Would You Still Exist?

Imagine, for example, that your mother had remained with her high-school sweetheart instead of moving on and marrying your father. Would you still exist?

Or rather, how much of yourself do you imagine would still exist?

Would you not exist at all?

Would you be the same, only appearing different on the outside?

I guess what I mean to ask is this: Is it predetermined that you are you, and that you will exist in the same consciousness no matter its earthly form?

Is this like the koan "what was your face before you were born?" or more along the lines of you as a spirit that takes up temporary residence in a body? Or a question of whether there is a "you" beyond the body, or if the tangle of neurons and it's various appendages is the totality of your being?

yes and no

would "you" still exist
the you being the ego right ?
what are you ultimately : everyone and everything
so yes

appearing different on the outside?

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"As above, so below" the inside is the outside
"you" would still be itself and "itself" would still be you
but as much as the outside appearance would be changed, the inside appearance would be changed too

If my mom stayed with her HS sweetheart then I definitely wouldn't exist.

Her sweetheart was another woman.

ninjadanslarbretabar said:

but as much as the outside appearance would be changed, the inside appearance would be changed too

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Are you saying, then, that either is dependent on the other? If so, which one?

IMO, given the original example, if my mother had had children with someone other than my father, or even if I had been born via a different mother, or during a different time, or in another country (etc.), I would be the same person/soul (while I would obviously look different).

Therefore, my appearance would change, but my inside, for the most part, would stay the same.

*I say for the most part because I'm factoring in those parts of me that would be formed through nurture rather than nature.

im saying in and out is the same
and you or someone else is the same
at some point
and i dont see time as linear...

so
depending on what "you" means to you, my answer will be yes or no
probably no in the way you see it

Since I have no soul the answer is no.
I am a callaboration of half my father's DNA and half my mother's. If my mother had chosen to mate with another man, myself and my conciousness would not come to be, and an entirely different person would be born.
I would not be myself in another body 8)

This raises an interesting ontological quandary. Are we a mere accident of birth, or is our unique consciousness meant to be?

I don't believe I can answer this question, but in either case there's no reason not to be grateful to be alive.

However, as a pantheist and a mystic, I personally believe that our individual identity is irrelevant and manifests itself both within and without our narrow consciousness.

RE OP:
In fact, I take a more extreme position: that it's just as likely that another sperm cell would have fertilized the egg on the night you were conceived, rendering you quite different--maybe different hair, or a set of genetic disorders, or different sex. Who knows what ovum will be released, or exactly which sperm cell will beat the gauntlet and make it inside?

If you're going on a nurture-based argument, though, I dunno. Maybe you'd be roughly the same appearance-wise, or have the same name, but life itself presents a number of randomizing factors. Perhaps with a different genome you'd have a slightly different personality, which would influence both your actions and those of your parents and peers, which would telescope on top of each other until "you" at Time A would be quite different from a hypothetical "you" in a parallel Time A. This isn't even including things beyond your control, such as turning right instead of left in a park and meeting someone who becomes a friend, lover, or enemy.

As you might have guessed, I'm a firm believer in the "many worlds" hypothesis.

Ninja: I didn't peg you as an esotericist, do you study Hermetic Philosophy or did you just randomly pick up the "as above, so below" maxim? I always love to see an occultist with a sense of humor

Being that I feel the universe is infinite, I think there is no way to avoid that I will be this manifestation. You might think of it as the whole parallel universes type thing or you can consider it from a instantaneous Cosmic WHOOP! in which everything is was and will be.

This particular manifestation of body and ego, my identity in a nutshell, would not exist if my mother had not ended up with my dad, if they had not had sex at that particular time and that particular sperm had not been victorious. I believe that there is a fundamental nature of identity within the body's organization that indicates I would be basically the same person even if the various specifics were way off due to my upbringing being different. I'd view everything quite differently and act quite differently but a certain "essence" would remain the undercurrent.

I consider it very possible that there is even a certain pattern of consciousness that exists beyond particular lives that may be considered "me" at a more basic level of consciousness-coherhency, but would manifest vastly different under other genetic and environmental situations. Mainly it is study of near death experiences rather than a religious view that keeps me open to this possibility.

However ultimately I consider the "I" in my "I am" to be the very essence of the universe regardless of which little whirlpool of complex feedback loops of inverted energy it is caught up in at this "place".

I'm god on vacation from infinity. I always exist regardless of any shifts of parameter.

h.a. - spouting mystical mumbo-jumbo since 1995

Being "you" doesn't really exist. Nobody is themsleves, we are made collectively from the people we interact with. to be oneself is to be nothing.

lystra said:

Imagine, for example, that your mother had remained with her high-school sweetheart instead of moving on and marrying your father. Would you still exist?

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I would not exist. I am the result of a specific sperm and a specific egg combining, and my envoronment. With a different sperm from my dad but the same egg from my mom, 50% of my genetics would be different. This would result in a person who is completely different with a different consciousness from the me sitting here typing. If a different sperm than mine and/or a different egg than mine (or in other words, the specific sperm and egg cells that resulted in me) had fertilized, there would be no spaceyourbass. Because the person would have been raised by my mother and gone through much the same stuff, and because the person and the real me come from the same genetic pool, there would likely be another bluelighter with a different name. But it wouldn't be the same person, the language used/posts/interests/etc would be different. Hell, it could have been a girl instead of a boy.

Had there been a completely different father, the hypothetical different me would be even less similar to me. I don't see how someone could believe in genetics and believe this -

IMO, given the original example, if my mother had had children with someone other than my father, or even if I had been born via a different mother, or during a different time, or in another country (etc.), I would be the same person/soul (while I would obviously look different).

Therefore, my appearance would change, but my inside, for the most part, would stay the same.

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IMO, "you" would be a completely different person with a different consciousness. You would not only look different, you would have a completely different (though similar) mental capacity. You would not be aware that another you could have existed, for you would know that there is only one you. I am not trying to tell you what YOU think, but just using this as an example to explain my thinking.
I'm trying to understand fully...lystra - (for example) Do you think that if a different sperm from your father had fertilized the same egg from your mother, then the person that resulted would have the same exact consciousness you do now?

No, you most definately wouldn't exist..

You are YOU because of your unique DNA and unique brain map.. these need to be in their complete form for you to be you.. even if your DNA was made because your father and mother still had you.. but then your mum broke up with your dad and went to someone else.. you would not be YOU because you would have been raised differently, in a different environment meaning your brain would map out differently to what it has done.

this question is based solely upon the precept that you do or do not believe in reincarnation or sould depository (i just made that up, i hope it works) in that case, yes.

aside from that, you are a victim of genetics, upbringing and surroundings. so no.

We could extend the argument to include identical genetic information. Identical twins are different people, they aren't some sort of hive mind. Even in a scenario where an exact replica was created, physically identical in every way including neurologically, they would be different people with separate consciousness. Consciousness is encapsulated within the CNS, a person could hypothetically replace everything else in their body and still be themselves. Parts of the CNS could also be removed including large parts of the brain, and they would still be themselves, although in a diminished capacity.

Yes, but in different body with different biology.

But that scenario does not exist so don't worry about it.

MaxPowers said:

If my mom stayed with her HS sweetheart then I definitely wouldn't exist.

Her sweetheart was another woman.

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Your mom is hot.

delta_9 said:

Since I have no soul the answer is no.
I am a callaboration of half my father's DNA and half my mother's. If my mother had chosen to mate with another man, myself and my conciousness would not come to be, and an entirely different person would be born.
I would not be myself in another body 8)

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I agree with that and I would add

If 5000 year ago a young man somewhere would have got out of his cave just a minute earlier than usualy and got hit by a huge rock on the head and died, most of us wouldnt exist today, for that man wouldnt have had child, and so on

lystra said:

*I say for the most part because I'm factoring in those parts of me that would be formed through nurture rather than nature.

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I was just having this discussion with someone recently - what exactly would you say constitutes the "nature" part of you? Seems to me like all the things that make you you - your personality, beliefs, attitudes, views, memories, feelings... Seems like those are all a matter of nurture.

Frankly, the only things that seem to be a matter of nature are the physical things. The way you look, the way your body is structured, the color of your eyes. Maybe I'm mistaken? Maybe certain things about your mind are natural, based on brain chemistry, but how much do those really influence your idea of "you"? Only if they're really severe, a la schizophrenia or something.

More to the point of the question, though, I think the thing that you're really asking about is whether the subjective experience you're having right now would still exist. Not really whether "I" would exist (that is, your current idea of you), but whether your "I-ness" would exist (you-ness in general). I think that would exist, but in the same sense that I think it always exists.

If this "you" (your ego) didn't exist, the particular "you" that existed instead would be related to your current idea of "you", but only to pretty much the same extent that your current idea of "you" is related to any other person. You share the property of having subjective experiences, but beyond that...

The part of "you" that is just the ability to have subjective experiences (soul?) would still exist, but to say anything about the form that those subjective experiences would take, or how they would relate to the ones you're having now, seems pretty much pointless. The alternate "you" may well be some other girl in some other country, but it might also be a cat, or a bug, or some sort of conscious carpet.

delta_9 said:

Since I have no soul the answer is no.
I am a callaboration of half my father's DNA and half my mother's. If my mother had chosen to mate with another man, myself and my conciousness would not come to be, and an entirely different person would be born.
I would not be myself in another body 8)

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ahh but whats to say that your thoughts don't exist on a parallel to your body.
And i am not talking about a soul

Pez said:

I was just having this discussion with someone recently - what exactly would you say constitutes the "nature" part of you? Seems to me like all the things that make you you - your personality, beliefs, attitudes, views, memories, feelings... Seems like those are all a matter of nurture.

Frankly, the only things that seem to be a matter of nature are the physical things. The way you look, the way your body is structured, the color of your eyes. Maybe I'm mistaken? Maybe certain things about your mind are natural, based on brain chemistry, but how much do those really influence your idea of "you"? Only if they're really severe, a la schizophrenia or something.

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Studies on identical twins keep indicating that genetics plays a larger role than we give credit for. Even thinks like a persons propensity towards religiosity can be attributed to genetics. There was an episode of the Australian show Insight on this very issue that was fascinating.