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OldWoodSpecter
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What makes you, you
#3734589 - 02/05/05 09:08 AM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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Your physical material? your body replaces old cells with new cells all the time, you are never the same organism you were before.
Is it your DNA? Your DNA can mutate and you might end up with a tail or horns, yet they are still you
Is it your mind, the way it thinks and feels? chances are that you are nothing like you were when you were a child, you thought different, had different beliefs, perhapse even different mental abilities. Your mind is as subjected to change as the top layer of your skin is.
Are you a collection of symbols in your own mind and the minds of others? A name, a job, an idea of a certain person? You can change your job and name and friends and family and everything external, yet you are still you.
So what is it that never changes in you, that makes you you?
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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stefan
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-every expeciance you ever had, all sensory information that your brain processed in your life -genetics also play a part in this
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OldWoodSpecter
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Re: What makes you, you [Re: stefan]
#3734611 - 02/05/05 09:15 AM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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But what if you lost all your memory, got brainwashed and started again. You are not the same person, but are you the same entity?
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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stefan
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if that would happen you probably would probably have some serious brain damage and because of that you wouldn't be the same of coarse. If you mean ALL memory, that also means motor information, like how to walk, write etc etc.
Starting again wouldn't work because you don't have the plasticity of the brain anymore that you have when you're a kid. So you can't learn all these things again so fast and you wouldn't be able to learn many things anymore. so you would be a complete retard probably (more a vegetable )
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OldWoodSpecter
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What I am trying to say is...
If your body changer every cell from its birth to now, if your DNA mutated, and if you lost your memory and changed the way you think and what you belief, and you are living alone in a cave, nobody knows of your existence because everyone you knew died, Can you prove that you are still you? What makes you the same entity you were 20 years before?
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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OldWoodSpecter
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Re: What makes you, you [Re: stefan]
#3734640 - 02/05/05 09:22 AM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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You are missing the point, I didn't mean what makes you the way you are in life, I ment what makes you the same living being, the same entity, what makes you John Whatever if there is no trace of the John Whatever that was before 50 years
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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stefan
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you wre not exactly the same, people change.. but still you have the same body-->you didn't leave it to get another one or something
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OldWoodSpecter
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Re: What makes you, you [Re: stefan]
#3734651 - 02/05/05 09:26 AM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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Yea, you said it "people change" , but in reality they can be replaced by new material and new structure, yet they are still one and the same symbol:
You have two humans:
human#1 human#2
they mutate and change into one another, so human1 is now identical to former human2 and human2 is now identical to the old human1
but human1 is still human1 and human2 is still human2 because they got their numbers and are still standing on the same spot
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
Edited by OldWoodSpecter (02/05/05 09:27 AM)
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stefan
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first you need to define 'person' and 'entity' before we can discuss this properly
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OldWoodSpecter
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Re: What makes you, you [Re: stefan]
#3734664 - 02/05/05 09:31 AM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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Yea...
well it's debatable, but let's say person is what you are at the moment, so you can say "I am not the same person I was" But there is always this "I" that remains no matter what person you become, let's call this "I" an entity
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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Huehuecoyotl
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"...for long you live and high you fly and smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry and all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be" Pink Floyd
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stefan
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if you lost all memory etc etc (what you said above) then I think both the person and the entity would be lost for yourself. For outsiders you would still look the same but you would be a completely different person to them. So only the physical body would still be the same (exept for brain changes, but you can't see that from the outside.
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OldWoodSpecter
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Re: What makes you, you [Re: stefan]
#3734688 - 02/05/05 09:42 AM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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But if you looked at such a person, you wouldn't go: Where did he dissapear? Let's go look for him!
You would be aware that it was the same living being, only changed..
And let's say you haven't seen him from his birth, when he was born, you saw his body and remembereed him, and linked him to a certain concept in your brain. And now you see him after 50 years, all his skin was replaced by new cells, he got transplants of most organs in his body, and his personality changed because of this erasure of memory.
But you would still link him to the concept, to the same name and idea in your head even though he is 20% of the substance and structure that you linked to your concept of him in your head
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
Edited by OldWoodSpecter (02/05/05 09:47 AM)
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stefan
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Quote:
You would be aware that it was the same living being, only changed..
yeah, that's what I was said
I don't see how I could possibly identify someone 50 years later that I only have seen as a baby
If I actually remembered seeing the baby and still knew his name when the person 50 years later said that he's the person you saw when he was still a baby then I would probably link him to the concept of him as a baby in my head.
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Ravus
Not an EggshellWalker
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Perhaps the gradual change is what keeps us, us.
For example, if our body was a stream, we would look in it, and every time we looked we'd see different water than we've seen before flowing through it, but it's the movement of the stream that keeps the stream in its shape.
Our body is constantly shedding and growing new cells all over, just like the water in a river is always flowing down, but even when the components change, it remains the same entity.
We are constantly learning new things and beliefs, and forgetting some of the old ones, but the changes in our mind keep it flowing. Even if the beliefs that we look at today are completely different from the ones yesterday, they all were at the same spot, and all will continue their downwards path.
Until the stream dries out and we die of course.
-------------------- So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
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Gomp
¡(Bound to·(O))be free!
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Re: What makes you, you [Re: Ravus]
#3734771 - 02/05/05 10:17 AM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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You.
-------------------- -------------------- Disclaimer!?
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OldWoodSpecter
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Re: What makes you, you [Re: Ravus]
#3734784 - 02/05/05 10:24 AM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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Yea that's interesting. The change is constant, that could be the real us. The history of change.
It could allso be consciousness, because all the change is happening from the same perspective, same camera angle, that we call consciousness
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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Frog
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Quote:
OldWoodSpecter said: You are missing the point, I didn't mean what makes you the way you are in life, I ment what makes you the same living being, the same entity, what makes you John Whatever if there is no trace of the John Whatever that was before 50 years
Fingerprints.
-------------------- The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. -Teilard
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OldWoodSpecter
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Re: What makes you, you [Re: Frog]
#3734970 - 02/05/05 11:31 AM (19 years, 1 month ago) |
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Some people don't have hands
-------------------- I descend upon your earth from the skies I command your very souls you unbelievers Bring before me what is mine
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deff
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nothing is perpetual. i really don't think that the concept we impose of a linear self that is constant is correct at all. the self in essence is undefinable, as definitions work only within our temporal perceptions - as in, we can't mentally create a model of a four dimensional lifespan (including time - therefore physical and mental change).
if you are to define the self though, then this comes up. clearly, individuals are not the same at all as they were in past instances. atomically speaking there's huge changes (even down to the instantaneous position of trillions and trillions of electrons), mentally there are more/less memories of 'past' stored to create a unique self identity of the moment, and with this - personality and behaviour changes.
to define the self seems to limit it more than clarify it. I think it's time personally to do away with these old linear worldviews as to me, they don't seem accurate in the least.
each seperate moment of being, each 'timeframe' of self, is a different person. a seeminly proceeding self will have stored within it's brain memories of the past events of the person he evolved from. this, along with overlapping these perceptual moments, gives rise to our perception of a singular identity and timeflow.
but, to hold onto to the illusion of a constant identity limits our present possibilities. by defining that we are one way, we are saying that we aren't not that way, imposing our view of ourself onto ourself in a twisted manner. each moment is a new self, you are constantly experiencing rebirth, and the ego is a disguise that is comfotable but a little tight.
we are essentially a blank awareness, and in a way - this is the connection between all of us into we, and also our true constant state. even a lack of sensory perception cannot detract from this nothingness, this void. by letting go our our desire to be and to become, our desire to fill this void with illusion of form and continuity, we free ourselves from our own limiting definitions.
we are all one infinite mind, thinking that we aren't. this body is like a frequency within it's hyperdimensional infinite space. individuality and separation are an illusion arising out of the desire to exist absolutely like we have conditioned ourselves to think we do.
i dunno, thats why i think
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