• What defines the "self"?
    23 replies, posted
What are the factors that separate "you" from others? Keep in mind by self I mean more of a unique thought pattern than a physical concept. The "yourself" that you know is different from the self others know. There can be several different selves for different groups of people. They can only view you from a narrow perspective. Even your conscious self can be different than your unconscious self. Which one is the actual self, the you that you see or the you that others see? Can only the parts of you that others recognize be acknowledged as true? Even if your personal self doesn't actually match up to those parts? In my opinion, as Descartes said, "I think therefore I am". Even if I cannot know where my self is located on whatever spectrum is being used without others, I can still recognize my own existence and thoughts. While I can only be validated as true by others, I can exist without them. The "me" that others know is not my true self, but an incomplete projection or shadow of the whole; the only true "me" is the one that I myself know.
The way everyones synapses decide every single thing you do is what makes us unique in thought, ideas, opinions, ect.
My mind, really. All my experiences and dreams and ideas and what-not. I did a bit of lucid dreaming which really changed a lot of how I understand myself.
My environment and my DNA.
Personality, interests (eg Gaming) and my thoughts/memories.
The soul defines the self. Anti-religious flak in 3... (But before you yell at me, I'm not Christian, so shove it up your ass)
Distinct characteristics existing from birth(genetics, family, basic conditioning) define the experiences learned from an early age. These experiences wire the brain to cope and react to stimulation perceived, which inevitably cause newborns to react diversely over time. The different ways newborns learn to cope with their environment cause different outcomes, which compound new experience and drive the branching of mind, creating a personality. This process never stops, as the mind is always learning to cope with new conditions and situations, or even relearning how to deal with the environment, as it does change over time. A sense of self is an illusion, I feel. My brain will react to stimulation is a perfectly predictable way based on previous experience.
The self..is what you make it to be.. Love the people close to you..even if they don't love you back...
It doesn't really matter if the world around me exists or not. Pain hurts, therefore, I avoid it. Happyness feels good, therefore I strive for it. Evolution supplied me with an extremely complex system that along with satisfying these two goals, also attempts to satisfy an elusive condition known as "greater good". I don't care if there is any logical reason to be a nice guy, but I will try to be because I was made that way.
Ego. No more no less.
I skirt around the biosocial model, with an emphasis on the social.
[QUOTE=27X;32694387]Ego. No more no less.[/QUOTE] Which is why its crazy as shit when you go through ego death.
You is your genes, plus all the shit you've experienced/been exposed to in your entire life, as in the environmental factors.
Your wisdom and your genes. Or just your genes if you don't have wisdom.
Commonly your personality, interests, beliefs, and opinions, these define the former "Self" as a entirely different person. No matter who you are, you are still different from anyone else on the planet (Unless you have a twin brother/sister). Someone can like baseball, as well as you, but can also like soccer while you do not. Very simple stuff.
[QUOTE=Stormcharger;32695083]Which is why its crazy as shit when you go through ego death.[/QUOTE] You should have seen how crazy i got... the ankward things i did... Individuality and sense of self is the ego. Without it no limits or boundaries exist. An indescribably "incredibly extremely powerful" feeling of love and energy explode within ones mind. You're in a state where no self exists. You become one with the universe and all the most fundamental universal secrets are revealed. Ego death is what buddhism philosphy calls nirvana and for someone who got bi-polar disorder, it is called mania.
[QUOTE=Stalk;32758693]You should have seen how crazy i got... the ankward things i did... Individuality and sense of self is the ego. Without it no limits or boundaries exist. An indescribably "incredibly extremely powerful" feeling of love and energy explode within ones mind. You're in a state where no self exists. You become one with the universe and all the most fundamental universal secrets are revealed. Ego death is what buddhism philosphy calls nirvana and for someone who got bi-polar disorder, it is called mania.[/QUOTE] Yea I've been through it once when I had a fuck ton of magic mushrooms :v:
[QUOTE=Stormcharger;32758698]Yea I've been through it once when I had a fuck ton of magic mushrooms :v:[/QUOTE] haha ;) Huge dose of acid for me.
The thing is, what has been described as self is under consant regulation, as has already been touched the ego is the to regulate our behaviour but after the ego is the super ego and if you strip back the super ego and ego you have the id. As defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the Psyche the Id is your most fundamental wants and needs, if you acted upon these during everyday life people would probably think you were very weird and you'd probably be in prison before too long. so in order to regulate these basic wants and needs you have an ego which is better at regulating what is realistic and what you probably could and 'could' and 'could not' do. Finally the super ego which can see all the moral implications in a situation and therefore controlls what you 'should' and 'should not' do in any given situations. This doesn't really prove much in a sense of defining self bu it shows the complexity and diversity of what have defined as 'our self' A also agree that our self is the culmination of everything conscious and unconscous and is shaped and warped by past and present experiences, so when you strip back all these things and look at the just pure existance in this universe it's almost like a blank canvas, seeing as arriving at this state is not impossible it begs the question of is 'self' just an illusion.
People like to think that our ability to think must be due to some remarkable, extra-worldly phenomenon that makes us special, seperates us from other things. Realistically, all our thoughts and consciousnesses are just calculations for the simple question of "how can I survive?" and "how can I pass on my genes?" Our "self" is how we go about answering those questions and our competency at it.
My own, personal history and view of the world. Nobody else can ever perfectly copy my life, no matter how hard they try. It's what you do and how you live that defines you. What's in your brain when you're born is just the way you'll react to those two things, not what you are.
I studied various conceptions of selfhood/personhood last year and came to the conclusion that the most defensible position to hold is that self is a wholly inconsistent, useless concept (philosophically speaking).
[QUOTE=linksysruler;32692560]Keep in [B]mind[/B] by self I mean more of a [B]unique thought pattern[/B] than a physical concept.[/QUOTE] You have just answered your own debate.
I learned about this in Philosophy :v: There are many ways to define your 'self', and in fact our 'self' may be constantly changing. Think about it, our cells in our body are completely different to the ones we had 7 years ago (apparently), if our psychical properties defines our 'self' then we are a completely different person to when we were younger. It'd be easier to define our 'selves' as our souls if you believe in such a thing, or more our minds, if you believe that to be separate from your body :v:
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