| | Sorry about the delay, sometimes procrastination gets the better of me. I don't think I'm totally done, but done enough.
Self
What is the "self"? This is a question that I have posed not only here, but elsewhere as well. I had learned from experience that just asking "what is the self" usually leads to confusion, so here I also allowed people to answer "what makes you you?" It is interesting that everyone automatically assumes that these two questions are asking the same thing. Equally interesting are the people that answer the first question with the second question (you are yourself). Both of these questions are deceptively difficult for most anyone who is totally honest with themselves (not that if it isn't difficult you aren't being honest, but for most it is difficult). Why is this difficult? One reason may be that we live our lives with the feeling of separation from everybody and everything else, and we never question this separation. But once we do, we find it hard to articulate, or possibly even know where we end and everything else begins.
Humans understand the universe by splitting it up into groups (eg stars, planets, animals, plants). But we forget that our divisions are exactly that, our divisions. Every time we create a group, we are creating a boundary that is splitting up the true whole into false wholes: one group containing the subject of our grouping, one containing everything else. But the Universe contains no such separations, but we forget this and we get lost in our own boundaries.
One place this is very obvious is with the self. We split "self" into "ourself" and "yourself," but like all other boundaries, this is illusionary. Without "yourself" there would be no "ourself." As Chris pointed out when he answered my question, we define ourselves only in relation to others. So the "self" dilema is the same as the subject-object relationship (or observer-observed relationship). We consider "ourselves" as the observer and "yourself" as the observed. But these cannot exist without the other: no observer can exist without something to observe, and nothing is observed without an observer. So "ourself" has no identity separated from "yourself." So "self" contains both "ourself" and "yourself" which has obvious implications, not the least of which is that you and I are both part of the same "self."
To find what "self" is, we need at least a tentative definition to test. I define "self" as that which has an identity unto itself, ie is not defined in relation to something else. This seems simple enough, but it really isn't. You may automatically think that "you" or "I" are self defining, but they are not, "you" does not exist without "I" and vice versa. Not even "IS" is defined only by itself, it exists only in relation to "IS NOT." So "self" has to be that which contains all as well as not-all. In summation, "self" contains all duality.
Peace, scitso |
| | Posted 1/22/2006 3:00 PM - 17 Views - 30 eProps - 44 comments
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if you are not aware of why homosexuals want to change the age old law, then the burden of "proof" is on you.
