The Self

[nebulaJP]

IMV, thought, sensation and perception are brain processes, but the only mental process is thought.

Awareness is what knows or experiences brain processes. Empty space is only aware of itself, awareness. (I'm not defining empty space in the same way that a physicalist/materialist would though). In the case of a life form, awareness also knows other experience. In the case of a fly, it knows the proximity of your fly swatter. In the case of a plant, it's aware of light and other a lot of other stuff. There is a lot of material about plant awareness, here is one short article.

But the main difference in our views is that in my view, awareness is not a mental process - a mental process means a process of the mind, and in my view, this is only the current thought, which we conceptualize as 'mind'.

Also, consciousness is the same as awareness. A fly is aware of the proximity of your fly swatter means the same thing as the fly is conscious of the proximity of your fly swatter. "Are you aware of your experience right now?" "Are you conscious of your experience right now?" They're the same.

 

[nebulaJP]

Another thing is, IMV, there is only one awareness. We don't each have a separate awareness. Instead, we are awareness - it's our true identity.

The reason that most people believe that each of us have a separate awareness is because in most cases, we aren't aware of each other's thoughts. But that is because the brain is limited, just as a point in space is. Awareness on the other hand, is unlimited/universal. I'm aware of my thoughts with the same awareness that you are aware of your thoughts.

 

[Eudaimonist]

The reason that most people believe that each of us have a separate awareness is because in most cases, we aren't aware of each other's thoughts.

In all cases, as far as I know.

That is an excellent reason for that conclusion!

But that is because the brain is limited, just as a point in space is.

Of course the brain is limited, but that is precisely the point. Since brain activity and mental activity are so tightly connected, the limitations of the brain are the separateness of awareness. We are not hive-minds.

Awareness on the other hand, is unlimited/universal.

I have no reason to conclude this.

I'm aware of my thoughts with the same awareness that you are aware of your thoughts.

No, you are aware of your thoughts with your awareness, just as I am aware of my thoughts with my own awareness. Since I am not aware of your thoughts, it makes little sense to say that I am aware with "the same awareness" as you, unless all you mean by that is "similar awareness". Our own awareness simply functions similarly to each other, just as one car might function similarly to another car. There is no reason to say that all cars are really "the same" car or "Car".


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Noxot]

the differences are just facets of the same diamond. how else could anything even relate or communicate or disagree unless it was in some way connected? "difference" is part of this thing just as much as "sameness" is because everything is united in one single cause. if everything was not united in one single cause then how does a sun exist and also an earth? they came from the same stuff, or the same place or they are the same thing, whatever that is. without some kind of point of unity ( the point of unity might be called "chaos" by some ) then how can the things be that are?

i'm a human being and yet I am composed of way more non-human cells than human cells, yet here I am. so what am I? where do I begin with when I ask "what am I?" can I prove that atoms don't think? I don't know, i'm made of atoms, am I not? but I don't think atoms are the start of what I am, so I look deeper and find more stuff and I look at the whole ( rather, what i perceive to be the whole, that which i can observe, which is not limited to my physical sight but according to my mind, since I know that for instance a sun that I can't see with my physical eyes still exist. others saw them in different ways and I believed them and their methods ) and it must be that it is all the same stuff functioning within itself doing different things and yet it is whole.

so is observation limited to the physical eye or does it include other parts to the whole such as mind? mind is capacity just as much as physical sight is capacity and so how can everything know itself ( fully ) unless it was the total capacity? does something have to know itself to be? I would say to be is to know, since they are all the same thing, the mind simply divides concepts because it is a capacity, though the mind is still part of the whole. if there are so many different capacities and they keep comparing themselves to other things that are in part then this shows that there is an expansion or growth of information and if truly everything does come from the same place then it always was and it only appears to us that things change but really change is just part of unchanging since they all come from the same thing, reality.

 

[nebulaJP]

I have no reason to conclude this.

I disagree. Awareness is awareness. You may be aware of different stuff than a fly is aware of, but how are your 'separate' awarenesses different, other than what you are aware of?

Would you say that a smart person is more aware of his or her experience than a less intelligent person,...or that a human is more aware of its experience than a cat is aware of its experience?

 

[nebulaJP]

I would say to be is to know,

Agreed. The suffix -ness indicates the presence or existence of the adjective it's attached to. Awareness is knowing + being. They're two aspects of the same thing.

IMV, only awareness knows anything. In the case of a point in empty space it knows itself. When there is matter involved, it has other experience as well. (I'm not using 'empty space' and 'matter' in the physicalist sense of the terms though.)

A point in empty space has the same awareness of itself that we do, it just doesn't have our additional experiences, such as the sensation of touch or the presence of thought and conceptualization. No thought is needed to know that you exist. If someone asks you "Are you aware of your experience right now?", you don't have to conceptualize it and determine by use of reason and human intellect that you are aware. We all have an innate sense of 'I exist', as does everything…, a point in space, a molecule, a fly, a plant, a cat etc.

 

[nebulaJP]

One thing I messed up in this thread is that I didn't distinguish between the relative and the absolute. On the relative level, we're people - separate selves. On the absolute level, your metaphysical view determines what we are. If you're a metaphysical materialist, we're matter and its processes. If you're a metaphysical idealist, we're awareness (or another good word for it is 'the observer').

So, my point was sort of that, regardless of what your metaphysical view is, what we really are - our true identity - is the absolute, not the relative, IMHO. A lot of people use a wave/ocean metaphor. Waves are impermanent and have the surface appearance of being separate entities but really they're just the ocean in a temporary form.

I would like to ask the question: what is our identity, in the deepest sense, are we fundamentally the relative (we are our bodies/minds/life story/thoughts etc. and without the specific attributes particular to each of us, we wouldn't exist) or fundamentally the non-relative (we are matter, we are awareness, we are matter+soul, etc., depending on your metaphysical view).

For example, if, due to a brain injury, you lost all memory and the ability to speak, but you were still aware, would 'you' still exist? Or would it be something else that is not you? On the deepest level, what makes you…you?

 

[Eudaimonist]

I disagree. Awareness is awareness. You may be aware of different stuff than a fly is aware of, but how are your 'separate' awarenesses different, other than what you are aware of?

Our brains, and therefore our minds, work differently. How is that not a difference in awareness? Sure, we might both be aware, but not in the same fashion.

One thing I messed up in this thread is that I didn't distinguish between the relative and the absolute. On the relative level, we're people - separate selves. On the absolute level, your metaphysical view determines what we are. If you're a metaphysical materialist, we're matter and its processes. If you're a metaphysical idealist, we're awareness (or another good word for it is 'the observer').

Incidentally, I am neither. I take an dual-aspect view of the mind-body relation, coupled with emergentism. We are both "matter and its processes" and "an observer". The two can't really be separated. I'm for an integrated view of mind and body.

So, my point was sort of that, regardless of what your metaphysical view is, what we really are - our true identity - is the absolute, not the relative, IMHO. A lot of people use a wave/ocean metaphor. Waves are impermanent and have the surface appearance of being separate entities but really they're just the ocean in a temporary form.

I'm familiar with the ocean metaphor. I don't agree that consciousness is anything like an ocean.

If I were a panpsychist, I might agree, since in that case the entire universe would be conscious, and might be somewhat ocean-like. But when consciousness is not a substance, like water, it become difficult to push this metaphor very far. Yes, we are all, even the fly, "aware", but that doesn't mean that awareness ever functions like a unified entity.

I would like to ask the question: what is our identity, in the deepest sense, are we fundamentally the relative (we are our bodies/minds/life story/thoughts etc. and without the specific attributes particular to each of us, we wouldn't exist) or fundamentally the non-relative (we are matter, we are awareness, we are matter+soul, etc., depending on your metaphysical view).

Those aren't my terms. I'd say that we are the particular, which is close to what you mean by the relative. Sure, we share features in common with others. We are individual human beings, and that means that we share some things in common with other human beings, such as reason and awareness. However, in being human beings, that doesn't mean that we have some Platonic existence as Man. We exist as individuals. Anything outside of that is "mu".


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[nebulaJP]

Our brains, and therefore our minds, work differently. How is that not a difference in awareness? Sure, we might both be aware, but not in the same fashion.

Individual humans' brains work differently, so are we aware in a different fashion from each other?

 

[Eudaimonist]

Individual humans' brains work differently, so are we aware in a different fashion from each other?

Individual human brains work similarly. We are likely aware in similar ways. Yes, there can be some differences due to individual differences. I would imagine that an extrovert would perceive life a little differently than an introvert since their reward systems work differently.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[OliverC]

Here I am starting a thread about the Self. My view: there are no separate selves, only a single substance which could perhaps be called 'awareness-experience' for lack of a better term.

Within this substance, thoughts, sensations and perceptions arise. Some sensations and perceptions lead to thoughts, such as the concept of the separate self. But that concept is just another thing happening within awareness-experience.

When we say "I exist" it's true. We do exist but there is only one of us. There is only one Self, unlike the conventional view in which there are many 'selves'.

True. What becomes difficult is what to do next, because doing becomes automated or directed by something. What is curious is that you can know that which you assert yet be the doer.

Do you have an opinion on that line of thinking?

 

[nebulaJP]

True. What becomes difficult is what to do next, because doing becomes automated or directed by something. What is curious is that you can know that which you assert yet be the doer.

Do you have an opinion on that line of thinking?

I don't see doing as being automated or directed by something. In my opinion, awareness-experience/us/the Self, whatever you want to call it, only knows itself. It doesn't know separate things, such as doing or even the concept of doing. The concept of doing, just like anything else, is the Self, itself.

Example: Say that you are sitting on a park bench. On the relative, mental, conceptual level, that is what you are doing. You may be doing other things simultaneously. But in the absolute sense, you only have one seamless experience. You don't have one experience of sitting on the bench and different simultaneous experiences, one for each blade of grass, tree, bird, person, dog and thought that you are aware of at any given moment. Only through conceptual thought can experience be artificially divided and categorized into separate activities, thoughts, objects, sense perceptions, etc.

 

[OliverC]

I don't see doing as being automated or directed by something. In my opinion, awareness-experience/us/the Self, whatever you want to call it, only knows itself. It doesn't know separate things, such as doing or even the concept of doing. The concept of doing, just like anything else, is the Self, itself.

Example: Say that you are sitting on a park bench. On the relative, mental, conceptual level, that is what you are doing. You may be doing other things simultaneously. But in the absolute sense, you only have one seamless experience. You don't have one experience of sitting on the bench and different simultaneous experiences, one for each blade of grass, tree, bird, person, dog and thought that you are aware of at any given moment. Only through conceptual thought can experience be artificially divided and categorized into separate activities, thoughts, objects, sense perceptions, etc.

That's interesting! To expand on that it would imply that everything we do, including consciously planning our next action to fulfill a desire, would be simply a part of the awareness-experience/Self. It would make the duality of right and wrong fairly meaningless at that ultimate level of perception as Self knowing Self. Wouldn't you agree? I am not suggesting we would do evil things (we don't need to discuss morals), what interest me is how does the Self continue once it becomes Self-aware?

It wouldn't matter then if you the person (as Self) practice a religion, because the doing is just a part of the Self. In fact throughout one's physical life one might change religions and so on, all the time knowing it is the Self. What is your view?

I see activity and passivity within Self. As your level of Self, then one just goes along with the ride. However there needs to be a correct perception/understanding otherwise one will be actively passive based on the thought that one is Self, rather than being Self. It becomes slightly ridiculous, as one may as well take hold of the reigns and play the part of an individual again. Or is there another view?

 

[nebulaJP]

What becomes difficult is what to do next,

how does the Self continue once it becomes Self-aware?

For me, no concept applies to awareness, except maybe the "I exist" one, which partially does. All other concepts only apply to the separate self, which ultimately doesn't exist. Concepts only apply to relative matters. If you go beyond surface appearances, they don't.

For example, take the concept of height. How much higher is this ocean wave than that one? On the relative level, it's two feet higher. But ultimately, neither wave exists as a separate object because each is only a surface manifestation of the ocean itself and at that level, the question becomes how much higher is the ocean than itself, which is nonsensical because the concept of height doesn't apply at the absolute level.

The concept of control is the same. At the relative level, someone or something has to control certain aspects of experience. For example, in the case of moving vehicle traveling down the highway, someone or something has to be in control of it, such as a human being or computer. But at the absolute level, nothing is in control, the moving vehicle is just awareness appearing in the form of a moving vehicle just as the ocean appears in the form of a moving wave at the surface.

At the level of pure experience, only the knowing of it applies. Control is non-existent. Any final decision before acting is in the form of a thought. But we all know from direct experience that we never control what our next thought will be. We can't because we don't know it until it appears in awareness. There is no chooser that chooses the next thought from say, two or three possibilities for it. A thought simply appears and is known, just as any following action we take is known. From this knowing, we conceptualize something called 'control of ones actions'. It's a valuable, useful concept at the relative level, just like the concept of time. But like all concepts, it's something that we artificially overlay onto actual experience.

 

[OliverC]

Thanks for the reply. I agree. It is just down to being lived, or so it seems.