Thank you for your thoughts and comments. I so appreciate your willingness to help. Yesterday was a travel day, so here I am.
In my mind, I keep on running up against the same ‘do-not-compute’ dilemma, so, in part, I thought it may be helpful (to me, mostly) to summarize what I think I know, what I think I struggle with, what I am willing to agree to, and where I get ‘off the tracks’, so to speak. Also, it’s in part an attempt to answer your last set of questions, which I will answer later below (insofar as I haven’t covered those by the time I am done with my summary.)
I still believe that ‘I’ am my body and all that it holds. I cannot get past this seemingly irrefutable fact. I realize that I don’t stop outside my skin, but all I know/believe is that I cannot say ‘I’ without the existence of, and association with my body.
To state that differently: ‘I’ can only say that I exist through some conduit/venue; without it, I cannot say that. (The proverbial “I think, therefore I am”, which you probably would turn around into “I am, therefore I think”, right? Just guessing.)
The body is, therefore, my only venue of knowing anything, including ‘I’.
Similarly, and importantly, without my body, I cannot say with any degree of certainty that anything else exists. Including ‘I’.
The question, therefore, remains: is ‘I’ more than just the body, because the above axioms do not disprove that.
Here’s where I get off the tracks: whereas I agree that sunlight, O2, etc., are also part of ‘I’ (surely, I can’t be without), to suggest that there is no ‘you’/’I’ who makes autonomous decisions (yes, influenced by lots of other factors, etc.), is simply a bridge too far.
I am my own worst enemy in that I make this stuff very complicated. I can find endless arguments in or out of these issues and that’s where I get totally bogged down.
For my own benefit, thus, here it is. There is a body (like there is a chair, car). There is ‘something’ that is aware of that body (like it is of the chair, car). The existence of the body is critical to make any claim that there is something, anything, that exists. There is a ‘conclusion’ (learned) that there is an ‘I’ and that that ‘I’ is the body. Yet, I agree, I cannot conclusively argue that I is only the body.
I hope that that sorta sums up my dilemma: I can only exist because of the body but may be more than the body. But, to suggest that ‘I’ doesn’t make autonomous choices is where the rubber meets the road for me. Is that a fair summary of the state of affairs?
Let me get to some of your questions.
So, when I do as you suggest, I see a body. Inside this body are thoughts in the form of energy. Collectively, this is what I refer to is 'i'.This is a common dilemma (one I still have at times). Part of the difficulty might be that we have so many words in language referring to the self we assume is there. Language may be part of the difficulty. Referring to 'I or 'me' feels 'natural'. Yet, when you start to look for the 'thing' (that 'self' we believe to be there), that the words 'I' or 'me' refer to, can you find it? Maybe you could try this little experiment. Think of the words for some objects in everyday life (a coffee cup, an airplane, the computer or screen in front of you etc.) Now try to locate the objects that these words (thoughts) refer to. Now take some words like 'I' or 'me' etc. Now try to locate what the the words 'I' or 'me' refer to? What do you find? What's the difference between what you find when you look for a 'car' and what you find when you look for 'I'? Can the thought or word 'I' 'me' be found anywhere other than in thought?
Agree totally. I would ask you: how can there NOT be a controller inside who drives the car, brushes his teeth? If it's not the 'controller' then who/what does/is it?The idea that there is a totally independent 'controller' making decisions is built into our language and culture. It is hard to even consider other possibilities.
Couldn't agree more. :)'Feeling in control' is something that soothes us sometimes, and helps things feel less scary. It's therefore natural that when we start to see through this we might feel some tension.
Yikes! Agree with the first part. Struggle with the questions. Something can be real without being independent, not? Why can't a 'fluid', changing something not be referred to as 'i' or self?you also noticed that the claims this 'I' makes about it's own abilities is somewhat grandiose! It's not independent! So, does something that's not independent, fully in control etc a good canditate for a 'real' self? Is it anything more than a thought pretending to be 'real?'
I understand that you are saying that 'i' is nothing but a thought. I agree. But, what's wrong with that? A thought exists, like the car does, if it manifests itself, right? The car comes into awareness, as does the thought. Both are 'real' for as long as awareness of it exists.
This remains the issue.Have a look at some everyday decisions that get made in the next day. Other than thinking, doing, sensing etc, can you find any independent 'self-entity' 'making' these decisions?
Yes, the sense of I comes and goes but does that mean that it doesn't exist? Nothing, without awareness, seems to have an independent existence but that doesn't necessarily disprove anything, right?So, you've noticed that thoughts come and go. Does our sense of 'I' or 'me' also come and go, or does it always around? Have a look in your experience. Are there times when 'self' is not present? If "!" or "me" comes and goes like thoughts, what is it or where is it? If it is always around, what is it or where is it?
I've blabbered on quite a bit here. My apologies, but I am greatly struggling as you can see. Thanks for your patience. JW
