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

response to everettsvlog about selves.

A paper I wrote a few years ago about this, called "Spellbound: Magic Words and Minds Without Self": http://karmabuster.gaia.com/blog/2007/7/spellbound_magic_words_and_minds_with...

Category:

Education

Tags:

• everettsvlog
• 0thouartthat0
• metzinger
• cognitive
• science
• self
• ego
• psychology
• philosophy
• phenomenology

[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.

[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.

[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]

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

[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]

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]

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.