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Originally Posted by
Darkmatters
Siggggggggghhhh…. Hooo boy. I don't know if I have the fortitude to try this again tonight. But I'm very glad to see that you're trying. Awww screw it - I'm going to go ahead and try it one more time! :D
Hehehee! I'm not sure about the fortitude aspect on my side, either, but I'll also try. :D
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Hmmm… with this paragraph I was trying to help you understand the awareness I'm talking about. When I say "you" it's this awareness I'm talking about, the central-most, most basic point of sensation in your mind, the last part that would still be left if you could strip away all conscious thought, all emotions, all memories, any sense of your human identity (your name, the fact that you're female, that you're human, etc). If you can imagine your mind being essentially completely blank, as I imagine it must be at birth, or even in the womb. Though of course this is complicated by the fact that the brain itself isn't very developed yet, so we don't really know if a fetus has even this most rudimentary sense of being alive. It might not come into existence until a few weeks or months after birth, I can't say. Ot it might be there from even before birth.
It isn't your body, it exists inside your brain, or I suppose if you want to say your entire nervous system, then that's probably accurate. I keep referring to it being inside the brain, most likely because that's where "you" seem to exist - behind the eyes and between the ears, and also of course because that's where the brain is and so hence the mind as well. Though if you're more comfortable with thinking of the mind, or the sense of self, as existing all throughout the nervous system, then I see no reason why not. In fact, 'sense of self' might be a good term for this awareness I'm trying to describe. And just as I think it must the the absolute first sensation a person ever has, I also believe it's undoubtedly the last sensation before death as well, as the mind shuts down in stages. This is what I was trying to illustrate earlier when I mentioned HAL being shut down from 2001: A Space Oddyssey, when he was singing Daisy slower and slower. I assume you've seen it? "I can feel it Dave - my mind is shutting down. I'm frightened Dave". Having this scene in your mind might help you to understand this innermost, simplest part of the mind I'm after. It's the idiot, unthinking, unemotional, staring, zombie, vegetable (not literally of course, it's a metaphor, or a meat-a-phor if you will lol) part of the mind that knows only one thing - "I am". It doesn't know "I am a woman" or "I am hungry", only "I AM" It is the I in I am. (Though when I'm talking about yours I refer to it as you for reasons that should be clear). It's still there even if you go blind, deaf, and incapable of feeling, tasting, or smelling. Just simple dumb, brute existence.
Yepp - here I do agree with you totally it seems to me. I am of the opinion, that even a primitive nervous system, even in primitive animals, brings forth something like this basic sense of self. So I guess, it's starting in the womb. But we'll have to wait for further scientific insight to get some clarity about the boundaries here. I could even imagine, that it's a continuum, which starts out with life in general, maybe in it's most basic state is identical to life as such
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Well, your brain is inside your body, right, not to be finished growing until around age 25, and your mind is far from complete at birth - so it's definitely growing. I think of the mind as being inside the brain since thought is simply a function of the brain after all. And I think of the awareness as being inside the mind, though I can see where you might object to that idea. This awareness is a part of your mind - some unconscious thought process that is a function of the brain. It's such a simple kernel of thought or sensation (or whatever it is) that I doubt there's any real sense of it growing - most likely when the brain and the developing mind reach a point at which they can support this little subprogram we know as the "sense of self" or the "awareness" then it just suddenly is operational in an instant. Just sort of pops into being.
Still totally with you. As said - read superficially I didn't really disagree with any of your last post, either - I've just been searching for pointers.
And sense of self is indeed growing, and I have no problem with saying it is growing in my brain/nervous system, either. What I perked up at was more growing as in a seed getting planted, since that is somewhat how I think, reincarnation could be conceptualized. But I see it not as planted, but as emergent from the structure. You did say it like this, though - so I'm still with you.
It feels as if you explain to me your concepts of awareness
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By subjective property what I mean is the sense of existing in a body. Or if it suits you better, of being a body. A particular body.
Subjectivity - the 'subject' is the I. An Object is something that is not I. Another person, or a thing, is objective to you because you don't have immediate subjective (internal) access to its experience. Taking another person for instance - you see another person's body and you just have to infer that it also has a mind inside it and feelings, like you already know you do because you experience them directly. But you don't experience another person's feelings or thoughts directly, you can only watch their body language and facial expressions and listen to what they say and from these clues you can infer that they also have a subjective internal experience within that body. But it's alien to you, you can never experience it in the same immediate, internal way you experience your own thoughts and feelings. And you can also infer that they cannot experience YOUR feelings and thought immediately and internally the way you do.
Yepp!
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It's this immediate, internal experience, this immediate access to only the thoughts and feeling within that one body that I'm referring to as 'subjectivity', or as the I, or sometimes as 'you' (depending on the context). I'm trying, in many different ways, to get you to understand this subjective experience that exists within your body, within your brain and within your mind. The reason I mention each of these (body, brain, mind) in succession is because it is none of these things. It is internal to all of them. It's a thought process of some kind. I apologize for so much repetition, but I keep thinking if I can say it just the right way one time you'll suddenly have that "aha!!" moment. Actually I don't imagine it takes much brain complexity for it to come into existence - most likely it's created somewhere in the brainstem itself, or quite near it at least. I imagine even insects have it, though that could be wrong. I have no way to know. Mammals definitely all have it, and reptiles as well. Doubtless fish. I suspect even earthworms have it.
And another yepp. What I don't grasp, is why you would see a need or a use for the term re-incarnation. For me this is a one-time process, happening within one body, coming out of nothing and going into nothing without any sort of connection, causally or otherwise, to another person, coming into this world after I have ceased to exist. All that you describe up to now works perfectly well, just like I see it - without that term.
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Hmmm… well, really in every sense that matters, it is somebody else. Except for the one that matters the most. Brute existence. In any sense that the religious or magical ideas about reincarnation propose, it isn't you at all. It doesn't have any memory of ever existing before, or any resemblance to who you were (really these ideas are ludicrous and when you get this - if you get it, you'll see that they're completely meaningless). It's a completely new mind, in a completely new brain, new body, totally random person (or animal). Nothing carries over. As for how it "gets in there", well, we've discussed already how he sense of self "gets in there" - it's a subprocess of the mind, probably originating in the brain stem or quite near it. It develops when the brain becomes complex enough to begin to support basic thought processes, or proto-thought. It manages to "get into" everybody somehow, not by coming in from outside or by being transferred somehow. It grows there in utero. And it's absolutely essential to understand, it isn't in any way "the same awareness" that existed in some former 'you'. That idea is also meaningless if you understand this. All it is, is existence. It's in everyone. Staring out constantly through their eyes, hearing through the ears of some body. Each one is "somebody else" to every other existence (or awareness, or I, or You… ), but each is "I" to itself.
Yeah - but why that term then? And why only one reincarnation into one body after mine is gone? How come there is a need for this all?
You said, you suddenly "saw" this. Maybe it's some deficiency of mine to not be able to attach any sort of meaning to "reincarnation" or "rebirth". These terms stem originally from the religious doctrine, we both find ridiculous, but stripped of it - what does remain? Nothing in my view.
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Another way to try to apprehend it (this sense of subjectivity I struggle so hard to describe in so many ways) - imagine you're dead. By the materialist definition of death - total non-existence. There is no you - so (to you, though really that phrase has no meaning if you're dead) there is no existence at all. The world does't exist. since you're not there to experience it. So existence is a binary proposition - it's either on or off. And please no word games here - of course I know that to everyone who is alive the world does exist. But for you, when you're not alive, no world exists at all. No universe. Nothing. Another way to say it is that when you're dead, there is no existence. It's only when you're alive that there is existence. For you. So, to follow this line of thought to its logical conclusion, one way to say it is that you are existence - or alternatively that subjectivity is existence, or that awareness is existence. Again, it would be very easy to just play word games here about definitions. If you have the desire to do that, then it means you're not really even trying to grasp this. Or maybe just that your mind is playing passive aggressive games with you. I imagine this is like one of those optical illusions, like the one where depending on how you see it, it's either a young girl or an old crone. I'm sure you've seen it (if not I can find it). When you're seeing a young girl that's literally all you can see, but when suddenly your understanding shifts and you can see the crone, then THAT'S all you can see. And unfortunately I don't know any way to help shift your way of seeing these concepts. It either happens or it never does. And if you can keep thinking about these things when you have some down time maybe you'll be able to shift it at some point.
Well. Again I agree with it all and don't feel like wordgames. I just don't feel the need for the word, we are on about. Of course, I am of the opinion it is an illusion on your side to find meaning in it. All that you write makes perfect sense without it. Yepp - I know I sound like a broken record.
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I'm very happy that you are really pondering this! I can tell from what you're saying now that you are indeed really trying. And I don't know if trying can cause understanding, but I hope it can get you there. Oh, and I answered the last couple of lines just above. Sorry, I skipped ahead a bit!
I am trying. My husband brought the following example, maybe it resonates with you, while it fails to do so for me:
If you have a candle burning and go out and somebody puts out the flame and puts it on again - I wouldn't be able to see a difference, when coming home. Is it the same flame? For me it is not - it would be, if somebody held another candle to the flame, then put the first one out and light it again with the second one. And you'd need to take one candle to the other to transfer that flame. Maybe I'm not representing it properly. Then he came along with I should imagine there would be a finite number of possible states of being, and I lost him completely. Since he didn't claim, it would be only a finite quantity of a sort of "don't_know_how_to_call_it" available in the univers. He meant a finite number of different states. I said, well then everybody comes to end up with one of these types, but that would result from some sort of characteristic of the body. I asked him, if he wants to write a post, but he declined.
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Oh, and let me say here - the reason I use terms that might seem wrong is because there are no right terms for these concepts!! None that I know of. Human thought seems to be utterly unable to formulate ideas about nonexistence. We can't find a proper way to say "when you're dead, it's as if the word ceases to exist". No matter how you say it, somebody will always pop in and say "nuh-uh!! This isn't right!! The world doesn't cease to exist just because one person dies!! It goes on!" But in order to grasp what I'm trying to get across, it's essential to understand life from a subjective viewpoint. And from that subjective viewpoint, when you die, there is no longer - ANYTHING! Existence itself is done. I suspect if you can understand this, then you're getting to it. Because what ceases to exist when it seems the entirety of existence ends, is that elusive awareness. Think about it the other way through now - you're not in existence, and then suddenly you are. When your awareness 'goes online', you find you're a struggling little embryo or fetus or baby. This is how you were born. At some point your little embryonic brain became capable of driving the processors that maintain that awareness of existence. It happened once that you know of. I'm just saying we know it happens. It's happened once for every person who ever lived, what we don't know is if it happens again - and there it is once again, language failing my purposes. When I say 'again', I know what it sounds like. But that's not what I mean at all! There just are no words for what I'm trying to say.
Heck - why not take non-existence and be done with it? Perfectly sufficient in my view. If you say you are not in existence, that implies there is a you in the first place, not being in a certain state is "being" all the same. A status in need of a subjective reality. I really take non-existence just as that. There is no "I" yet, so it also can't be something, and it can't not be something, either. And it can't go online either, like my computer, it's existing, but in an offline state. Then it goes online. When I disconnect, my pc is still there. The words "I" or "you" are not fitting a situation, where there is nothing. Not even as in I don't exist yet. You can say, I don't exist anymore, because I have been there, and somebody else can sensically say something about meanwhile non-existing me. That "me" they would talk about does have characteristics, even while it's gone, it was once. But before appearing, I'm not even a concept yet to talk about. One can say, if two people are about to make a baby, that's going to be a you/me. I might sit down and write a letter to a hypothetical you, having genes from two people, but it's not a you to talk about, not a you with any real characteristics to talk about, purely hypothetical. I can say in hindsight, that I didn't exist yet, but that's semantically treacherous. Hach - words do indeed seem to fail me...
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I'm sorry too. I really want you to understand it!! But alas, it's possible maybe you never will. That makes me sad.
Ah - don't worry. I need not understand everything, including how that concept unfolds in your mind. But I do try. Getting at it in real life and with my husband does frustrate me deeply, though. I really can't see, what's so hard to understand when I say there is no meaning and concept in the term. So I proposed, we stop it and when we come to feel, we might have found new ways of expression, like maybe I might here for example, then we'll go into a third round.
So yeah - I think, it sort of feels similar for you and him as it does for me. I don't feel the need to get to an agreement at all costs with him and you, I don't want to get seriously angry about his stubbornness and failure to understand me. Yepp - it really feels so - and for such a stubbornness on one side, like mine for instance, there's one on the other side as well - namely you and him. Otherwise we wouldn't do this. The old thing - it takes two to tango...;-)
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I looked at one of the links, I don't remember offhand which, but it was one of the first few. It was very short, one big paragraph, and under it were several links some of which looked promising. They purported to be about reincarnation with no religious element. But they weren't. They all included the typical Buddhist ideas about karma and your spirit living on after the body dies to emerge into a new host. Very disappointing. I think I might begin a campaign of web searching to try to discover if anyone else has ever posted about this idea. I'm sure I'm not the first to think of it (already several people on the board have said they thought of it too). Somewhere there might be a much more 'lucid' discussion of it. I can only hope.
I didn't yet - but as said, husband says the same about the first two - that it's really coming down to something supernatural with these texts. I'm going to check out this Dawkins of Buddhism later on, see what he has got to say. The first ones were for showing me, what he does not think.
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This might do the trick. Imagine this scenario if you will, bearing in mind of course all that Ive been trying to explain.
You (StephL) are dying. Hey, they say it's the best scene you can get! You really get to ham it up. Your thoughts and emotions and everything fade away layer by layer, until all that's left is that awareness - that sense that the world exists for you. Then it doesn't. You died.
Ok, there's no sense of time passing, but suddenly the world exists again. Though actually it's wrong to use the word 'again', because you have no sense of it ever having existed before. You're now a brand new squirming little embryo or baby - no relation in any way to StephL, no memory of ever having existed before. But the world exists. You're a totally different person.
Screw it. That's the absolute best I can do. If that doesn't do it, then I'm done!! :laughtillhurts:
No - it unfortunately doesn't help. You really can't do without "again" - it's the "re-" before incarnation. It's not that there is an "I" which has no sense of having existed before, that's something for somebody to do, having no sense. It isn't possible in my view to conceptualize any of this without the "you again". As said before - I also don't like incarnation, since it implies that something gets into flesh, is made flesh, implying that it was something other than flesh before. I would say - flesh made me and flesh is me, ultimately, I am flesh. Period. As Sageous might add...:D
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Originally Posted by
Darkmatters
Mechanism for what? The fact that you're looking for a mechanism makes it clear you still think there's something transferring or carrying over. The mechanism is whatever mechanism caused you to be born in the first place - whatever mechanism caused a living awareness to come into existence in each of us. We all have one. That is the only mechanism that's involved.
Mechanism for the "you again".
Okay - need some time to check, if I might find better words to describe what I don't grasp, actually what I am convinced doesn't exist.
But I'm unable to get through to you two - in that we are having the same problem. As said - I hope this Buddhist Atheist will give me something useful there.
Anybody else here, who might be willing and able to help along? Mr. Thinker, are you still with us? Any ideas?
