Know Thyself?

[Zetetic11235]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

Of course you are the vary same person you were, even if your properties change. The photo of you when you were a child, and the photo of you when you are an adult, are photos of the very same person who calls himself, "Khethil". For instance, the photo of the child has the property of calling himself, "Khethil" when he is an adult; and the adult who has the property of calling himself, "Khethil", are one and the same person. There is no difference in properties; there is only a difference in the time each acquired the property. Change does not mark a difference in properties, only a difference in time when a property was acquired.

Technically he would be different. I suppose genetically he would be the same (of course I suppose it could be possible to alter one's genetic structure and we simply haven't discovered how yet). Either way, there are various biological factors that would change, his blood pressure, his skin, his brain would be somewhat different just by virtue of normal development since we are talking about a transition from childhood to adulthood (obviously the sexual organs and pituitary gland would be in a different state).

Nonetheless, your comment has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Of course (in the obvious sense) Khethil is a different person than he was many years ago. Experiences guide us, direct us and redirect us. Often times we find ourselves convinced of one thing because we have not considered the whole picture and so as we gain wisdom we change our minds. Sometimes we can take the same stance twice at different times in our lives for totally different reasons, holding the opposite stance in the interim. We constantly revise our outlook in light of new evidence and gained insight.

To know oneself is to be honest with oneself. If you have a flaw, you must face it to grow. If you are lucky, others will point out your flaws and you would be wise to listen and heed what they say. Consider the negative consequences of your actions and contemplate better ways of acting for next time, that is, learn from your mistakes no matter how difficult the lesson. I don't think that there is much else to say without straying off topic.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Zetetic11235

Technically he would be different. I suppose genetically he would be the same (of course I suppose it could be possible to alter one's genetic structure and we simply haven't discovered how yet). Either way, there are various biological factors that would change, his blood pressure, his skin, his brain would be somewhat different just by virtue of normal development since we are talking about a transition from childhood to adulthood (obviously the sexual organs and pituitary gland would be in a different state).

Nonetheless, your comment has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Of course (in the obvious sense) Khethil is a different person than he was many years ago. Experiences guide us, direct us and redirect us. Often times we find ourselves convinced of one thing because we have not considered the whole picture and so as we gain wisdom we change our minds. Sometimes we can take the same stance twice at different times in our lives for totally different reasons, holding the opposite stance in the interim. We constantly revise our outlook in light of new evidence and gained insight.

To know oneself is to be honest with oneself. If you have a flaw, you must face it to grow. If you are lucky, others will point out your flaws and you would be wise to listen and heed what they say. Consider the negative consequences of your actions and contemplate better ways of acting for next time, that is, learn from your mistakes no matter how difficult the lesson. I don't think that there is much else to say without straying off topic.

I didn't say that there would not be differences. All I said is that Khethil (the person in the photo) and Khethil (the person posting on this forum) are one and the same individual. Why would anyone disagree with that? That doesn't mean that there are not considerable changes. Obviously there are. But, nevertheless, there is but one individual Khethil, not two (or more!). We all know that in some "sense" things persist though change. The question is how to understand how that is.

[Subjectivity9]

Hey Kennethamy,

Here is my reasoning.

K: Could be. For all anyone knows. But have you any reasons for thinking this? It seem clear that I am the same person I was yesterday, and 20 years ago, but, of course, there have been changes.

S9: The ego story, which you are constantly writing, of course has some consistence because you are identifying with that story and you actually believe this story to be who you are. You are storing who and what you think you are in your memory and building on it.

However if you were to progress into Alzheimer’s or in some other way loss your memory of this story, you would obviously remain your ‘me’ albeit eventually naked of your story.

Now I ask you who is the ‘Me’ that is naked of story?

This ‘me’ is actually who you have been all along. But this ‘me’ being far more subtle than your stories has practically gone unnoticed but far more consistent than your thoughts.

Look at that ‘Me’ and ask yourself, “Who am I?” This is your unchanging Self. Everything else is simply accumulation of thoughts or what many have called insubstantial.

K: Things remain the same object, even when they change.

S9: Do they? Didn’t I hear somewhere that every single cell in your body changes/dies within 7 years?

K: “It is not for philosophy to deny it. Rather, philosophy should try to explain it.”

S9: We cannot explain what we do not witness. Therefore it is my understanding of philosophy that we should look vigilantly at our reality or our thoughts, and somehow figure out what it is possible to doubt. Eventually when you find that which you can not doubt, then you have more than likely stumbled on the truth. Throw everything else away.

Subjectivity9

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Subjectivity9

S9: Do they? Didn’t I hear somewhere that every single cell in your body changes/dies within 7 years?



Subjectivity9

I guess what that shows is that the cells of your body that you presently have are not you.

That fact that the constituent parts of something change need not mean that the something changes. The members of a football team at one time need not be the members of that team at a different time. But it is the very same team.

To infer from the premise that all the parts of X change, that X has changed is to commit the fallacy of composition.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/falla...omposition.htm

[Subjectivity9]

Hey Kennethamy,

K: The members of a football team at one time need not be the members of that team at a different time. But it is the very same team.

S9: Yes, but, you in your ‘heart of hearts’ feel your self to be an individual entity and identify yourself as a particular individual. You are not actually seeing yourself as being a team of cells. So yes the cells can come and go, at least a few at a time, without you even noticing most of the time. In this I believe we can agree. We are not the individual cells. Something else is definitely going on.

But in the same way, can we also agree that we are not each individual thought that drifts across our mental landscape? These thoughts come up and go down/die constantly much like the cells. What then is this accumulation of thoughts, our personal thought stories, which we identify as being me? Is it not actually a salad of favorite thoughts that we have decided to hold onto within memory and call me? What is real in this?

Or is it behavior that is repeated and recognizable on which we have decided to plant our flag and call it me?

But then is it the way we see our behavior or the way that others, even strangers, see this behavior that is the correct me?

So can we agree that our behavior isn’t really me? Heaven know this behavior is changeable according to circumstance. Am I just circumstantial?

K: That fact that the constituent parts of something change need not mean that the something changes.

S9: Something changes obviously. But can we agree that what we believe to be our ‘essential me’ isn’t changing with every wind?

Yet if everything in and around you seems to be in flux, now we are young and now we are old, what is it that seems to remain throughout these changes? What can we hang onto? More importantly how do we know this? And I agree, we do in fact know this, somehow.

The problem seems to be that we have multiple ideas about our ‘me.’ Obviously some of these are in error. “Know thyself” is all about winnowing this down a bit.

Subjectivity9

[Pathfinder]

One's self is a constant work of either progression or retreat! It is not an item of existence, it is an action within existence.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Subjectivity9

Hey Kennethamy,

K: The members of a football team at one time need not be the members of that team at a different time. But it is the very same team.

S9: Yes, but, you in your ‘heart of hearts’ feel your self to be an individual entity and identify yourself as a particular individual. You are not actually seeing yourself as being a team of cells. So yes the cells can come and go, at least a few at a time, without you even noticing most of the time. In this I believe we can agree. We are not the individual cells. Something else is definitely going on.

But in the same way, can we also agree that we are not each individual thought that drifts across our mental landscape? These thoughts come up and go down/die constantly much like the cells. What then is this accumulation of thoughts, our personal thought stories, which we identify as being me? Is it not actually a salad of favorite thoughts that we have decided to hold onto within memory and call me? What is real in this?

Or is it behavior that is repeated and recognizable on which we have decided to plant our flag and call it me?

But then is it the way we see our behavior or the way that others, even strangers, see this behavior that is the correct me?

So can we agree that our behavior isn’t really me? Heaven know this behavior is changeable according to circumstance. Am I just circumstantial?

K: That fact that the constituent parts of something change need not mean that the something changes.

S9: Something changes obviously. But can we agree that what we believe to be our ‘essential me’ isn’t changing with every wind?

Yet if everything in and around you seems to be in flux, now we are young and now we are old, what is it that seems to remain throughout these changes? What can we hang onto? More importantly how do we know this? And I agree, we do in fact know this, somehow.

The problem seems to be that we have multiple ideas about our ‘me.’ Obviously some of these are in error. “Know thyself” is all about winnowing this down a bit.

Subjectivity9

It need not be anything mysterious that is the same between X at one time, and X at another time. I may just be something very unmysterious, like spatio-temporal continuity between X at one time, and X at another time.

[Subjectivity9]

Hey Kennethamy,


K: It need not be anything mysterious that is the same between X at one time, and X at another time. I may just be something very unmysterious, like spatio-temporal continuity between X at one time, and X at another time.

S9: I am not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination so please bare with me. I Googled this "spatiotemporal continuity" and got the impression that this was a far more materialistic explanation than a metaphysical one. Correct me if I am wrong. But are you saying that you see yourself to be a material object passing through time, end of story?

I think that you will see in reading me previously, that I am looking for a far less material answer to this same question.

Do you ever consider that there may be something else going on, beyond what our scientific instruments can tell us? Perhaps it is something more intuitional, if you will, for want of a better word.

I personally feel that I have tapped into something through insight that is continuous and unchanging, more eternal than what we usually accept as being the real. Any questions?

Subjectivity9

---------- Post added 09-16-2009 at 01:18 PM ----------

Hey Pathfinder,

P: One's self is a constant work of either progression or retreat! It is not an item of existence, it is an action within existence.

S9: I can understand why you might say that the ego-self was a verb, a doing thing constantly becoming and never quite arriving. It is obviously a work in progress, with daily, no momentary revisions. But let me ask you this, as the song lyric goes “Is that all there is?”

You see I don’t find that to be the case. I guess this is where we speak about metaphysics or that which transcends time and space. The apical growth of every great religion speaks to this. We find this through introspection.

Subjectivity9

[GoshisDead]

Isn't some of this contrary to more modern attitudes about self?
i.e. should the new mantra be 'Create thyself'?

[Subjectivity9]

Well GoshisHead,

G: Isn't some of this contrary to more modern attitudes about self?
i.e. should the new mantra be 'Create thyself'?

S9: Is Self actually a fashion statement of some kind, as in “What is in fashion now?” Or could you say about it, “That was so yesterday?”

It seems to me that if you were looking for Truth with a capital T, a more metaphysical truth AKA an eternal truth, you would probably find that such a truth has always been around, and therefore not only would it be present right now in this immediate instant but, it also would have been around in the ancient times, ever unchanged.

Subjectivity9