What am I?

[wil]

From a science perspective.

What am I, what comprises me?

How about my fingernail? Is it me? Am I it? Am I one with it? Do we symbiotically coexist? Well I guess I may determine if I wish to smite it yes? But I would still exist without it, and it would still exist for a time without me.

What about the bacteria, parasites, are they me? If I was stripped of all of them could I exist without them?

Digestive juices, enzymes I create, are they me or of me?

What of my knowledge is mine? It seems there is knowledge that my glands know that I don't. Don't they send out various defensive macrophages to determine what is attacking my body and then once having idenitified exactly with anitbody works best crank up the factories to send millions out? I don't do that, who does, is it just automatic or are they making decisions and acting without my approval? Are they me?

Where do I end? I know one of you has the logical scientific answer to this.

[Tao_Equus]

This is one of the most profound of questions and for me a powerful proof of the existence of an entity we can call Gaia. Our individual minds may stand alone, though that too is arguable, but everything we are is completely dependant on an army of factors quietly working away in seemingly independent purpose. The program that runs any one of these factors beautifully integrated into the wider mechanism. Such harmony requires memory and DNA is that memory bank. Its evolution over the course of life on Earth has stored record of what works, through survival of the fittest, and now, billions of years in, its results can appear miraculous. But they are not. they are the results of countless failures too. And diseases and pathogens continue to find ways to beat the best efforts of the past. Its always a dynamic battle. And one that will wage as long as life exists. Chaos always throws a spanner in the works sooner or later.

Tao


Edit: Are a particular bacteria the real 'us'.... it is possible.

[dauer]

Wil,

It sounds like you're mixing philosophy with science. What comprises you is one question that can be addressed by cataloguing all of the various parts of yourself as well as the flora that inhabit your body with which you maintain a symbiotic relationship. "What makes me me? What of my knowledge is mine? Do I have free will or are my actions determined?" Those are more philosophical questions that go beyond mechanics, at least insofar as we can grasp them in our present era.

I would suggest that humans are a complex layering of systems and that, with enough data, we might be able to predict human actions. However there are so many variables and the data so hard to collect that I'm not sure it would ever be possible to test that theory. Even with an understanding of the way the brain works and a full understanding of DNA, we'd still need to collect all of the experiences up until that point in time and possibly some other data in addition to that.

I don't think there's one answer to the question, "What am I?" I think a lot of the dividing lines we set as we categorize our environment are somewhat arbitrary and influenced by a number of different factors. I think the main thing that makes the particular lines we draw seem more consistent is that they often follow common cultural understandings of where there boundaries are between this and that. They tend to follow a suggestion of a border. It's light out during the day. It's dark at night. But saying precisely where the line should be drawn I don't think is as simple. We tend to go by sunrise and sunset when we could also go by moonrise and moonfall. From the perspective of an observer, following the sun may make more sense because there are regular intervals where the moon is not visible, but I don't think moonrise and moonfall would be any less accurate. It would just mean establishing a different origin, as it were, for the graph of the day.

Person A might say: "My thoughts are me, my thinking."

Person B might say: "The part of me that can observe the thoughts, that is me."

Person C might say: "Both the part that observes my thoughts and my thoughts themselves are a part of me."

Those are only 3 possible ways of looking at it. I think they're all perspectives, subjective. I think they're all just personal ways that different individuals filter reality in order to make sense of it and understand by, in part, projecting/applying a personal meaning and interpretation the data that we have today.

What is July 4th? To an American it is a national holiday. To someone outside of America it is a day in the month of July. To a hypothetical alien from another planet with no notion of the way that me measure time, it's something else. She would have to convert our units of time to hers, and her standard measurement of time might be vastly longer or shorter than ours, making our day seem peculiar. She might have no concept of a national holiday, or of nationality. To another hypothetical alien who has some non-linear or abstract concept of time it's still something different. The very idea of having units of time that pass in linear fashion might not make sense at all to that individual.

The types of questions that you're asking I think are mostly individual and personal, not something that can be reasoned out in a way that is satisfactory to everyone on the planet unless perhaps it's so watered down that it doesn't mean much of anything anymore.


Tao,

I think the assertion of Gaia is more a matter of paradigmatically redefining the borders of the individual and of all life on this planet. I think it's a healthy redefinition, certainly one that I would ascribe to, but I don't think it's more true than acknowledging the role of the individual.

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

This is one of the most profound of questions and for me a powerful proof of the existence of an entity we can call Gaia.

I was going to ask this question on another thread (true self no self):

Does Gaia leave room for "self" ?

s.

[Tao_Equus]

Personally I think so. Gaia is to my mind the force, individuality is an independent expression playing out within the framework of that force. Although Gaia must influence us all we still retain our uniqueness and free will. Gaia I believe to be more or less indifferent to the individual.

Tao

[wil]

Namaste all,

Tao,

Gaia, I love that but if that is part of me, is that the end? If I am part of my terrarium and it is part of a web of gravitionally interconnected galaxies...now where do I end?

Dauer,

Can we seperate me from my thoughts? Can we seperate me from my knowledge? Like a tattoo, once I decide to add knowledge does that not become part of me? Seperate it from philosophical, what does science say I am?

Snoop,

Gaia individuality, I think my fingernail still has an identity yes?


All, maybe we have to define limits...what is the smallest component that can still be defined as me? And what is the largest component that can still be defined as me?

X < ME < Z

words...yikes...am I my words?

[dauer]

Wil,

If we're examining only the material world, yes we can. It's all a matter of what lens is applied.

[wil]

ha

Originally Posted by dauer

Wil,

If we're examining only the material world, yes we can. It's all a matter of what lens is applied.

Ok, what are our lens options? And is experience and/or knowledge immaterial? I mean does the Dali Lama or Albert Einstein have nothing over me in the material world?

[Bishadi]

Originally Posted by wil

haOk, what are our lens options?

True reflections, follow anothers, or create. Otherwise, see an optomatrist for lenses.

And is experience and/or knowledge immaterial?

It is how you comprehend what you experience.

I mean does the Dali Lama or Albert Einstein have nothing over me in the material world?

Nothing yet maybe understanding, and often the ones with the most knowledge, are the most humble to knowing how little they understand.

Funny isn;t it?

Seperate it from philosophical, what does science say I am?

The consciousness is like a mirror reflecting upon itself as it recognizes what information it observes and then reflects what knowledge is comprehended.

SO in a sense, to know yourself as an I (a point of an opinion) then consciousness can be defined. IN contract an autistic mind is not conscious, yet the body is alive.

Basically in a collective point of view, an I is only as good as its integrity to return a true reflection.

or like a picture tube.... either it conveys a true picture of the input or it does not. The difference is a person can choose the picture it represents.

[dauer]

Wil,

Ok, what are our lens options?

I don't think I could list them all, but some things to consider are level of magnification and tint color and how dark the tint is.

And is experience and/or knowledge immaterial? I mean does the Dali Lama or Albert Einstein have nothing over me in the material world?

As far as I know experience and knowledge are immaterial. Without getting into hypothetical metaphysics I don't think we have reason to question that. You cannot hold an idea in your hand. Your experiences are in the material world but your memories of those experiences are immaterial. There are certainly physical counterparts to knowledge in the formation of and activity in your brain but I wouldn't consider those things to be the knowledge itself. However I also don't think we know enough about the brain to say what the knowledge itself really is and exactly how an electrical impulse corresponds to a particular memory or idea. If someone else has more information I'd be glad to hear it. I don't know many specifics about the function of the brain.

The Dali Lama and Einstein both have produced materials that are evidence of their knowledge, but I wouldn't consider those materials to be equivalent to their knowledge nor would I consider those materials to be a part of them.

[Bishadi]

This line of thought has been on my mind for much of the day.

Thanks

The words are tough to find, please share what questions can be addressed.


The key is the three. So as existence is of MET, then even as each system appears separate, they are still of the whole. As you exist comprehending the ‘I’ of your existence; each are still of the total.

Now even as each living thing is simply of purpose within an environment, a formula for offering substance to evolution shares that intent by its ‘entanglement’ to the environment. In a worded sense, the cause of gravity to the universal association is the entangled energy in time. Which also means when the trinity began time; the energy (light) still entangles all mass just as the moment time exists. So life in its form (light) must also remain entangled to all existence at the same time.

Consciousness is physical. In 2 senses; One meaning; consciousness (mind) is of physical comprehension by memories, experience and knowledge. The other means the physical reality that the energy between all mass of every molecule and atom within any living thing is light or em.

What is functionally unique is the capacity to pre-determine. To experience before the action. Which, in today’s math would equate to a reversal of entropy or t<0.

Where the consciousness can presuppose or extrapolate an existence within the context of mind. For this to exist, the energy to the life is entangling the experience by observance (current), reflection to memories, and supposition (pre-determination) and to directly have a perceived observance prior to action. Even to see a new event, to understand it within descriptions, offer comprehension to the cause, prior to the event.

We equally can observe and determine; judge.

It is them words offering the means to comprehending existence, which has been evolving. So literally the individual I’s of them contributing descriptions are all entangled to an end as well eventually the beginning (alpha-omega).

‘I am’ is of consciousness; an entangled life to existence; an organism. Each person records their own descriptions based on environment and learned knowledge. Yet within each consciousness there are universal ‘feelings.’ This shares how there exists an awareness to the entangled state of all conscious life. Each is born equally capable but it is the learned knowledge that can instill a set of blinders.

I is simply an organism representing an individual set of experiences (conscious) within existence.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by wil

Namaste all,

Tao,

Gaia, I love that but if that is part of me, is that the end? If I am part of my terrarium and it is part of a web of gravitionally interconnected galaxies...now where do I end?

Well a twist on the old 'degrees of separation' question? It is possible that you fart in bed one night and the butterfly effect eventually causes an anomalous atmospheric perturbation that effects everything living on Earth. But it is, I think , unlikely. (Unless your wife makes a particualrly mean bean chilli?). Unless there are real effects being caused by what we do in the, for all intents and purposes, invisible dimensions.. then we can only speculate beyond our bubble.

I think I have may used this reference to the Philosopher Royal of Scotland before but it is again pertinent here. He explains it so much better than I ever could.

YouTube - Billy Connolly Gets A Bit Angry At The Audience

Tao

[China Cat Sunflower]

"What we think with thinks us." Stanley Fish

Chris

[cyberpi]

Originally Posted by wil

From a science perspective.

What am I, what comprises me?

What are you? You are the one that can choose and make an answer. What are you?

I am being here the scientist probing for your answer.

[wil]

Originally Posted by cyberpi

What are you? You are the one that can choose and make an answer. What are you?

I am being here the scientist probing for your answer.

Ok lets back up, forget thought then. What physically am I?