Personhood, death, and an afterlife.

[Wonde_Alice_rland]

I've been in contemplation over the last few years on the relationship of the self to the possibility of an afterlife. I will first ask the question I am seeking an answer to, then I will explain where I currently stand on the topic. So, the question: What do you consider to be the self (ie. what makes you, you)? AND: If there is some sort of afterlife, which definition of the self experiences it?


My thoughts: Many people regard the self (whether they are this articulate or not), more specifically themselves, as the continued experience that the physical brain goes through as it passes through time in the body it is in. However I find that if one ponders the prospect of similarity, that the previous definition of self does not withstand criticism. I would not say that 6-year-old Alice is the same as 20-year-old Alice. So if I ask "what is Alice?" I personally cannot give two different answers (since 6YoA is not the same as 20YoA, giving these as answers would be two different answers). I would say that every instant our brain changes, however minutely, we are a different self. As support to this claim, something could not both change and be the same.

Now, what about an afterlife? If afterlife is similar to the Judeo-Christian theory, does the last conscious personality inhabiting the brain take over in the afterlife? But if that is only one of trillions of selves, then shouldn't every self have its own afterlife? Since those selves have passed and are gone, wouldn't they be in the afterlife now? Of course that means that both the self that ate a waffle at age 10 and the self that twisted its ankle at age 13 are in afterlife doing whatever they do. So trillions upon trillions of selves would just be existing in the afterlife.

I'm afraid this is where I must end, as I myself am puzzled after this point.

As always, thank you very much, your response is appreciated.

 

[swilow]

Alice, good post; with regards to your question of the ever changing self, have a read of this idea, the paradox of the Ship of Theseus also referred to as 'George Washington's Axe' may offer some insight. If I have Washington's axe, and have replaced both the handle and axe-head several times, do I still, in fact, have George Washington's axe in my possession?
However, I think that the self doesn't neccesarily change; over our lives, our sense of self evolves and grows, with new layers being added on top of the old but not, by definition, replacing the old entirely. Nothing lasts but nothing is lost. All the atoms in our bodies have existed in countless iterations and across the span of billions of light years before we draw them together for this particular human form. They are still the same atoms, that inhabited everything from William Shakespeare to distant stars. When we die, these atoms and molecules will return again to the raw source, to be used again, billions of times.

I don't think the self is what people think ascends to the afterlife, but the individual soul, of which the sense of self makes manifest. I don't believe that there exists an afterlife in an individual sense, but I think the field of consciousness continues regardless.

 

[Greyhounder]

I nearly answered yesterday but it is such a complicated subject that coming up with a pithy couple of lines that sum up my thoughts is not going to happen.
I wonder if the 'self' and 'what makes you, you' are necessarily the same thing at all. I suspect that there is a difference even if only that my concept of 'me' involves a conscious awareness across time of my existence whereas what makes me, me also includes my interactions with the outside world. One feels more narrow and internal, if I were deaf, dumb and blind and kept in an isolation tank I would still have a concept of self because I need nothing external for it but what would make me, me in the wider sense also includes the fact that I am deaf, dumb and blind and stuck in a tank, things which I, stuck in the tank, may have no understanding of.
It is further complicated by how you see me being different from how I see me, i have access to personal knowledge and memories that you do not which suggests that how you see me must be wrong or at least incomplete and we should concentrate on how i see me except that you have information which is not accessible to me, i can, for instance, i can never really know the emotional effects i have on others.
So, i suspect that if we are to talk of 'self' we must limit it to our own internal self-knowledge and accept that it is a fluid concept rather than a fixed point. We would also then need to accept its flaws, for example a psychopath cannot see their own psychopathy, if they could they wouldn't be psychopaths, therefore if you happen to be a psychopath you will not be including any form of empathic knowledge in your concept of 'self' because it is not there to include.
Maybe that helps though, maybe our concept of self is not about trying to say I am this or that or the other but rather that I have a range of thoughts and feelings, physical and emotional states, hopes, dreams, fears etc etc within which I exist. So I have the capacity to be sad but that doesnt mean that I am sad today, I love being alone but today I am lonely, etc. 'Self' then perhaps describes the range of possibilities open to an individual and the choices made. 'Me' on the other hand involves more than just how I think about things because if 'me' is a bad tempered old git then the world will treat 'me' as a bad tempered old git even if I am completely lacking in selfawareness and think I am sweetness and light to all around me.
Thank dog I find no evidence for an afterlife.

 

[Lovecraft]

In Hinduism, there is a saying which goes "Tat Tvam Asi". This is translated into English as "You are that". This saying points to the fact that what you call "you" can only exist in relation to something you call "not you". In other words, you would not be aware of a self if you had no reference to something that is considered other than the self, such as the external world of other people and things. So therefore, "you" is inseparable from "not you" and thus, they are one in the same. Just try to imagine being conscious of yourself as an individual without being in some sort of environment, even if it is empty space. Thus you and your environment are inseparable. Another way of looking at it is when we separate voluntary actions from involuntary actions. We say that the voluntary ones are done by the self whereas the involuntary actions just happen. But if you look more closely, the so-called voluntary actions also just happen as well and we have no idea how we do them in the same way we don't know how we beat our hearts, etc. For example, try to explain how "you" open and close your hand? Also, we normally associate voluntary actions with the self because they involve a decision or choice. But what is a choice except another event that simply happens in the same way that all involuntary actions do. When you choose to do something, you don't choose to choose, etc. A decision just happens in the same way everything involuntary does. So we could actually say that everything is involuntary; everything "you" do and everything "you" doesn't do. Put another way, "You are that".

 

[Journyman16]

My view...

Self is something we can't define that uses a number of decreasing frequency fields to 'drive' a body. The body/brain/mind gives us access to what I call The Solid.

I think we are all fragments of The ALL, sent deep into the plenum to discover just who The ALL should be. I think it is very possible to be fully aware but not have knowledge - just look at a baby. Now imagine The ALL is totally aware but has no knowledge... What would you do? Most of us would create an agent, or imagine a 'self' to explore how we would react to this or that and so learn who we are.

Keep in mind The ALL has no other person they can turn to and ask how The ALL appears to them.

So... I think, if we learn enough while we live a life to KNOW who we are, we get to come back. If we don't, I think we get dumped back in the pool of selfness and maybe sometime later parts of us get scooped up to make a new being to go 'play' outside.

Astral travel tells me that what you get when you stop driving your body depends on what you think you will get. If you know your astral self you get to choose. If you are convinced you go to the Pearly Gates you find an astral imitation that gives you what you want... until you get dumped back to do it again.

I think 'I' is a point of view and 'I' gets to pay with fields to experience and learn.

I think the heaven/Nirvana/you name your religious goal is a heap of crap. Every guru and sage, every messiah has told us it is a PERSONAL journey so any time anyone stands up and tells you how to do it, they are manipulative pieces of shit.

 

[Lovecraft]

My view...

Self is something we can't define that uses a number of decreasing frequency fields to 'drive' a body. The body/brain/mind gives us access to what I call The Solid.

I think we are all fragments of The ALL, sent deep into the plenum to discover just who The ALL should be. I think it is very possible to be fully aware but not have knowledge - just look at a baby. Now imagine The ALL is totally aware but has no knowledge... What would you do? Most of us would create an agent, or imagine a 'self' to explore how we would react to this or that and so learn who we are.

Keep in mind The ALL has no other person they can turn to and ask how The ALL appears to them.

So... I think, if we learn enough while we live a life to KNOW who we are, we get to come back. If we don't, I think we get dumped back in the pool of selfness and maybe sometime later parts of us get scooped up to make a new being to go 'play' outside.

Astral travel tells me that what you get when you stop driving your body depends on what you think you will get. If you know your astral self you get to choose. If you are convinced you go to the Pearly Gates you find an astral imitation that gives you what you want... until you get dumped back to do it again.

I think 'I' is a point of view and 'I' gets to pay with fields to experience and learn.

I think the heaven/Nirvana/you name your religious goal is a heap of crap. Every guru and sage, every messiah has told us it is a PERSONAL journey so any time anyone stands up and tells you how to do it, they are manipulative pieces of shit.

It's interesting that you mention the consciousness of the baby. It could be said that a baby has no sense of self and thus, everything going on both within and without him or her is involuntary. Freud referred to the baby state as the pre-ego phase, before the sense of an ego (or independent agent as you put it) develops. He gave the example of the breastfeeding infant not being able to differentiate itself from the mother's breast. One could make the case, and in fact, social psychology does, that the awareness of self is a social construction, taught to individuals during the socialization/enculturation process, in the same way we're taught to see and define everything else in terms of our socio-cultural framework, and that the original ego-less state is the truer one.

 

[Ransom itch]

I believe we are all of us uniquely made in the image of God, life then throws us various curveballs over the years that causes us to question the existence of God. During those times, all of us will know in our hearts whether or not we have intentionally denied Him and it is on those intentions that will we be held to account. For me there is one God, one Creator Who loves us very much and wants each of us to know Him.

 

[Journyman16]

It's interesting that you mention the consciousness of the baby. It could be said that a baby has no sense of self and thus, everything going on both within and without him or her is involuntary. Freud referred to the baby state as the pre-ego phase, before the sense of an ego (or independent agent as you put it) develops. He gave the example of the breastfeeding infant not being able to differentiate itself from the mother's breast. One could make the case, and in fact, social psychology does, that the awareness of self is a social construction, taught to individuals during the socialization/enculturation process, in the same way we're taught to see and define everything else in terms of our socio-cultural framework, and that the original ego-less state is the truer one.

I'm rather cautious of accepting what Freud says - his works are based on something like 5 people and seem to ignore the possibility that people break the mould of nurture - mind you I may just not know enough about his work. Whatever he taught Ed Benrays was enough to cause personal programming to flourish in a workable form. (Advertising, in case someone doesn't know who Ed Bernays was - Freud's nephew)

But ego certainly could be a development - but I don't know if it is a social construction or whether maybe the society around is what the child uses to define itself. There are tribes in South America who do not raise their children as we do, focussing on them, but instead let the child see and experience the world they came into. Those children still develop egos and personal traits.

But maybe it is semantics - using a social setting to work out a definition of self could also be seen as a social construction.

But I still think we arrive here as individuals. We use bodies just like a good driver drives a car and in fact go through the same learning processes. And just like a good driver who soon identifies the limits of the car as 'self' we soon see the body as being us.

I think maybe that identification can only change when we experience leaving the body, as in astral travel or NDE. At that point we get an understanding that the body is NOT us, that we are a separate thing from body/brain.

 

[someonelse]

your soul is who you are. same as you were when you were six. same as you will always be. all perceived change is only transient.