Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - The continuity of consciousness: An illusion?

skinbag · 09-11-2003, 06:24 PM

You can come over to my house and kill me anytime, but it won't be the same me that wrote the above reply. So I don't "inherently" exist in the sense of an enduring self. My "sense"of self persists because life would be too confusing for my brain otherwise. I consider it as a sort of experiential shorthand, like compressing files is to the original data. We can remember the past, but we cannot re-live it. So I believe in my self and have a vested interest in protecting it. It may exist, but not in any sense that I can comprehend with the limitations imposed by my current state of being.
So I'm saying I wouldn't give you directions, assuming you were going to come over to kill me, because I exist to the extent that I believe I do, and I do believe in a self that is needed by my family, etc. The function of understanding that I don't REALLY exist is to enable me to live more freely. "If I die the world will continue more or less as before." I don't inherently exist, but I do in the relative sense. Again- which "ME" has truly existed. To me "truth" implies immutability. If my self existed for a micro-moment, but then had to make way for the emerging self of the next micro-moment, it didn't really exist in practical terms. This is a "yes/no/both/neither" proposition, and I could go on trying to pin it down all day, but that would only prove that I had too much time on my hands..I'm not making the case for nihilism, but similarly I'm not going to swallow eternalism.
Thanks for the topic. I look forward to following this thread, as I do your others.

09-11-2003, 06:24 PM	#10 (permalink)
skinbag Registered User Location: Madison WI	You can come over to my house and kill me anytime, but it won't be the same me that wrote the above reply. So I don't "inherently" exist in the sense of an enduring self. My "sense"of self persists because life would be too confusing for my brain otherwise. I consider it as a sort of experiential shorthand, like compressing files is to the original data. We can remember the past, but we cannot re-live it. So I believe in my self and have a vested interest in protecting it. It may exist, but not in any sense that I can comprehend with the limitations imposed by my current state of being. So I'm saying I wouldn't give you directions, assuming you were going to come over to kill me, because I exist to the extent that I believe I do, and I do believe in a self that is needed by my family, etc. The function of understanding that I don't REALLY exist is to enable me to live more freely. "If I die the world will continue more or less as before." I don't inherently exist, but I do in the relative sense. Again- which "ME" has truly existed. To me "truth" implies immutability. If my self existed for a micro-moment, but then had to make way for the emerging self of the next micro-moment, it didn't really exist in practical terms. This is a "yes/no/both/neither" proposition, and I could go on trying to pin it down all day, but that would only prove that I had too much time on my hands..I'm not making the case for nihilism, but similarly I'm not going to swallow eternalism. Thanks for the topic. I look forward to following this thread, as I do your others. Last edited by skinbag; 09-11-2003 at 06:26 PM..