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Finding yourself
What does it mean?

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Finding yourself

Philonus
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Posted 07/22/08 - 03:23 PM: Subject: Finding yourself	#1
One of the most philosophical but rarely discussed topic in the field of Achademic philosophy is "Finding yourself", and its something that I don't really understand anymore. What does it mean to find yourself if the self is subjected to constant changes? How can, as David Hume puts it, Chase myself if I change everyday? To simplify things answer this question to me, because I would really like to know: What does it mean to find yourself?

Kelby
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Posted 07/22/08 - 03:46 PM:	#2
I hope you realize you are opening a wave of comments because of how vague the question is. haha p.s. I like how you have Kant's picture as your avatar. *** I guess I'll wing it: The notion that the self is in constant change is an old one, stemming all the way back to Greek times with the Boat of Theseus. Your question though relies on the fact that there even is a self to begin with. Maybe, right off the bat, I should ask you what you mean by self. Because if we are constantly chasing after ourselves, that implies we are not ourselves, because we are chasing after ourselves, and so what does it even mean to be chasing after ourselves in the first place? Is there ever a time when we are not ourselves?
Embodied Cognition: http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/embodcog.htm#H2

Philonus
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Posted 07/22/08 - 04:12 PM:	#3
Thanks for your compliment on my Avatar, Kant is one of my favorite philosophers and I am currently reading his philosophy book right now (mostly his Basic Writings). Anyways What i'm trying to do here is challange the common notion or phrase "Find yourself" with another philosophical problem which David Hume and philosophers before him argued for, and this is the problem of Self in which Self changes constantly to the point when it becomes questionable as to whether we can really trust the notion of finding yourself. By Self I mean in the sense of personal and individual identity or Character. The Notion of "Finding yourself" tries to make individuals understand their Self in order to achieve self-enlightenment and self-acceptence, but if the Self (identity and character) is subjected to constant change then it becomes more or less like "chasing yourself" since the self does not stand in one place for eternity.

Techeth
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Posted 07/22/08 - 05:02 PM:	#4
It's my understanding that it as much being at peace with who you are as it is knowing who that person is. It's being at peace with what you can do, what you can't, what you must and what you never will. There are people who don't know who they really are they have not discovered what is 'necessary' to them, while there are people who know who they are they just haven't come to terms with 'what it is to be them', they are trying to be someone else. That's not to say they can't or don't change only that it's a lot easier when you know who you are, because if you've not found yourself how can you truely be who you are changing into?
Studying is like rowing against the current, if you are not moving forward, you are moving backward. - Chinese proverb Life's a bitch but God forbid the bitch divorce me! - Anon Silence makes the soul feel sick - Timid Timothy THINK QUICK! Your future just became your past.

Kelby
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Posted 07/22/08 - 05:16 PM:	#5
Philonus wrote: By Self I mean in the sense of personal and individual identity or Character. The Notion of "Finding yourself" tries to make individuals understand their Self in order to achieve self-enlightenment and self-acceptence, but if the Self (identity and character) is subjected to constant change then it becomes more or less like "chasing yourself" since the self does not stand in one place for eternity. This then leads to another question: identity. Where does identity "sit?" Is it in the ever changing body? The canonical concept of self is that it is unchanging. The body changes and the self stays the same. The self may change in the sense of attitude, feeling, or thought, but nonetheless, it is a stable essence that doesn't change. During the middle ages the problem of universals was prevelant. What was constant about a tree? An apple may bruise, wither, and so forth, but it is still nonethless an apple. The "appleness" of the apple does not change, only the physical apple itself. Likewise, in the way you are describing the self, it seems contrary to what we attribute to the self, i.e., unchanging and eternal. If you are saying that the self is subject to change, then you would have to explain how something that is usually described as eternal and immaterial changes. I believe the word self is rife with dualistic connotations which I find fallacious. I believe our selves simply describe our subjective thinking which tend to seperate itself from the body simply by viewing the body as an object. When we pick up a stick, we categorize it as an object. However, rip off your arm and pick it up, it then becomes an object. The entire body is subjected to this simple categorization but it does not connote that the mind is seperate from the body. Finally, to say that the self changes would mean that WE have changed and there would be no "chasing" involved. I hope I can explain this well so bear with me: you are implying that there are two selves. Self(2) that changes and the other Self(1) that has to "find" self(2). The way you describe the "you" and the "self" is as follows: ~~Self(1) is trying to understand Self(2) because self(2) is always changing, and so is our bodies. So how can we(self1) ever know ourselves(self2)?~~ You are putting a self behind a self ...do you see where I am going with this? Edited by Kelby on 07/22/08 - 05:28 PM
Embodied Cognition: http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/embodcog.htm#H2

klubbit
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Posted 07/22/08 - 06:46 PM:	#6
I believe others have expressed these same ideas, but... I don't really buy into the whole "finding yourself" thing either. I think when people say that they're finding themselves, they really mean they're trying to become a more satisfying self. Obviously there's no self hiding out there waiting to be found. You can say "I'm not being myself" because you're being strongly influenced by external factors, but really, there's no other self but the self you currently are. It would be more accurate to say "I'm not satisfied with the way I'm acting," which is probably due to contradictory beliefs held by one's self ("I want to fit in" versus "I don't just want to be pushed around by other people").

Philonus
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Posted 07/23/08 - 09:02 AM:	#7
Another question I would like to ask in order to clarify my intention is: What is the meaning or nature of Self-Enlightenment? Socrates once said "Know thyself", which to me is synonomous with modern saying "Find yourself". What is Self Enlightenment?

Verybadman?
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Posted 08/03/08 - 03:32 AM:	#8
Self enlightenment or the self enlightened, refers to one who believes that he is capable of direct access to the divine. And 'the divine' of course relating to a belief system, the most popular being monotheism. How one would go about doing this I have no idea as I'm presuming it entails alot more than simply going to church. It's an interesting question. If one was to find himself, how would one know that he had found himself. How would he know how to find himself to find himself?

unenlightened
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Posted 08/03/08 - 06:11 AM:	#9
Kelby wrote: ~~Self(1) is trying to understand Self(2) because self(2) is always changing, and so is our bodies. So how can we(self1) ever know ourselves(self2)?~~ Yes indeed. Philonus wrote: What is Self Enlightenment? It is not knowledge then, because knowledge is always of the old self, and always a fragment, never the whole. But one can 'know' the weather in the sense of being aware if it is raining or not, and when it stops raining one is aware of that too. So I would say it is a complete awareness, a sensitivity to the world and to thought and feeling, which does not separate'itself' from all that - but this is just a bunch of words, and it isn't that either. Edited by unenlightened on 08/03/08 - 06:20 AM
The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

kris
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Posted 08/04/08 - 09:09 AM:	#10
Philonus wrote: One of the most philosophical but rarely discussed topic in the field of Achademic philosophy is "Finding yourself", and its something that I don't really understand anymore. What does it mean to find yourself if the self is subjected to constant changes? Will it help if you replace the phrase "finding youself" with the phrase "understanding yourself"? A change is perceived from a point (or perspective) of no-change. Understanding oneself can then be defined as understanding that point of no-change from which change in self can be perceived and understood. From the point of no-change thus, there is no chasing yourself, but merely observing your changing self.
kris http://kris10846902.tripod.com/

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