Being No One

[SeriesOfTubes]

don't know if this is a repost, thought more than a few bums would find it interesting.

[Marblehead]

Okay. I got half way through it before I got bored. Hehehe.

 

Yes, I think that this is speaking to the concept of what 'self' really is.

 

I have had this discussion before and I still believe that awareness is key.

 

There is a self but no, I can not point to it because 'self' is the totality of my physical, manifest essence.

 

There is also the concept of illusion that was spoken to and I think that this concept is bvery important when discussing the concept of 'self'.

 

Was there a particular concept that gained your attention from the presentation?

[SeriesOfTubes]

Okay. I got half way through it before I got bored. Hehehe.

 

Yes, I think that this is speaking to the concept of what 'self' really is.

 

I have had this discussion before and I still believe that awareness is key.

 

There is a self but no, I can not point to it because 'self' is the totality of my physical, manifest essence.

 

There is also the concept of illusion that was spoken to and I think that this concept is bvery important when discussing the concept of 'self'.

 

Was there a particular concept that gained your attention from the presentation?

 

Hi Marblehead, yeah it's a bit long. I would say for me it was the way the last 20 minutes tie everything together. you could probably abbreviate the whole thing and pop in at about 20:00 till the end and get the point more or less.

 

If you have no interest in the nature of the self or first person perspective, than it probably won't interest you.

 

What gained my attention is mostly the ideas put forth that the "sense of self" i.e. mine-ness, ownership, and perspectivalness is a virtual model that the body system has at the genetic or possibly molecular levels. That it is an invisible map that plays a role for the system. The self-model is the best hypothesis that the system (body/mind) itself has to regulate its own current state. It becomes an immovable center due to being a captive audience to a continuous source of internally generated input, e.g., such as the background sensation of the body.

 

Metzinger puts forth several hypotheses about why we are beings that are basically "naive realists" that can say and actually believe such a dubious statement as: "I myself, am seeing this object, right now, with my own eyes". Why isn't our self model easily recognizable as a model? Why was there no evolutionary pressure to represent reality?

 

My thoughts are that perhaps we are at a juncture where this is changing.

Edited December 20, 2010 by SeriesOfTubes

[Marblehead]

Hi SOT,

 

Yes, there is a lot of genetic evolution involved in where the human animal is today. I see this as the instinct for survival.

 

If we can identify "me" then we can take action to preserve this "me".

 

But then I agree with you in that there does seem to be a trend toward 'enlightenment' as to what this "me" really is and I will attribute much of this to Buddhist philosophy.