Seeking Enlightenment

[g2thes]

Sorry, I was busy with work.

And your thoughts? Are you also your thoughts?

If you are referring to the imaginary sounds, then no those are not a real part of me.
If you are referring to the electro-chemical processes in my brain, viewable with a scanner,
those are a real part of me.

Greg

[Lanimal]

If you are referring to the imaginary sounds, then no those are not a real part of me.

Are your thoughts then an unreal part of you?

If you are referring to the electro-chemical processes in my brain, viewable with a scanner,
those are a real part of me.

Are the electro-chemical processes in you brain, viewable with a scanner, seeking enlightenment?

If you are referring to the electro-chemical processes in my brain, viewable with a scanner,
those are a real part of me.

Does your me expand to the monitor when we put a scanner on your head?

[g2thes]

Are your thoughts then an unreal part of you?

They are not part of me.

Are the electro-chemical processes in you brain, viewable with a scanner, seeking enlightenment?

No, they are only part of the object seeking enlightenment.

Does your me expand to the monitor when we put a scanner on your head?

No, it's like looking in the mirror and seeing that I have lipstick on my forehead.
I don't wipe it off the mirror. The mirror is only a reflection of another object.

[Lanimal]

Are your thoughts then an unreal part of you?

They are not part of me.

Okee.. what are they part of then?
If you can separate a thought between you and not you, then can you find a boundary? What does the boundary look like?


How exactly does the thought "I am my body and my head" hold up when thoughts are not you?

[g2thes]

what are they part of then?
If you can separate a thought between you and not you, then can you find a boundary? What does the boundary look like?

Remember, we are only speaking from our direct experience of the world. Thoughts are not an experience of the world. If we relax that restriction, we can say that thoughts are a kind of auditory hallucination. Like all hallucinations, they do not represent anything in the world. They are, however, represented by something in the real world, that being the electrical and chemical activity in the brain.

The separation between me and not me, is that I am my head and my body, and everything else is not me.

What does the boundary between a thought and my head look like? If by "thoughts" you mean the auditory hallucinations, that boundary is only in the definitions of the words, it is not a physical boundary that we can look at.
If you mean the chemical electrical activity, that is a part of me, so there is no boundary.

How exactly does the thought "I am my body and my head" hold up when thoughts are not you?

There's no contradiction there. If we say "My thoughts are me", then that would contradict the statement "my body and my head are me". But I didn't say that. I said I am my body and my head, and I am not my thoughts. Perhaps it's wrong to say that those hallucinations are "mine", since they are not part of me, nor part of anything.

[Lanimal]

I am my head and my body

Are you your body?
Or are you aware of your body?

[g2thes]

I am not only my body, I am a combination of that and my head.
I am aware of my body.
I am also aware of my head, and I am aware of that awareness.

Remember, when I say "I", I am referring to the same object you
are referring to when you say "you".

[Lanimal]

Sorry, i took body and head as one.
Why do you constantly make a distinction between your head and your body? You make it sound like two separate things. Like, i am my arms and my body, or, i am my left side and my right side.
What exactly do you mean by 'my head'?

[g2thes]

It's because a while back you asked me "How can you have a body if you are a body?"
And my answer was "When I say 'my body', I mean the part of me which is not my head."

The distinction is arbitrary, and you could draw the line anywhere from my chin to my collarbone.
If I defined my body to include my head as well, then my body and my self would be the same, so the
words "my body" must be excluding some part. Other people could choose to exclude their hands or feet.

It makes perfect sense to speak of your left side and your right side, for example when considering whether you are symmetrical or not. It doesn't imply that the sides are not joined together.

[g2thes]

The important points I wanted to make there were:
1) When I say "I", I'm refering to the same object you are referring to when you say "you",
And 2) When I say "my body", I don't mean that I am an acorporal being in possession of a body. It just means that I can define parts of my self, and "my body" refers to one such part defined as the area of myself below my neck. If the rest is also included, that is the self I refer to as "I", and you refer to as "you". That's what I mean by "I am my head and my body". I could also define any other set of parts, and list them as a definition of my "self". It's arbitrary, and in the end I'm just that object you refer to as "you".

[Lanimal]

Ok. Lets do some real direct looking/inquiry.
This means you can only explain what you experienced, not what you concluded.
Sit at a table, relax, stretch your arm a bit, look at your hand for a while.
We are ONLY going to use your vision. Nothing else.

Look at what you call your hand. Really look at it. After a while, please ask yourself if it is 'your' hand that you are looking at. Ask yourself exactly what you are looking at.
Tell me what you found.

[g2thes]

That is impossible. I can't do anything using only my vision. So I will take a charitable interpretation of your question and assume you did not mean to suggest that I don't use my memory, cognitive ability, logic, English language ability, and typing ability, which are all necessary to answer any question you might ask.

Before I can do that experiment and communicate the results to you, we have to agree on the definition of "your", which is a word you used to describe the experiment. Let's agree that the word is an adjective that describes any object which is part of or owned by "me", where "me" is that human being you would see if we met in person, and is also the author of this message.

Now, in the experiment you described, I am instructed to look at my hand. That is, I am instructed to find the object which is "my hand", look at it for a while, and then answer whether or not that object is "my hand".

If I correctly completed the first part of the experiment, then the answer to the question is already decided.

I did the experiment. I found my hand. I looked at it. It was still the same object at the end of the experiment.

What you asked me to do was equivalent to saying "Find an object which meets the definition of "apple". Stare at it a while. Then tell me if it is an apple.

You can replace the word "apple" with any other word, including "your hand", and the answer will always be "yes" by definition.

[Lanimal]

I am not only my body, I am a combination of that and my head.
I am aware of my body.
I am also aware of my head, and I am aware of that awareness.

Are you aware of your body, your mind, your thinking? How can you be aware of something that you are, you must be aware of something that is other than you. Look and see

[g2thes]

Are you aware of your body, your mind, your thinking?

I am aware of my body and my head. Together those comprise all of me, so there are no parts of me that I am aware of which are not parts of my body or parts of my head.

"Mind" has several meanings. If you mean my brain, then no I am not aware of that.
If you mean something immaterial, by definition I have no direct experience of that.
Thinking is also not direct experience.

How can you be aware of something that you are,

Perhaps it is wrong to say that I am aware of my whole self.
There are many hidden parts of my body and head.
But I am aware of most of the parts that other people notice about me.
I am aware of all of the parts of me which correspond to the equivalent parts of the other people I am aware of.

[Lanimal]

How can you be aware of something that you are,

Perhaps it is wrong to say that I am aware of my whole self.
There are many hidden parts of my body and head.
But I am aware of most of the parts that other people notice about me.
I am aware of all of the parts of me which correspond to the equivalent parts of the other people I am aware of.

You are missing the point.
The question is: Are you aware? Or are you your body/head?

Are you that which you are aware of? Are you your hand in front of you? If we chop it off, would this alter anything about what is aware?