What is the self?

[chompchompchomsky]

We're all googols of atoms, making trillions of cells engaging in hundreds upon thousands of processes, and yet we believe we are singular. We say "I" and "me" and "mine", but what are you? What connects you to yourself twenty years ago? What unites all of your parts? Any thoughts on this?

[Actor]

Another good one; where were all the molecules that make up your body before you were born?

[Echidna]

Another good one; where were all the molecules that make up your body before you were born?

In food. You are what you eat.

[Soda]

Also consider that there are more bacteria cells than human cells in your body, and they are vital for life.

[Nachismo]

The self is what you do.

[pengd0t]

The "self" is a label that is brought into play because humans happen to have the consciousness abilities of pondering their own existence. Humans can think about themselves, so there is a label to describe that subject.

As for the molecules and their origins... We're in a big pool of energy (or atoms or whatever bits you want to break it down to), always shifting and adapting. "Life" is a pattern that moves through the "atoms", a pattern that organizes available resources into useful bits good for biological growth. If that doesn't sound clear enough, think simpler and consider how plants grow and produce the sugars used to fuel their own growth by drawing from the solids, liquids, and gases of their environment. We are a set of complex crystallization processes.

[Actor]

Ah, so really we're like energy waves?

[pengd0t]

Ah, so really we're like energy waves?

We are energy "waves." Though I hate to say it at the risk of sounding like a new-age crystal hoarder. It's not too difficult to understand that colors don't exist, they're only a descriptive, categorization function the brain applies to its interpretation of the lightwaves bouncing off of reflective surfaces... It's abstract, but just simple enough to be within easy mental reach.
But take it a bit farther and consider that all matter is pretty much the same situation. Something exists in its form because of energy patterns oscillating at different frequencies. We could just as easily perceive that we were floating free in a world of nothing but sounds if our senses developed in that direction instead. Things may exist in "reality," and knowing that that's the case is useful for practical purposes sense we all perceive things in about the same way... but it's only considered "real" because it's viewed with senses that we all share. Reality is not real on it's own merits. Consider how reality is understood by creatures who don't have the senses we do, or who have senses to perceive things like electomagnetism and the like... their reality could be unrecognizable to us, but it's just as real...
It's all just patterns of energy.

[chompchompchomsky]

It sounds like what you're saying is that sensation, experience and qualia do not exist. We can reduce the mechanism of experience down to its tiniest little pieces, and yet not touch the quality of the experience. As an example, consider colour: We can say that "red" is a certain range of frequencies bouncing off our retinas and being translated into the language of electronic impulse, sent into our brains for interpretation and then...(well, no one really knows how we eventually experience the thing, but it's not far off). This explanation never once addresses the qualia of red; our experience of it. It is a similar case for the self. The self cannot be understood through strict reductionism. Things are not the sum of their parts, but an array of relationships. In the case of molecules, the relationships between the atoms making it up; their interactions with other things. In the case of the self, the relationship between the innate and learned, the imagined and known, the conscious and the unconscious. That's what makes this such a puzzle: we are forced to answer to experience

[Lord hang man]

Ah, I am you. I is I is I, Jah's will.

[supperrfreek]

The self is what you do.

Could it be.......Existentialism or Buddhism.......hmm.

A great Buddhist once said "what you do and what happens to you are the same thing."

The way I see the self is that it is. You are who you are and that's that.

[chompchompchomsky]

Could it be.......Existentialism or Buddhism.......hmm.

A great Buddhist once said "what you do and what happens to you are the same thing."

The way I see the self is that it is. You are who you are and that's that.

There is a quote from the Vedic Scriptures which runs: "You do not identify with the self you see in dreams, nor your shadow, nor the self that others see you ass, therefore you should not identify with this physical self, either."

What makes you think it "is" at all, or that you "are", what indication do you have of any of that?

[Resign the King]

There is a quote from the Vedic Scriptures which runs: "You do not identify with the self you see in dreams, nor your shadow, nor the self that others see you ass, therefore you should not identify with this physical self, either."

What makes you think it "is" at all, or that you "are", what indication do you have of any of that?

Well it's here right now happening. I don't know what it is, the only evidence I have is presented before me through my senses and my thought. The only choices are to accept it as it appears, or to become lost in whether or not it's real. Either way, it's here now.

[Lux Aeterna]

The self is a concept formulated at a very young age when you realise that you can move your body, but nothing else. Over time you gradually add more elements to your self concept, such as beliefs, goals, values, likes, dislikes and memories.

Most peoples conception of their self is very wooley. I believe this contributes to lots of problems such as mid-life crises.

Due to cultural and social indoctrination, the mans "self" becomes in part defined as the desire to be successful, accumulate money and possessions, get a wife, have kids, get a house etc etc. The man spends years going through education working hard so he can get a "good job". This hard work becomes part of his definition of his self. After education, he goes into the bottom rung of the career chain. He works, progressing through the career chain, always pushing to reach that elusive end goal of "success"... knowing he will be complete when he gets there.

One day, after he is relatively "successful", he takes a step back to look at himself. What have I been looking for? What have I been waiting for? Why haven't I been LIVING? WHO EVEN AM I?!

So then he freaks out, buys a motorbike, and fucks a hot blonde.


idk... it's a work in progress

[Ambient]

Ah, I am you. I is I is I, Jah's will.

Life is the greatest gift that Jah has given us mun!

[Alec_Versalia]

Drink scotch.

[nutsack]

Your ego is "I". It's a huge mental construct which we create and mould throughout our lives in order to filter our reality and participate in this world. It's only an illusion, and when it's stripped away there's something universal left.

[Obbe]

A tool used to make behavioral-shortcuts via consciousness.

Also, the "self" is the "other side" of the reality you expereince. The self and reality are just like the inside and the outside. Or a figure and a background. They require each other to exist.

[Lord hang man]

Your ego is "I". It's a huge mental construct which we create and mould throughout our lives in order to filter our reality and participate in this world. It's only an illusion, and when it's stripped away there's something universal left.

When the dominos all stand back up of their own accord and test luck again you'll know this.

Life is the greatest gift that Jah has given us mun!

You are so white. Not that I have higher melanin levels than you, but mun? Really?