• Philosophy and Spirituality
    Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Threads of Note Socialize
  • P&S Moderators: JackARoe | Cheshire_Kat

Sensation of "I".

brownbradley39

brownbradley39

Bluelighter
Joined
Mar 18, 2014
Messages
127
I've been toying with the idea that you/we will always be experiencing a sense of "I/self" coming into the world and experiencing life. I base it off the idea that the sensation of self, identity and this ego soul thing inside us that we feel is entirely fictitious and basically an idea, a creation of our own. So that is all that truly dies, the "idea" of ourselves. And sense people are always dying and others are always being born, will there always be a sensation of "I"? What are your thoughts?
 
I think this is always there in us but that we don't experience it often much at all. Occasionally we get glimpses or moments of consciousness but for the most part we are automatons, sleep walking through our waking life and wake walking through our sleeping life. "I/Self", it's a big idea that gets thrown around a lot these days and I think a lot of people believe they have it, or can sense it.. perhaps they can I don't know.. but I tend to believe they're in wishful thinking mode.

What fascinates me is the idea that if indeed we do have this complex of egos (I don't believe in a singular ego) and that at death these disintegrate leaving behind the "I/Self", what that experience feels like to the individual. Painful? Sad? Relief? Elation? Nothing? I have this nagging suspicion it will be a combination of "ah-ha!", like you get with psychedelics that somehow this is all fiction, and a great sadness that you were playing games this entire time and you never really glimpsed what was actually there. Then you're left with the "I/Self".. silent and encompassing.

Sorry if this post is way off course..
 
It's all good! :) the one thing i'm certain for sure about is this world, life, existence, and death are NOTHING like we imagine they are. (Unless you have a mystical or enlightening experience). I believe our minds distort the true reality because biology and evolution wired our brains to only perceive what is necessary for survival.
 
brownbradley39 said:
I believe our minds distort the true reality because biology and evolution wired our brains to only perceive what is necessary for survival.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. This is one of the greatest things that is overlooked by so many. We do not actually see what is there, rather our brain creates a model based upon impressions from the eye and projects what it thinks it sees back out on to.. something. The following graphic shows this quite nicely, definitely recommend reading the whole book which is free as a pdf. Called "Conquest of Illusion".

conquest2.jpg
 
brownbradley39 said:
I've been toying with the idea that you/we will always be experiencing a sense of "I/self" coming into the world and experiencing life. I base it off the idea that the sensation of self, identity and this ego soul thing inside us that we feel is entirely fictitious and basically an idea, a creation of our own. So that is all that truly dies, the "idea" of ourselves. And sense people are always dying and others are always being born, will there always be a sensation of "I"? What are your thoughts?
Click to expand...

Nope. When I'm dead there will be no "me".. my "self" will no longer exist.

The sense of self, or rather, you.. you're ego, your consciousness, your emotions, memories, thoughts and feelings, are the creations / results of you're brain doing what it does..

Did you have a sense of self before you were born?
 
rickolasnice said:
Nope. When I'm dead there will be no "me".. my "self" will no longer exist.

The sense of self, or rather, you.. you're ego, your consciousness, your emotions, memories, thoughts and feelings, are the creations / results of you're brain doing what it does..

Did you have a sense of self before you were born?
Click to expand...
I don't mean that we will biologically or in some spiritual way survive death. I'm having a hard time explaining what I mean. I guess I'm trying to say is there are no "you" and "I's", just subjective experiences. I believe that we possibly might experience birth, life and death under one ego, or "sense of self" one at a time
 
Nah.. "I" exist.. As do you.. Do you not have opinions, emotions, memories, thoughts and feelings?

Of course you do. That's you.
 
You keep using the term "I" and "you" as if it's already been completely defined, Rick. Who or what is this "I" or "you" you refer to? We're aware of these opinions, emotions, memories, thoughts and feelings as they pass across the window from which we gaze.. but are you aware of the "I"/"you".. the thing that watches all this? You would say yes I imagine, I would emphatically say no.
 
How can you be something which appears and disappears? Opinions change, thoughts come and go and memories fade, while the mind in which all these things appear, remains the same.
 
It doesn't remain the same, though.. It's constantly changing.

As for something that appears and disappears.. I liken the ego and consciousness itself to be like a computer programme, while the brain is the hardware needed to decode the information into what it is..

If you take a hard drive and smash it up / wipe a powerful magnet over it, do the programmes that were once on it still exist?
 
The phenomena are always changing, like images on a screen. But the screen, as the foundation of all phenomena, is changeless. Is it not obvious?
 
rickolasnice said:
No.. because the brain is not changeless.. it's physically changing all the time.
Click to expand...

The brain is not the mind though. The two are interconnected but they are not the same thing, hence why it is possible to experience things like OBE's and astral projection.
 
Yeah except the mind is a product of the brain.. they are not different things..

And OBE's and astral projections are nothing more than tricks of the mind / brain.. nobody is actually leaving their body.
 
rickolasnice said:
Yeah except the mind is a product of the brain.. they are not different things..

And OBE's and astral projections are nothing more than tricks of the mind / brain.. nobody is actually leaving their body.
Click to expand...

Yeh, except they are different things. The brain is the physical component, part of the body, to which the mind interfaces with, or sits in like a rider in a chariot.. they both clearly relate to each other and affecting change in one can cause effects in the other. But the mind is not some physical thing like the brain. Thoughts, emotions, these are transcendent things that show up as responses in the brain but they're not in the brain.

Like the ProphettoProfit mentioned about the screen.. our brains receive signals from our sensory apparatus and reconstruct this data. But where are we "seeing" or "hearing"? We're not actually seeing what is there, only a reconstruction. Even if you take reductionist thinking the brain takes in this data and then constructs this world we "see".. but again where do we see? There is no light in the brain, no image in the brain, just electrical activity. So again, where are we seeing this reconstructed world before us?

The same goes for imagination. Right now I can imagine a blue sports car and I can see it pretty clearly. Where is this image taking place? There is surely electrical activity happening in the brain but again there is no light, no image to be found, and yet I can witness this image quite clearly. This image is being projected upon something, from which I can then witness it.

The bit about OBE's/AP.. "nothing more than tricks".. this is "nothing more" than reductionist thinking. It happens, it's real, and it needs more investigation. "Tricks" is not a sufficient explanation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top