Re: The Self Doesn't Actually Exist, Think, or Feel

[Angeliquify]

The Self... is illusionary because it creates/thinks itself into being by separating itself from the whole. The Self and the Ego allow us to have boundaries and that may be important in the 3D world and these boundaries prevent us from being overwhelmed by the symbiotic unity of everything in the universe. Our brain as a bio-computer is designed for this 3D illusory experience... but can be utilized as a tool to manifest 4D-5D-6D consciousness as well.

[wilecatrexy]

Have you ever studied water consciousness?

[seigneurvoland666]

I find it odd how you managed to link solipsism with materialism, hmm

[pingala10]

you are talking right in some respects but you are confused about how self is related to counciouness and also you don't understand counciousness. Self is really a illusion. Self is manifestation of thoughts. Counciousness arises when Thoughts understand experience. Thoughts and experience(qulia) are extension of same substance. Thoughts give meaning to experience, this in turn generates counciousness.

[rdk1017]

interesting perspectives... ego, how one defines himself, is an illusion - simply one's living in the past, so to speak - the result of all past experiences & the thoughts, feelings & emotions attached to those experiences &, the opinions formed regarding those experiences & associated thoughts, feelings and emotions - resulting in one existing as the manifestation of our opinion of our self... creations of the mind. separation also is only of the mind. we are all one as equal as life.

[clk211bu]

wow, you would really enjoy desteni universe forums. please visit - have a look! Have a close up look at the material - freeing ourself from the 'mind consciousness systems'.

[asdf2000]

In these lives we live, the root experience is that of form. All the other experiences depend upon that one.

This root experience of form depends on the material world - the potential - to manifest.

But also this material world - the potential - requires this root experience to have "value"(form).

So without these "form" experiences, the world is empty of "value".

But without the world, the "form" experiences could not be.

[asdf2000]

So it is true that all is happening in the world regardless of the experiences. It just is valueless, empty, formless, selfless.

The self does not arise from it, it is just dependent upon it.

[asdf2000]

The material world is like potential. That is it's nature. Potential for form.

Our experiences are a different class of phenomena.  They are comprised of various elements, and depend on each other in order to manifest.

ah youtube sucks, I will be making several more posts.

[DarkHero187]

u need some help :)

[staylopictures]

Who experiences the illusion of a self?

[warfwar3]

EXACTLY

The illusion metaphor is self-refuting. A conscious observer is needed for an illusion to be interpreted, but how can this be if the conscious observer is the illusion, this leads to a never ending chain of consciousnesses needed to be fooled into thinking that they are conscious. It is much more coherent to say that consciousness is a real thing.

[staylopictures]

Well said.

[Mjhavok]

You can find talks by Metzinger on YouTube.

[richardmccaul]

i once lost the ego for 1 whole hour after using holosync tecnology i saw all these strange alien creatures everywere which ih the end turned out to be human

[pyrrho314]

I once lost the ego at Disneyland but I found it at the lost-and-found.

[pyrrho314]

btw, I've ordered that sample CD to see what this holosync is about... sounds that generate hallucinatory states... oooh sounds great.

[zenlama]

Replace Ego, Self, Soul with Persona as front-end interface. Imaginary? are memories, experiences & knowledge imaginary? Interface is conscious and connected to collective Mind Collective mind one of many part of a larger network collective. All still debatable, but easier to understand. Not imaginary, but temporary. As we get closer to the ultimate collective Mind, time and space cease to exist. I find this an easier concept (its only a concept) to understand.

[ballin0like0buddha]

I don't agree that the self is a construction in the same sense that perception is. Perception is the representation of the world and the body but the self is a representation of the representation of the world and the body. I think that its this extra layer of representation that leads some people to think that the self is a thing in and of itself when really its a representation of the relationship between the acting body and the world.

[0ThouArtThat0]

I wasn't actually arguing for this position, but pointing out its absurdity.

I do not believe perception is best described as representational, because what counts as a "world" for any particular organism is determined by its own internal structure and function. Perception is more like "laying down a path in walking" than it is a re-presentation of pre-existing features of an objective world.

[ballin0like0buddha]

Ya that's a good point, so what do you think 'objectivity' is then? The word seems to be defined a disproportionate amount relative to the degree that it's used. It's my own opinion that objectivity is an attempt to integrate multiple subjective perspectives across space and time.

[prhughes0]

Well said.

[lightwarrior1982]

@0ThouArtThat0 "what counts as a "world" for any particular organism is determined by its own internal structure and function. Perception is more like "laying down a path in walking" than it is a re-presentation of pre-existing features of an objective world." - I love the way you have expressed this. so clear and elegant.

To actually get this is one of the most profound self realizations. You are the whole of reality and there is only one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.

[synch1216]

Nice. I was just thinking about this.

Meditations in which you focus on one simple thing at a time sort of reveal these layers to you everytime you break from the object of attention.

[tonygem]

The think the Buddhist metaphor of Indra's Net is helpful in the explanation of the self. The Net is a mass of jewels, like a spider's web, and each jewel reflects every other to make up reality. The self only exists IN connection with all other selves and beings. It doesn't exist independently. This is the teaching of emptiness, dependent origination, and interpenetration.

[HaleyMary]

Good idea placing the word self with ego. It makes me wonder if self only exists on a subjective point of view. How can anyone know what actually is reality if no-one can really have an objective point of view of the world?

[prhughes0]

Only by "bumping into stuff" and "improving" the internal model to account for the unexpected (by the older version of the model) bumps. The only world "we" know is that model. This applies to "us" as individual organisms as well as to "us" as TechCiv. "Reality" is an idea IN the model: always and only a theory.

[Cashify]

Good job replacing his use of the word "self" with ego. It is often used for that in which all imaginary perceiving appears and disappears, and used also for imaginary object (ego/brain/body/individual)tem­porarily appearing in imagination...

Barry Long, a mystic, used self as the word for ego, unlike all other nondual teachers. I was not used to it and had to translate the word every time he used it.

[richardmccaul]

the ego is a map of reality if every map fell a part wt wud people be???????????????

[CammieSpectrum]

I once woke up from a nap, and for a split second, had no comprehension of what I was or what everythign else around me was. and then it kicked in

[synch1216]

PT 2:

All That Is (Allah) as one overall Meta-System that transcends/includes all phenomena, to which our individual existence is completely controlled (or conditioned, if control sounds strong) by Allah (environment, circumstance, situation). How free is Free when it comes to this Will?

We were all determined/ destined to be Gods In Formation- God's Information (from the perspective of All That Is, Allah, to whom we are all slaves and in submission).

[synch1216]

PT 1:

This seems to point to the idea of some form of Universal Mind or panpsychism.

I've always looked at the Ego as the tension between All That Is and the subjective experience of our "individual" existence.

So when I hear the Self doesn't think or feel I sort of interpret it as a wise assesment on the whole idea of a "personal FREE will" which is almost impossible to believe.

[ComplexEmergence]

Shaun Gallagher wrote a nice article pointing out the flaws in Metzinger's 'pagey' fantasy land, "being no one". Ultimately no one who uses the terms 'mentalization' or 'representation' will retain cred. in the cognitive science world in the coming paradigm.

[0ThouArtThat0]

Yeah I've read that one. Phenomenology is so valuable when it comes to understanding cognition, as it is an antidote to the excessive abstraction that leads to representationalist/computatio­nalist accounts.

[begily]

so the phrase "I am conscious of..." doesn't make much sense, because its not as if there is consciousness and an "I" which it belongs to, instead they are just one thing.

I suppose its phrases like "I am conscious of..." that generates the idea of an "ego" or "subject", distinct from consciousness itself.

[pyrrho314]

"conscious" is an adjective "I am conscious" means "Conscious I is"... it is funny how dualistic that language sounds, and that's due, at least in part, to the idea that adjectives, qualities, are substantial and adhere in the things to which they can be attributed.

[prhughes0]

Any animal needing to "get" food (food does not simply drift in) exhibits "intentionality". "Intelligence" arises with "choice" (more than one action is possible in response to a given set of perceptions and aims) and feedback from comparing results with aims (food no longer available down the yellow tunnel: try the red one. Aha! Food! Next time, try red first).

[OpenMind00]

The self is not a construct of the brain.

All Physical Reality is Virtual.

We are consciousness experiencing a virtual reality for the purpose of our growth.

The growth of our individual consciousness which is part of the one consciousness

[Cashify]

Yeah, where does this idea come from that we can't confirm the existence of any noumenon but the brain and other observed brains, THAT's REAAAL for no reason whatsoever but my desperate attempt to cling to a known objective reality....

Not too well thought out.

[pyrrho314]

sounds like a real reality to me, in what sense would you call it virtual? because of all the representationalism?

[EverettsVLOG]

lol first comment: i read metzinger's book in like 2006 -2007 lol it was a while back

[CPLains]

I see the point in eliminating the soul, as ego persisting as supposedly identical through obvious changes; but "ego" usually serves to denote the "i" on each occasion; and on each occasion there is some sort of synthesis, cognition, working memory in charge (or at least supervising - negating, or able to veto), that is playing an important role. What would you call this thing then, if not ego? Just as the "concept" is important as a unity of plurality, the ego is useful for making decisions..

[0ThouArtThat0]

I wouldn't equate soul and ego... I think we can be more specific with our words and not just lump "self," "ego," "consciousness," "soul" etc. into the same category. I would call the unity of our experience "consciousness."

[CPLains]

I agree we should not reduce our vocabulary here. So self, ego and consciousness each can serve to point to what we are talking about. (and soul maybe, we'd probably disagree there) What i'm wondering is how you can take away the "ego" without replacing it by anything other than "unity of consciousness". Do you mean that the immediate consciousness is just "consciousness" and the more comprehensive unity is "unity of consciousness" or did you intend to reduce both to "unity of consciousness".

[CPLains]

amazes me that youtube can't fix this comment system x)

[jogayot]

i blame the world. so i'm off the hook either way ;)

[Rybot9000]

Doesn't "representing" imply that it's taking something, having been "presented" and then representing it? Doesn't the "re-" affix imply something impressing upon the mind?

[0ThouArtThat0]

Yes, representationalism does imply that some sort of mind impression occur. In this sense, it doesn't at all do away with mind/body dualism. It just renames mind "information," and calls thinking "processing." Life becomes a march of algorithms.

I don't think my body/brain needs to represent the earth and the sky; I endure these directly. I am an arising of the earth itself, always already here with other selves.

[pyrrho314]

I am confused why so many of you are holding on to "eduring directly" and direct experience and the rest.

There is no such thing as "experiencing directly"... experiencing is a process of interpretation, by definition not direct.

[0ThouArtThat0]

Interpretation is always already involved, but my position is that self and world are not separate. Nothing separates them. They bring each other forth.

[pyrrho314]

if they are not separate why do you say they "bring each other forth"? That would mean that one is made of the other, or, almost equivalently, each is a transformation of the other... since nature is the all by definition, and the self a phenomenon, self will either be a phenomenon of a subset, or, the subset will be the full set, and a phenomenon of the whole.

Then we must ask which phenomenon we are talking about... conscious self? or merely material self?

[pyrrho314]

if material self, we are asking if there universe is finite or bounded, for there to be a whole.

if the conscious self, I ask myself what we can mean by this and answer that we can only mean "human consciousness", possibly with models warped or masked to simulate possible consciousnesses of other sorts (or even other people), but still a human consciousness. And to me, it is clear, no, the universe does not have a human consciousness, it is not constructed at all like a human.

[pyrrho314]

Therefore, we have no definition of the word "consciousness" about which we are asking, and one must be invented that is not merely an abstraction of human consciousness.

Alternately, we can look at the behavior of the universe and ask if it BEHAVES consciously, and the answer to that is surely yes, some of it does.

"what about all of it"... not even all of a human body behaves consciously, so the question seems moot. For a planet to be covered in life is for the planet to be alive.

[0ThouArtThat0]

The word "nature" is often used to imply some pre-existing external world, in contrast to the subject, who is supposed to be somehow above or outside nature, parachuted in from outside and only able to represent nature internally. I'd reject that paradigm. I think the world is always for selves, and selves are always for the world. If I were going to call something a phenomenon, though, it would be world, not self. The self would be the noumenon.

[0ThouArtThat0]

When I say consciousness is not in the brain, I don't mean it is the universe that is really conscious (as a human). I mean that what we call human consciousness is an ongoing transactional process that includes many human organisms, their culture, and their world. All of this together brings forth human consciousness of and about a world.

[rdk1017]

@0ThouArtThat0 all connected by and through the unified consciousness field.

[pyrrho314]

they would say that classically, and I would agree in the base epistemology as phenomenon are taken to be systems detected from perceptions, but drawing the materialist phenomenon, and speaking of it monistically, noting the self is in the mind and the mind is a phenomenon, learned of through the senses, then the self is a phenomenon of the world. We see it in the world.

Our personal self is QUITE personal, and our concept of self here applies only to us in particular. There is one self.

[asdf2000]

Is a cup of water defined by the cup, or by the water?

[pyrrho314]

a CUP of WATER is defined by both the cup and water together.

[asdf2000]

ok this example isn't going to work for you, I underestimated you. And actually I do disagree with 0ThouArtThat0 that the self and world are not separate.

But I do agree with him that the self and world bring each other forth... in a way. I will explain in my following post.

[JasperAvi]

If there is no self, I don't think that the author should mind spreading some of the proceeds around :-D

[Mathfails]

haha