossible to say your enlightened because being enlightened means you know there is no I to be enlightened! It's all in the language.

 

[3rdI]

Tek, i really like the way you look at things, your post are dynamite:wink:

but seriously thanks for the great posts, they get me thinking in a way i never have.

 

[jbark]

JBark, nice answer, but there is a hidden plurality in what you said but its actually just a byproduct of our language. You notice how by even mentioning 'I' in that sentence it immediately makes an unnecessary distinction from the experience itself. In your statement, there is still an 'I' that is having an experience, thus a dualism. This is hardwired into the very way we write and speak and adds so much confusion to trying to convey this concept to the lay person.

Terence McKenna used to talk a lot about language and at first I didn't really understand what the big deal about it was. Then I sort of got it. Notice how you can't even phrase a grammatically correct sentence without using such pronouns? It's like a trick hidden in our very language that promotes a seperatist view of the world. We can only evolve as fast as our language evolves (Terence quote), and with our language being entrenched in nouns and verbs referring to a subject interacting with an object, it becomes nearly impossible to even speak on this concept and be understood.

I believe that's a really big reason why it's so hard to understand, and why those in antiquity chose to convey the concept with riddles and proverbs. You notice how there are these buddhist sayings like 'anyone who says they are enlightened is not enlightened'. It's paradoxical, but only when you try to talk about it. It's impossible to say your enlightened because being enlightened means you know there is no I to be enlightened! It's all in the language.

SWIM agrees.

:lol: Finally a real use for that acronym!! But yes, even someone who is not me is still a noun, and to agree is still a verb. There is an entire school of thought that propounds that we ARE language (tied into the notion of the logos and the WORD), and I, in part, espouse this idea with all its inherent limitations. While we can certainly experience things that lie beyond language, I don't believe we can actually "understand" them, for language is our tool for understanding; and if we are indeed language, this naturally means that we will NEVER understand certain things, which I believe to be true and essential.

JBArk

 

[Tek]

Thanks 3rdI that really means a lot

Jbark you're expanding my curiosity with your comment on the concept that we ARE language. It's something I've heard elsewhere, but not something I've ever really reflected upon. If that truly is the case, it lends a HUGE amount of insight into why it's so hard to talk about what we're shown in hyperspace. It's also a big part of what the tykes seem to be conveying, like their trying to show us how to create ourselves through the manipulation of the language that comprises us (our DNA). They sure make it seem easy though, my monkey brain is having a helluva hard time trying to come to grips with the mechanics as to how that process would actually work.

 

[original_sessions]

Of course not! :d "Waterfall" is a name man made with the use of his conscious/linguistic mind. In nature, nothing has a name (nor is nature conscious to even be aware of its own existence). Man gives things names, and then orders them into classes and categories. Identity (or the idea of the self) is a concept man, himself, created. IMO, identity is merely the illusion of language, which makes us think we are separate from everything else around us.

Nature isn't conscious? Nature isn't aware of its own existence? Think about this one a bit harder as you are claiming that you are neither conscious nor aware of your own existence!

Even if you are speaking of a 'nature' disconnected from man, you still cannot make this assertion with any validity as you cannot possibly know the degree to which nature is/is not conscious.

Language was/is created in the realm of culture. It's symbolic, and, as such, has nothing to do with physical reality. "The map is not the territory" as Alfred Korzybski once stated.

I, as a living organism, certainly have origins in nature (and, in fact, operate on its physical laws). Nonetheless, everything I know (everything that I can communicate through language) comes from culture.

Consciousness is nothing more than language itself. Everything we consciously or subconsciously communicate comes from culture (i.e., the association of relative signs and linguistic symbols). Without culture (which has nothing to do with nature), language, and, therefore, consciousness cannot exist.

Is the world aware of itself? Does the world say anything to itself? Does the world think any thoughts? Does it associate or communicate to us through relative signs and/or cultural symbols? No. It doesn't have the culture, nor the mental means to do so.

IMO, nature is completely absurd: a freak and rare occurrence without any intrinsic meaning in it whatsoever. "Existence precedes essence" as Sartre once said. And while meaning is certainly made (through the conscious and subconscious association of relative cultural signs and symbols), there is no preset meaning to man's existence. After all, if one is to admit that there is a preset meaning to existence, then it would mean that there would be only one good way to live. And that we would all have to live the same lives if we were to live "meaningfully".

Consciousness, in itself, is a tool. And while we can use it for great good (creating technologies that make our lives easier to live), it has led to more terrible things than we can imagine.

I hope you find this an adequate response to your statement. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to post them.

Best wishes.

P.S.

Jbark and Tek: thank you for the wonderful posts. Words, well stated.

 

[jbark]

The following is from Part 3, the conclusion, of MYCOMYSTERIUM, a trip report from a harrowing and divine experience I had last year. I thought it was appropriate regarding the discussion of language and self:

SUDDENLY A FLASH. A revelation :

The 2 dimensional primary coloured cartoon visions of DMT and now mushrooms, the word as signifiers, « Friday, Marshmallow, Spaghetti, Lego, Ketchup, Saturday » and even letters themselves - children’s visions, childish words. Even the struggling with the phonetics of these words (as in this report) is consistent with a child making aural connections between words in an endeavour to understand their pronunciation. Perhaps the substances were stripping us down, bringing us the route to the root and the root of the route…

Rooty Route Root, Routey tout TOUTE! (in french, the path (route) to all (toute))!

Perhaps we are reliving the terror and ecstasy of infancy, tapping into the prelingual, prerational mind mass, back at the moment where we learned our first words, and made visual sense of our surroundings and started understanding the divine geometry that surrounds : up, down, forward back – colour, shape, texture - the construction of reality, through words, of all our sensory input – the moment where our minds slide from the memory of the primordial soup through Reptilia and Hominoidea to supersede instinct with words and symbols that compartmentalize our environment, and become us. WE ARE WORDS. I believe Mckenna said that, copping it from the new testament :

« In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.». JOHN 1 :1

« Au commencement était le Verbe et le Verbe était tourné vers Dieu,
et le Verbe était Dieu. » JEAN 1 :1

(some french translations use « Parole » (word), while others use « verbe » : verb or action. God is the word, but the word in action – in TIME.

(here there should be Hebrew text that I am unable to paste...see attached image) GENESIS 1 :1

(a word-for-word translation might be "in-beginning created God."

We are language, the building blocks of consciousness, of the Id, of the ego, of the superego, of I – OF EVERYTHING. Except darkness. Darkness, or non-being, « comprehended it not ».

Here’s a hypothesis :

When we consume these substances in quantity, it divides our brains bicamerally, disabling most of the higher functions of the cerebral cortex and separating them from the functioning glands of the the endocrine system : the pituitary (regulating homeostasis), the hypothalamus (synthesizing and secreting neurohormones, it controls body temperature, hunger, thirst, fatigue, and circadian cycles) and the thalamus (its function includes relaying sensation, spatial sense and motor signals to the cerebral cortex, along with the regulation of consciousness, sleep and alertness) – and yes, the pineal gland (that creates melatonin, a hormone that affects the modulation of wake/sleep patterns). While retaining some higher cognitive faculties, we are working largely from the reptilian consciousness AND the prelingual, presymbol infant mind.

AND IT FEELS DIVINE.

From the perspective of the remnants of the adult mind, we see the construction, the artifice, the « building blocks» as I refer to them, and we ask the question WHO BUILT THIS and by process of elimination, in the absence of anything or anyone else, we assume that WE must have built it ourselves. Built our Self : the machine of self that self transforms. From the perspective of the beginning, the root of consciousness, it appears, by default, that we are the maker, the creator, the one and only god. This sense of divinity is derived, perhaps, from the bicameral division of the mind into a consciousness that processes and one that communicates.

A window to the childmind or a doorway to god?

Christopher Dewdney is a Canadian poet who wrote an essay called « the house of the living language » that I read in university but have been unable to subsequently locate. I will recount how I recollect it, however flawed that recollection be :

In his early twenties Christopher Dewdney was a left wing hippy type who got into a rather serious VW bus accident with his soulmate, a woman who was quite seriously injured as a result. It was discovered that while she had suffered relatively minimal brain damage for the head trauma she endured, her language center was nevertheless somehow wiped completely clean. All memories and knowledge and emotions entirely intact, just no linguistic way to express them or to understand anyone else – she was an adult who no longer understood language! (variations of this phenomena sometimes occur after severe strokes).

During her convalescence, Christopher Dewdney, little injured in the accident, stayed at her bedside and began reteaching her the english language; progress was slow and often frustrating, but they eventually made some headway and she began slowly to regain her capacity for understanding language and using it to communicate. But a strange change had taken hold of her that first manifested in small things : before the accident, she had loved chocolate ice cream, but now, vanilla was her favourite flavour. Christopher began noticing dozens of these little changes, that slowly added up to larger ones : as time went on, she fell out of love with her soul-mate, returned to school to study law, and if I remember correctly, went on to lead the defense counsel of a prominent right wing politician. A total about face : from lovestruck hippy to hardnose conservative lawyer!

Christopher Dewdney, quite shell-shocked I imagine, had a theory to explain this radical change in her. When her language center was wiped clean he believed that, essentially, so was she! She became a blank slate and the order in which she relearnt words and associated different symbols with objects and phrases not only changed minor characteristics about her, but rather changed who she was fundamentally, reconstructing her character from the bottom up! SHE WAS LANGUAGE. The building blocks of HER were WORDS.

She had been unmade and then made anew. The flesh remained, but the spirit altered.

So : We are language. God is language. Language is a group of symbols. We are symbols employing symbols to create and understand reality, to comprehend God, to behold ourselves.

BUT :

The how, the who - the WHY? God needed to feel imperfection, so he created. He created language, with all its failings, which in turn created him. He created duality, a binary system, a code of opposing forces through which we understand our world : hotcold, blackwhite, lovehate, lostfound, youme. In a world of infinite notches between extremes, we grasp at words to condense reality into comprehensible packets, symbols taking the place of the infinite (a symbol itself) in order to understand our environment : 1 & 0, binary, duality, mind/body. Absence, presence. The body is 1, the mind 0. The code is inescapable, for it is US.

« Information is difference that makes a difference », Gregory Bateson. WE ARE INFORMATION.

Paraphrasing and building on R.A. Wilson : Negative entropy is information – given that entropy is the measure of the inertness, lack of coherence or « deadness » of a system, negative entropy is the measure of the « liveliness », coherence or informational content of a system. (Prometheus Rising, p.112)

SO THEN :

The sum total of an infinite negative entropic system is god, is reality, is the universe; and the primary binary (oxymoron intended!) nature of that universe is the struggle, the conflict between entropy and negative entropy – life/death, being/not being, time/stasis.

Given the binary nature of the universe, is it surprising that at the root of it all is paradox? For is paradox not the irreconcilable co-existence of opposites? 1,0, off, on, live, die.

I am codified. I am a number. I am pairs. And much more - I am pair ‘o docks : one dock to land and another to take flight.

I AM : 100100011101010000100010010100010010010…

The body is 1, the mind 0. A PAIR of DOCKS.

In the beginning there was 0. Then 1 was born into the world : 1n the end, there was the w0rd. And we saw that

1t was g00d.

 

[memo]

I believe that my personal awareness is a product of my physiology. My physiology is the container that the one video speaks about. I pretty much agree with the first video but I would say that what he says doesn't necessarily conflict with the people that he speaks about who allude to the "I" being an illusion. The "I" is a real product of the physiology but it is a phantom that has no awareness prior to the physiology or after the physiology. If you have ever been given a general anesthetic like propofol I think that you would know what death is like. It's like you can feel yourself getting drowsy and then the doctor will say "You can go now" and it turns out that you have been unconscious for an extended period of time but it passed instantaneously for you. This is how time passed before your physiology generated your personal awareness and this is how it is when you die except you just don't wake up again. There is no time. The act of dying itself, the letting go can be terrifying but I believe that once you die there is no time and no personal awareness for you. There are things in life that can be much more terrifying than death and I think that the dmt experience is one place to find them. This is why I believe that psychedelics like dmt and lsd can be such useful learning tools since once you can relax or let go of the fear you can experience aspects of being alive that aren't available to the average man. The greatest lesson can be just learning to deal with and transcend fear.

 

[pau]

Is there a real me?

You must be dreaming!