What is the "I"? Why am I me and not you?

Have you ever asked the question, "Why am I me and not you?"

What's the deal? Even if we assume the hardcore materialist atheist hypothesis that all experience is entirely dependent on material processes in the brain, what is this "personal" part of consciousness?

reply to post by NewlyAwakened
you are young,aren't you?.
yeah?

reply to post by NewlyAwakened
I have asked all of those questions,and more.

But no one ever stepped up to answer them in a way that didn't conflict with what I was willing to accept.

When I was young.

I think there for I am ....

I am you yet I see the reflection of the self ...

which I think is a separate other ..

If you are me, then I suck.

And if I am you, then You suck.

I guess everyone sucks...



Or.. something else..

reply to post by NewlyAwakened

Even if we assume the hardcore materialist atheist hypothesis that all experience is entirely dependent on material processes in the brain, what is this "personal" part of consciousness?

Atheism is the lack of a belief in a god, that's it. It has nothing to do with anything else.

This may interest you:

reply to post by Whyhi
Where is one,when one loses one's belief in self?.

There is no self,there is only the other.

reply to post by badw0lf
I suck,therefore I am You.

Originally posted by Whyhi
reply to post by NewlyAwakened

 

Even if we assume the hardcore materialist atheist hypothesis that all experience is entirely dependent on material processes in the brain, what is this "personal" part of consciousness?

Atheism is the lack of a belief in a god, that's it. It has nothing to do with anything else.

This is why I qualified it with "hardcore materialist". Read up on philosophical materialism before you cherry-pick the word "atheism".

We are a young species,gullible,some would say stupid.

But those who would call us stupid,only wish to gain from our gullabilty.

reply to post by NewlyAwakened


Do you know what's funny ?

This is a question that I've been asking since I was 6 years old; I'm now 29 years old, and I still haven't heard an actual answer to this question in the subsequent 23 years.

Maybe we'll never know or understand...

"I" = (self-consciousness)

picked that up watching watching TNG !

reply to [u=http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread636932/pg1#pid10056972]post by Sherlock Holmes[/url]
The point is to never stop trying to find the answers which can never be found.

The story of the human race.

Why am "I".....

I?,I am a servant,to all those lesser than me,who those lesser than me ,who consider me to be their servant.......

It's all backwards.,

Here's a response that sounds pretty good to me, a hardcore materialistic atheist:

www.synogenes.com...

"I" for individuality en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by chiponbothshoulders
reply to post by NewlyAwakened

 

you are young,aren't you?.
yeah?

Whether young or not, he's very smart. And unlike me, succinct. It's a great question.

You're an old atheist, aren't you? Yeah?

Im an atheist but dont believe people are machines !

There is no "I" and "You", its all a perceived notion in our consciousness to give us purpose and value.. at least that is what I think its there for now, but will change in time to a hive type thinking... then back to the individual... and so on and so forth.......

reply to post by R3KR


But why can we not consider the continual process of apparent differentiation and re-integration as occuring from the Absolute, which at some level is limiting itself and differentiating itself, or appearing to do so, by weaving maya or the illusion of separation of maya, and therefore not consider this consciousness as the ground of all being and becoming, of which we are included as integral parts and co-creative participants, this self aware universe, as "God"?

Now you may step in here and suggest that I'm "moving the goalposts" just to sneak in the word God, but what else would we call the Absolute, but the Godhead, and how can we not see and recognize our own selves and higher levels of awareness, as manifestation of that one Godhead?

This is where I depart from the type of newtonian materialist monism, that the atheists seem to want to cling to, while insisting that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of matter, residing exclusively within one's own scull until death, thereafter to be forgotten.

And is this non-localized (see Bell's Theorem), holographic universe, not a quantum computer of non-localized information exchange, at the most fundamental level? And if so, why would such a universe NOT have had sufficient time, in eternity, to become self aware?

Furthermore, I would suggest that there are corresponding moral imperatives which arise from such a newfound understanding of the cosmos and our place within it, here on earth, as "family", and so Goswami's POV is also condusive to new creative human endeavours which simply cannot include war as a viable option.

It's ok to be wrong. I've been proven wrong on many occasions, but am big enough to admit when I realize the extent of my own ignorance.

"There is a principal which is a bar against all information, and proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principal is contempt, prior to investigation."
~ Herbert Spencer, Scientist

reply to post by NewlyAwakened

The atheist must answer here - I am not conscious, and there is no such thing as free will (vanishing into a foxhole).