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 figmentfragment
seriousfraulicking
 
Registered: 04/10/07
Posts: 511
Loc: Kiwi Land.
Last seen: 8 hours, 14 minutes
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 the real you?
#8892726 - 09/07/08 07:33 PM (2 months, 26 days ago) |
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Last night my girlfriend and I were having a discussion about the existence of a "real" personality that resides within us...We seem to have quite contrasting views on the subject...so it made me curious to see what opinions others might hold on the subject.
The conversation began, in a somewhat strained moment. She mentioned that "maybe I am just being the real me" to which I responded "there is no real you..."
I don't believe that there is an entity within us...being the real us. I see no difference between any of the thoughts I choose to breathe life into.
There is no real and no fake, just the moments and aspects of myself, which I choose to portray.
I create my personality with conscious thought decisions every moment of the day. If one was to unwrap my layers, one may find that right at the core, underneath...is nothing at all.
She is quite deterministic in her thinking. She believes in truth and destiny, which is ultimately guided, and laid out as a set path. Which one is unable to stray from.
The truth of this "real" her, beyond her control.
I think the "real" her, is as made up as any other part. Merely created by facets of her personality...
So what do you think? Is there a real you? And what makes you know and distinguish this part from any other?
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"I am the one who has felt most deeply the stuttering of the tongue in its relation to thought."
"I see myself wrapped in lies, which do not seem to penetrate my soul, as if they are not really a part of me. They are like costumes."
    
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Oweyervishice
Overshoes
Registered: 05/07/08
Posts: 1,314
Last seen: 4 hours, 2 minutes
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There is a real me, but it has nothing to do with personality. I guess I would say at our core we are nothing, and yet here I am experiencing this, so "I" am real in some form.
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figmentfragment
seriousfraulicking
Registered: 04/10/07
Posts: 511
Loc: Kiwi Land.
Last seen: 8 hours, 14 minutes
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I have little doubt that some form of "I" exists...
But to differentiate the layers of personality, to claim any part more fictitious than others. To me, seems absurd.
If there is a "real" me. It is nothing. Maybe just a space inhabited by potential alone.
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"I am the one who has felt most deeply the stuttering of the tongue in its relation to thought."
"I see myself wrapped in lies, which do not seem to penetrate my soul, as if they are not really a part of me. They are like costumes."
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 Cameron
perma-stone
Registered: 10/31/07
Posts: 2,143
Loc: Canada
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I would compare personality to a tree. We begin as a sapling and continuously accumulate layers. Each decision, or new layer, is a compilation of all previous layers - some more influential than others. We don't stop growing until we die, either.
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deranger
vote for happiness
Registered: 01/21/08
Posts: 3,324
Loc: time
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Quote:
I think the "real" her, is as made up as any other part. Merely created by facets of her personality...
weee 
Before personality there does seem to be nothing (yet a feeling of much more than nothing)... That is the realest to me, the before. The more I think about it the further I drift away... best not to define.
It does feel like I have multiple personalities at times, as though there's my one main delusional personality that sometimes drifts before into a more wholesome, less deluded personality. It's weird, sometimes I'm one person the next day I may be somebody completely different. Such the unstable element...
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new progressive dubstep mix 
Download Link
"you're in a boat, you choose the color of the boat
the boat's on the ocean
the ocean represents your spirit, your emotions, and your life
and the life that you're living is the boat, you're in the boat
you have an anchor, that you don't know you have, it's an invisible anchor
when you see it, that's when you'll be seen"
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Oweyervishice
Overshoes
Registered: 05/07/08
Posts: 1,314
Last seen: 4 hours, 2 minutes
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 Re: the real you? [Re: Cameron]
#8892863 - 09/07/08 07:56 PM (2 months, 26 days ago) |
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Are we truly the tree and all of it's layers? Or, at our core, do we remain the seed, expressing ourselves through the layers? 
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deranger
vote for happiness
Registered: 01/21/08
Posts: 3,324
Loc: time
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Quote:
Oweyervishice said:
Are we truly the tree and all of it's layers? Or, at our core, do we remain the seed, expressing ourselves through the layers?
nice 
delusion seems to take place when there is no recognition of the seed, rather the layer masked as the seed.
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new progressive dubstep mix
Download Link
"you're in a boat, you choose the color of the boat
the boat's on the ocean
the ocean represents your spirit, your emotions, and your life
and the life that you're living is the boat, you're in the boat
you have an anchor, that you don't know you have, it's an invisible anchor
when you see it, that's when you'll be seen"
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deCypher
Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 6,510
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It's not who you are, it's who people think you are.
Or in the end are these merely the same thing?
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we are born naked, wet, hungry, and torn from the woman we love. then things get worse. 
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figmentfragment
seriousfraulicking
Registered: 04/10/07
Posts: 511
Loc: Kiwi Land.
Last seen: 8 hours, 14 minutes
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Re: the real you? [Re: deCypher]
#8893561 - 09/07/08 09:48 PM (2 months, 25 days ago) |
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More importantly. It is who I think, people think I am.
Other people...and what I think they think of me, are a tool I use to represent another aspect of the observer.
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"I am the one who has felt most deeply the stuttering of the tongue in its relation to thought."
"I see myself wrapped in lies, which do not seem to penetrate my soul, as if they are not really a part of me. They are like costumes."
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The_Ghost
Lurker
Registered: 03/27/07
Posts: 3,719
Loc: CA
Last seen: 36 minutes, 45 seconds
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Ya. maybe she was talking about showing who she really feels herself to be vs the image she upholds in social situations. Maybe not - words can be misread obviously.
I know i used to have a struggle going on between two personas, the gist of which being unable to integrate my self, my deeper thoughts and feelings on the world with who i was when i was around friends. It literally felt like i had to be two different people and that was a conflict. I realized that the problem was from my looking at things the wrong way. The key was to merge and complete myself on the inside, while practicing the control of who i chose to appear to be on the outside. Simply being 'myself' all the time is no good, it best to be whoever its best to be in a given situation/environment at will by exercising that will and control of self. And at the same time, i can also be entirely myself around others if i choose to, something i had problems with before.
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 vigilant_mind
metaphysicist
Registered: 01/19/07
Posts: 1,546
Loc: boco
Last seen: 4 minutes, 52 seconds
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The real "me" that I'm thinking of isn't some set, deterministic being, but a continuously created and re-created being-in-the-world. I choose who I am at every moment with reference to my memories of the past and my speculations about the future.
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Arden
Explorer
Registered: 09/01/08
Posts: 363
Loc: Among the Lemurs
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There is no you. From a Buddhist standpoint, this is fairly easy to demonstrate. To my mind it is more coherent to imagine the explanation in materialistic terms.
If one defines "you" as an independent, isolated reality that maintains itself (somewhat) consistently through the years, then I don't believe such a thing exists.
Everything exists in relationship. The unified consciousness that one experiences as being whole (a type of illusion) is actually composed of innumerable elements, influences if you will, that are distinctly NON YOU. Like an airplane or some other contraption, the mind is a composite. All composite phenomena are transient and malleable. When we break open 'your' head, we can't find 'you'. There are no colors there, no trees, no laughter, no personality.
Endogenous drugs, phyto-nutrients, hormones, genetic makeup, brain-wave activity, etc. all interact at fluctuating levels to create you. But where does this real you go during sleep? During anesthesia? During catatonia? After death?
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deCypher
Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 6,510
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Re: the real you? [Re: Arden]
#8895760 - 09/08/08 11:05 AM (2 months, 25 days ago) |
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. Trouble with an absolute monist perspective, though, is that it makes it remarkably hard to talk about specific things. 
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we are born naked, wet, hungry, and torn from the woman we love. then things get worse.
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 10,532
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cameron's approach is pretty good
tree, branches, layers, interconnections.
the real me is all of those things.
which also means that you can't say "that's the real you!" to somebody who is trying to squirm out of being pegged down.
but you can say "the real you includes that" to somebody, and you only peg down one of his or her branches.
so I would talk to the girl more about having that branch pinned down or possibly pruned (not too likely) and move more to talking about the whole tree, not just about yourself, but her too.
i.e. her deterministic branches are certainly in conflict with some of her other more sensible attitudes.
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~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 23,817
Loc: underbelly
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I don't believe that there is an entity within us...being the real us. I see no difference between any of the thoughts I choose to breathe life into.
Honesty is the best policy.
Oh so hard to take for the religious monkey.
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What the thinker thinks, the prover proves. R.A.W.
I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions. R.A.W.
“I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” ~Stephen Roberts
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OrgoneConclusion
Junk Bond
Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 8,172
Loc: Martini-que
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Re: the real you? [Re: Icelander]
#8896167 - 09/08/08 12:59 PM (2 months, 25 days ago) |
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So, basically the lights are on, but nobody is home...?
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I warned you NOT to give me a 3 shroom rating! 
Another ordinary day at The Lake.
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ExplosiveMango
HallucinogenusDigitallus
Registered: 07/12/05
Posts: 2,962
Last seen: 23 hours, 25 minutes
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In my perception;
First and foremost I am a chain of events, streaming acoustic vibrations and photons.
Above that, to participate in coherence; especially social coherence-
I construct a character shell which is somewhat rigid (but more flexible as I gain awareness) because trust was initially associated with rigidity. My self-created self-shell. To bring trustworthy coherence to the streams of sound and light shaping in my mind as 'people' I place semi-rigid shells around them as well. Characters, other-shells.
As I investigate the characters I create I discover that they two are likely creating character frames with which to protect from the intensity of scrutiny.
When I consider the self-created self-shell created by the other-shell I create around the person I realize my ambiguity and their ambiguity. As I share the notion of these shells with them, I feel a multi-self-shell allow itself around each of us which better respects our individual and mutual ambiguity. An inter-personal self awareness.
To me, the "real you" is the realization that this concept could one day be big enough to encompass all; it is the reconciliation of every being's character with every other's into a single character which respects all individual characters.
Oneness.
Physically attainable? Perhaps. Let's try that lightspeed thing.
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Know your self.
Know your substance.
Know your source.
Stop knowing what you are and realize what you could be.
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Oweyervishice
Overshoes
Registered: 05/07/08
Posts: 1,314
Last seen: 4 hours, 2 minutes
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Quote:
ExplosiveMango said:
Oneness.
Physically attainable? Perhaps. Let's try that lightspeed thing.
Communication certainly seems to be heading that way...
From body language, to spoken word, to literature and radios and televisions...and the INTERNET! Wow. 
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deCypher
Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 6,510
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Re: the real you? [Re: The_Ghost]
#8898395 - 09/08/08 08:09 PM (2 months, 25 days ago) |
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Quote:
The_Ghost said:
Ya. maybe she was talking about showing who she really feels herself to be vs the image she upholds in social situations. Maybe not - words can be misread obviously.
I know i used to have a struggle going on between two personas, the gist of which being unable to integrate my self, my deeper thoughts and feelings on the world with who i was when i was around friends. It literally felt like i had to be two different people and that was a conflict. I realized that the problem was from my looking at things the wrong way. The key was to merge and complete myself on the inside, while practicing the control of who i chose to appear to be on the outside. Simply being 'myself' all the time is no good, it best to be whoever its best to be in a given situation/environment at will by exercising that will and control of self. And at the same time, i can also be entirely myself around others if i choose to, something i had problems with before.
This sounds eerily like me. Are you sure you're not really just the Jack to my Tyler Durden? 
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we are born naked, wet, hungry, and torn from the woman we love. then things get worse.
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ExplosiveMango
HallucinogenusDigitallus
Registered: 07/12/05
Posts: 2,962
Last seen: 23 hours, 25 minutes
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Re: the real you? [Re: deCypher]
#8898508 - 09/08/08 08:29 PM (2 months, 25 days ago) |
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Yeah, that's another thing about the 'real you';
sometimes life circumstances force you to close yourself off, so you have to spend periods of time facing a 'fake you'. The 'real you' is definitely relative.
When I was in my call center career I had a very forceful shell personality which I essentially could not take off for around a year.
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Know your self.
Know your substance.
Know your source.
Stop knowing what you are and realize what you could be.
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