_shop_talk_ u24 A place to talk about a range of topics broadly covered by terms such as 'metaphysics', 'paganism', 'magic', 'witchcraft', 'religion' and so on. Few topics are out of bounds. Conversation is preferably one-on-one, so if a debate is in progress between two parties, please refrain from blathing here. If you want to enter thoughts, please let one of the debating parties know (via, eg hey_u24 or hey_misstree), and the debating parties will take it from there. Sometimes content discussed here is very personal, so if your thoughts are ignored don't be offended, they will probably be returned to later. If one of the parties has left something unanswered for a long period of time (eg 9 months+) and you have something to say, you can probably safely butt in, but it's probably polite to ask "are you done" first. For previous debates in a less structured format, and to get an idea of the content and level of chatter, see ask_use24 ask_use24_2 shop_talk_with_u24 and other blathes linked from those. If you are involved in a debate here, do not expect fast answers, be prepared to wait a long time, but know that what is said will be the result of lengthy thought. Have fun. 061024 ... misstree how do you define the Self? interpret any way you please. 061024 ... u24 answer coming shortly. 061024 ... u24 there will be much more, but to give you an idea of where I'll be going wih this: I'll talk a lot about personal_identity (see if you get your hands on "personal identity and immortality" by Perry, it's good) I'll talk about Wittgensteinian concepts of human beings. But I'm sure you don't want a philosophy lecture, rather you're after my opinoins which will be interesting for me to do because now I've been studying philosophy for two years it'll be interesting to not have to proceed through a bunch of arguments I don't agree with. (if you -do- want a lecture, check out some my essays in the collected knowledge section of puremango.co.uk) ciao. 061024 ... u24 also, my keyboard is borken so expect a shitload of typos. sorry. 061024 ... u24 postponing discussion for a while longer due to the important_notice_regarding_blather. 061024 ... u24 how do you define the Self? how do I define it? Generally I don't, I am what I am. But the definition that resonates as closely to the truth that I have heard has to do with personal identity. The idea is that if we can discern what is central to a person being classed as 'the same' person at point X and point Y in time, then we have captured the essence of what the self is. In order to discern this, we can look at analogies with less complicated physical objects, eg tables and chairs. What makes a table 'the same' over time is it's having rough physical continuity with itself; if you replace a leg, it's still the same table, but if you replace first one leg, then all the others, then the top, it can't be called the same table, though the two items have some sort of link. Plutarch talks of the ship of Theseus. This ship was preserved for hundreds of years because every time a plank rotted it would be replaced. In what sense can we talk of it being the same ship? To twist it further, if the planks were removed and replaced, then we would have a ship. If the original planks were then used to create another ship, which of the two ships would be 'the same' ship as Theseus's? These questions have no easy answers, and serve only to highlight the difficulties entailed when talking of the identity of physical things. But the self also has a mental side, so to extend the analogy, what if I was able to slowly copy the data held in my mind to another being; which of us would be me? What if I died, would the copy -be- me? To me, the self is the rough sum of the mental events occuring within a physical body. If you change either the physical or the mental significantly enough, the self ceases to share identity with it's previous self. It's a very hazy picture, and you can't give definite boundaries as to what constitutes the self. But I don't think you were as interested in identity of self as the more metaphysical aspects of, eg, life after death. To discuss those type of concepts (as I see them) I have to bring in Spinoza'a philosophy, which stikes me as being very close to the mark. Spinoza held that there was only one 'substance', which he takes to be "God or Nature" (hereafter simply "God"). All things exist as attributes of God, much as an attribute of blather is it's blue-ness. So we are possessed by God. The physical side of us is an attribute of God, as is the mental. So there is no actual difference between the mind and the body, only a difference in the way we percieve it. To help elucidate this idea, Wittgenstein talks of 'seeing an aspect'; when I look at the picture I can either see the vase or I can see two faces looking at one another*; both are 'aspects' of the image. In the same way, the mind and the body are but aspects of the same thing. This is perhaps why we have such trouble with notions of personal identity; we try too hard to distinguish between the mind and the body. Spinoza's philosophy has serious consequences for free will; he holds that God is outside of time, or that he encompasses all of time (for if he didn't, he wouldn't be God), but is everything really is part of God, then everything is pre-determined. Spinoza agrees, but asserts that the notion of freedom is confused; we cannot have freedom of the kind that 'free_will' wants. Instead Spinoza says that we can become active participants instead of passive observers in life. An analogy I like to use is that of being lost in sea during a storm; the advocate of true free will wants us to be able to slice through the waves unhindered, and asserts that our only other option is to passively accept the consequences of every wave, but the Spinozan asserts that while we can't stop the waves crashing over deck, we can still paddle like crazy, and foresee the next wave coming. In this way, we have a type of freedom. By understanding the way in which our lives are determined, we learn more about the world Because the world is part of God, we are learning more about God. Because everything is part of God, the more knowledge we obtain, the closer to God we become. Spinoza asserts that it should be the goal of humanity to strive towards a complete understanding of Godm and thus to become God. I don't know if this is possible. But to get back to ideas of Self, I think that the self is a combination of physical and mental aspects of the same thing. I think that ideas such as life after death are confused because they see time as linear, not as a whole. If you understand that Time is a whole, then you will see that we always exist, we just don't always experience the present. Of course seeing everything as aspects of one whole does heavily imply that I am the table, and I am you, and I am my father and I am your left hand, just concieved under different attributes. But is that a problem? I think some of that was confused and probably not very well explained, and rushed in places... ah well. Spit back when you're ready.. :-) * (I assume you're familiar with that illusion, if not: tinyurl.com/yjmg9t) PS: I'm starting to look at meditation and chakras in more detail than I have before, any comments would be well received :-) 061029 ... u24 pps; you may be interested in the link I posted at [witchcraft] 061029 ... bouncy bouncy bounce 061121 what's it to you? who go blather from