by Terry 38 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
"You" is a concept of the mind. "You" is an illusion created by feelings attached to our thought patterns. The more feelings the more you becomes manifest as reciever of feelings.
Thinking without feelings the you is not appearent,,and the concept would not exist(at least not in the same form as with feelings).
I had composed a longish reply to this, just before the site went down, yesterday
Didier:
Again I find Lacan's paradigm quite helpful, distinguishing and connecting (1) the symbolical speaking/knowing subject from both (2) the real biological individual and (3) the imaginary self-representation (originally the specular image).
How is "real" being defined in entity two?
Is it not possible that the physical body is merely a vehicle.
Terry:
How do you escape the fact that without an organic brain; there is no YOU?
Ah, so speaks the materialist
Why does the physical so easily restrain the immortal and intangible?
Does a car drive well, when you burst a tyre, or a radiator hose?
If we are actually "soul", then surely our actions and input are filtered predominantly through the physical vehicle?
I never really analyzed it before but I figure when the sperm and the egg got together and formed my organism and I started to breathe and opened my eyes I was me. I read somewhere that at some point the baby realizes it is a separate entity from its mother. This is why I always had a problem with the belief of reincarnation because it would be superimposing one soul on another.
LHG:While I don't believe in reincarnation, my understanding of the subject is that there is only one soul involved.
One isn't kicked out, to make room for the new one.
Maybe one of our Buddist posters could elaborate, though.
Little Toe:
You might have a point there. Somehow the belief in reincarnation is creepy in some way as is the karma wheel (like a hell in some fashion). If this is true I have no control over it anyway!
By the way, are those your two kids in your picture. Cute!
These three things (identity, personality and behavior) are not separate from the brain, are not even linked to the brain, but are unified with the brain. The evidence shows that they are completely determined by the physical configuration of the brain, and that a change to this configuration can alter, reduce or eliminate any of them.
Hmm.. I think that is true because I had minor nerve damage after my car accident and it has changed me. I am more relaxed now and before I was a perfectionist. I used to love the color green and now I like red or black. I used to dress more "sweet" now I dress more "funky, modern, retro". I used to be quick with my thoughts and always knew just what to say, now sometimes I say the "wrong eclectic" thing. I used to always be the one smiling and now I'm more reserved but still friendly.
The only thing that makes me wonder if their is more to us then what we see is- Why do people on their death bed lose 24 grams of weight? What is leaving their body at the exact moment of death that would cause this?
Don't know- I would like there to be more out of life, but I'm not sure that there is.
Who am I? May be the most important question ever.
We can discuss beliefs about self, but not reach beyond words and thoughts, and isn't that really what we are after here? Is this not the pit of dilemma and darkness which we have tried to fill and illuminate since day one with our conceptual inventions of religions, gods and philosophies? To no avail.
It would seem that a deeper and more significant investigation may take place only when there is a stepping out of all concepts; into what is not conceptual. Into what is real and true when thought and believed-self are absent. What is not conceptual? What looks upon concepts and thought? Is that, merely a secondhand idea or concept? Or is It before all else? Is it not more unmistakably real and true than anything? Is it not the one thing we all share? Perhaps, we should look deeper here.
Upon our bellies we have journeyed through the streets and alleys of concepts looking under every little rock, theory and can. Perhaps it's time we stood and became aware of Awareness, That, which is closest and most intimately self, and see what can be found here. But then, it wouldn't make for a very good thread, because we wouldn't be able to discuss it, really.
j
LHG:
They are my nephews. I have no kids of my own (see bio), so they are my surrogates
