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Who Am I?
What's the Point of Philosophy Without This First?

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Who Am I?

madmaxthundercats
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Posted 11/01/09 - 06:08 PM:	#101
Minyun wrote: Because you may want to exist among your fellow man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.jpg 3 essences, nothing, something and whatever is inbetween. To only play with one makes the act unappealing. But isn't the desire to be among your fellow man part of the "robotic emotional mind"? If nothingness is the absence of desire, how could you have reached true nothingness and continue to have such conditional joys as the presence and approval of other people? Or is it even possible to truly reach nothingness? If you are at the state of nothingness in what way do you still exist at all? If you did still exist, would you know it? Doesn't knowing your own existence, self-awareness, necessarily entail some form of thought which means you're not really experiencing nothingness? Or what if Spinoza was right, "Desire is the essence of man"? Without desire, we cease to be.

Minyun
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Posted 11/02/09 - 12:41 AM:	#102
madmaxthundercats wrote: If nothingness is the absence of desire, how could you have reached true nothingness and continue to have such conditional joys as the presence and approval of other people? You will not have joy, you will experience nothing. madmaxthundercats wrote: Or is it even possible to truly reach nothingness? I believe so, as is humanly possible. madmaxthundercats wrote: Or what if Spinoza was right, "Desire is the essence of man"? The desire must be juggled. The desire for something, the desire for nothing and the desire for that third thing that encompasses it all. Like I have said, falling prey to just one of these paradigms will be easy, though unappealing. Reality is a struggle... or juggle, whichever you prefer

hanuma
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Posted 11/02/09 - 02:01 PM:	#103
Banno wrote: I sugest you take a look at what got you there. The philosophical game of doubting everything must have an end. But instead of stopping at the self, consider what is needed in order to play the game at all. My suggestion is that one cannot doubt without language. What do you think? A good point, one could not doubt in the same way, for sure. But language is as much a creation in the way we relate to it, as it is created and then given to us (or imposed on us). Once you reach a certain point in developing thought, it is normally about finding more adequate words, than it is about the words finding more adequate thoughts. To some extent I could express my 'self' better in forms that would seem largely incomprehensible to others, and when I question my 'self' it is rarely in direct relation to the exact structure of words that then create the structure of analysis. So even with language, this most social of requirements within the function of our brain, the most direct and obvious relation still seems entirely self-involved. However, as I wrote the above I began to formulate a question, "are there others that I trust more than my 'self'?" And the answer is yes. For example, a doctor (medicine) who I would go to to diagnose and cure me of an illness. His diagnosis is of course resting on language, and language as it relates to a prior experience of conditions similar to the one ailing me. The consequence of this is that knowledge beyond my comprehension and expressed through the conscious of another human has directly impacted on me, largely irrelevant to my own conscious involvement in the process. This gives me faith that such a thing as 'otherness' exists, but it still doesn't convince me that I am anything but trapped within the boundaries of my 'self'.

hanuma
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Posted 11/02/09 - 02:03 PM:	#104
Minyun wrote: You will not have joy, you will experience nothing. I find this desirable

freethinker58
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Posted 11/06/09 - 10:31 PM:	#105
madmaxthundercats wrote: But isn't the desire to be among your fellow man part of the "robotic emotional mind"? If nothingness is the absence of desire, how could you have reached true nothingness and continue to have such conditional joys as the presence and approval of other people? Or is it even possible to truly reach nothingness? If you are at the state of nothingness in what way do you still exist at all? If you did still exist, would you know it? Doesn't knowing your own existence, self-awareness, necessarily entail some form of thought which means you're not really experiencing nothingness? Or what if Spinoza was right, "Desire is the essence of man"? Without desire, we cease to be. Of course, there is no such thing as nothingness. The fact that something exists obliterates that theory. We are witnesses to that fact. There is no realm between "something" and "nothing" if there is no such thing as nothingness. There can be no transition from one to the other because one exists (something) and the other is just a figment. I've said before that in order for anything to exist, something had to have always been there. In other words, "something" can't spring from "nothing." We can only imagine such an illogical fantasy. With that in mind, I don't see how we can completely cease to exist, or never exist again. At least some small part of us will be dispersed. We don't completely disappear. Remember, energy can't be created or destroyed. Perhaps there's more to us than can be detected - perhaps much more. The laws of physics may not apply to that unknown part of us. From where does consciousness spring? Unknown... Eternity is a long, long, immeasurable length of time. If we can exist once, why can't we exist again and again? Just because we have no recollection of other existences doesn't mean they didn't occur. Memories may be the only things that completely disappear as we move on to who knows where, who knows when.

hanuma
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Posted 11/07/09 - 12:12 PM:	#106
freethinker58 wrote: Of course, there is no such thing as nothingness. I'm inclined to agree, but it's not a point I'm nearly ready to rest on. There may be the potential for a 'non-state', perhaps beyond definition, and so not a 'nothing' but related to the idea that the concept of 'nothing' is inspired by.

magpies
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Posted 11/08/09 - 02:21 PM:	#107
My personal belief. Energy can be created and destroyed... So for me it is not impossible that something came from nothing. I think the reason we might believe energy can't be created or destroyed is because we can't do it ourselfs... But I personaly think nature has a way of doing it that the world currently doesn't understand for the most part.

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