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Now for this thought experiment you must come in with no assumptions about who you are and remove anything that was given to you to properly engage here.
Let's begin....
We start with the question:
Who are you?
First we have to remove everything you aren't and get rid of any assumed answers.
The first answer people give is their name. Well I've got to break it to you, you're name was given to you, so that isn't who you are.
The second most common answer is their occupation, title, role, or status. Again this is not who you are, because these could change at any time. If I say I'm a social media marketer, but tomorrow I quit, then did I cease to exist? The who that was me as a social media marketer would no longer exist in that case, thus that isn't who I am.
The third most common answer is a tribal or identity response so let's go into each. If I denied the first two someone might say to me, well you are a white heterosexual libertarian male. Now this is probably the most accurate depiction of me in terms of logic. However, if you were to explain this to someone who has never met a human, for example an alien, this wouldn't be sufficient by any means. Let's work through it. The alien might ask "Are there no other Caucasian people?" I would say "yes there are," to which it would respond with "how does stating your race/ethnicity tell me who YOU are?" Then you realize it doesn't. It only may lead to assumptions about me rather than factual information. What about my sexual orientation, gender, political affiliation, religion? These are all largely used as ways for us to identify, BUT given there are other people in the world with the exact same traits, values, beliefs, and identity, how do you differentiate from them? Simply by one of the other factors that was given to you or is there a better way to truly come to find who you truly are?
Let's say you believe that all of these things added together give such a specific explanation as to who you are that the comprehensive report of all these things is what you are. In reality though, memory is unreliable and you cannot accurately detail the comprehensive report of yourself, only what you consciously focus on and care to remember because it was impactful and you've discussed it or pondered it many times before.
How can you tell someone who you truly are in one sentence?
Do you want to the know the answer?
There is no answer, you cannot accurately tell someone who you really are and do you know why? Going back to the premise that you had to remove all assumptions and any givens. We skipped over this a little bit for the point of the thought experiment. Now I'm bringing it back to share with you that even your thoughts were given to you. How? Well all your thoughts are language, which had been taught to you. Before language what did you think in your head? Was there anything comprehensible? Is language a requirement for thought? If no one ever taught you language, can you even have hopes, dreams, and goals? The issue in our society is we confuse the symbol of something with the actual thing itself.
To actually be able to even engage in this conversation we now have to refine the question, we must instead ask:
Who were you before your parents conceived you and before you were given anything?
You had no name, no race, no identity, no language, but you had to have something to be able to exist now.
"I think therefore, I am."
This leads us to the idea that wait maybe what I was before is what I am now and what I will be after and what will always be. What is that thing? Many will say God for lack of a better term or understanding. I've come to learn that we attribute God or randomness to simply anything we cannot comprehend or fully answer. It's a filler answer that we have until we can answer it. Now a scientist would tell you, simply the answer is energy. Many would agree on the common understanding that everything is made of energy, that you always had energy, you will always use energy and it will never disappear, only transfer. Think about that. If you were just the energy itself, then when you die, you will not cease to exist, you will only transfer. This sounds very mumbo jumbo to many people however, this is our current scientific understanding. When we explain in the way of consciousness and spirituality which is very far from science it starts to spook logical and analytical people. We have come to believe that as a human, the brain spawns consciousness, but that doesn't make sense because we have never been able to explain when consciousness begins. Theists and philosophers have debated this forever. A much easier explanation is that consciousness is what we exist WITHIN. Our brains aren't all separate consciousnesses interacting, but rather one consciousness with many brains interacting.
Again this sounds very far fetched, but we have a very simple way to prove this as true. Ask yourself this: can anything be experienced outside of consciousness? The answer is no. Nothing can exist outside consciousness, because it otherwise might as well not have existed. Everything exists within consciousness and that includes us. Consciousness then is that "energy" that feeling of what "God" must be. Why is it important to differentiate? Well simply because energy does not explain our awareness. Energy does not explain anxiety, thoughts, and everything else that goes along with consciousness.
Now the point of this was to get you thinking about what you really are deep-down and in this I've come to the conclusion that the final most underlying thing is consciousness. Now I've not presented any absolute arguments or beliefs so I am very interested to see what you have to say on this and if this gave you any insight or benefit. I in no means meant to offend anyone who is religious, but rather to provoke you into thinking more deeply on your reality. For whether or not you should choose to accept it, you were given religion, you bought into that belief. I've not bought into this belief, but rather logically deducted it by removing anything that can be doubted which is a philosophical process referred to as Occam's razor.
Again, let me know what you think. I'm completely open and curious to hearing what you have to say. I think this will generate some great discussion and I fully expect some angry people, but hopefully it will mostly be productive discussion. Please avoid logical fallacies in your answer like begging the question / circular argument.
I also shared this on Minds as well. Feel free to comment and share your thoughts :)
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congratulations a very interesting post
Cheers ☺️
"The self you have betrayed is your mind; self-esteem is reliance on one’s power to think. The ego you seek, that essential “you” which you cannot express or define, is not your emotions or inarticulate dreams, but your intellect, that judge of your supreme tribunal whom you’ve impeached in order to drift at the mercy of any stray shyster you describe as your “feeling.”"
Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual, 177
Yeah great depiction of ego there. But what is the self at it's core outside of ego and the mind?
Nothing.
Pretty good answer. It would contrast the something quite harmoniously. But I feel that it's not just nothing. I feel that we all have a "feeling" associated to it that we struggle to describe. Then again it could just be another feeling while feeling the feeling that I depict to be the feeler.
As the human beings we have feelings. They are chemical reactions in our bodies. We can identify ourselves with those reactions, but then there is now objective measure to consider reality. Feelings are subjective not objective. They depend on our personal life experience, religion, culture and so on.
Only by using reason we can judge objectively. Only by objective judgement we can decide what we really agree with, what is in our long term interest, what is trully good for us - finally - what should be our worldview.
Our body + our worldview + reason = we
Fellings should be in the grip of the reason.
Before being conceived you could call me a 'no body'. Since being conceived and born you could call me a 'some body'.
Ah yes, but you are thinking it in terms of the collective. I'm genuinely asking you to tell me who you are? You can't just be a some body or a no body, because then everyone else is that too. What differentiates you from them? ;) I'm hoping everyone will come to the same conclusion without me giving an answer and rather by me asking more questions.
If you mediate on the phrase "I Am" long enough and try to sense what it is you are referring to (without accepting any of the ideas you come up with) what you are referring to will actually disappear, or at least disappear from your consciousness.
When I did this I felt like I disappeared and no longer existed, even though I was aware of "not existing". It is a really interesting experience.
The end result is realizing that I exist in the background of everything that I sense, experience, perceive and express. It can almost be described as a dark emptiness similar to when you close your eyes but lacking less content than that. It's a blissful experience.
I experienced it by following the lessons in this book:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_That
Wow awesome, really great share! That's a great way to describe it
Thank you @scottcbusiness It's an interesting realization but doesn't offer any advantages in life. It won't make a person a saint nor would it ensure their success. But I think our experiences and life events are largely shaped by our desires and the intensity of our desires. Being aware of that can definitely help a person succeed in life. It can also caution a person towards choosing their desires more wisely.
You're right about your life and your desires being more synonymous than people realize. One massive misconception about spirituality, realization, Nirvana, karma, consciousness, etc. is that it SHOULD improve you somehow or benefit you in some way. That is just your ego looking for another leg up and completely side steps the point
I think the misconception happens because of the popularity of the mainstream teachers. The ones I respect plainly say (and said) that there is no difference between them and us, and that self-realization doesn't offer an advantage in life. But their popularity makes it seem like it's their self-realization that got them popular. So people who want to be like them seek self-realization and continue seeking without end since it doesn't get them the results they want.
If you see The One as a collective, then perhaps.
Sure, but I'm just trying to dig further in. Who you are isn't just a no body or a some body, but much deeper than that
Agreed. They seem simply different forms of the same thing to me.
Yeah exactly, but what is under that or behind the form, the form that is formless?
If you knew that definitively and could express it in words then you could start a new religion. 😎
Another thing worth pointing out is that I don't have any qualities. As the background of all my perceptions, senses and experiences I am basically nothing, some Buddhists call it emptiness.
If everyone else is nothing and emptiness too, there is no one else, just me but witnessing multiple lives, thoughts, experiences, personalities, etc.
@scottcbusiness
Yeah 100%, there is more of no thing than there is of some thing in the reality we perceive.
This is also obvious scientifically. An atom is more than 99% empty space and the space that surronds the planets and stars is greater in size by a lot compared to the size of planets and stars.
100%
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“I am a child of the King”.
How do you deduct that from removing anything given or not known for sure
Similar to breathing air that I can’t touch or see.
You don't actually know that you're breathing air. The only thing you are 100% sure of is that you exist, because I think therefore I am.