Quote:
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Originally Posted by Molearner
There will never be resolution here because there is no consensus of a definition for ‘I’.
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I think one reason for that is definitions are static and unchanging. Like the definition for an apple pie or salt or whatever. But take me, the "I". I am changing all the time. Sometimes I'm angry, sometimes frustrated. Other times I am happy or calm and relaxed. Sometimes I am aware and sometimes unaware. Sometimes I am thinking about music other times God other times my problems. Sometimes I'm spacing out or lost in a daydream or lost in some TV show.
If the "I" is changing all the time how can one define what it is? Imagine an apple pie that has apples in it one day, and oranges in it the next, the crust comes and goes, how can one define what it is?
We are different from moment to moment. I think to get to a definition you have to strip away all that changes but if you do that, there is nothing left to define and you have left out the essence of what the "I" is.
If we were defining a tractor or a motorcycle or a toothbrush, we could define it by what it does. What does an "I" do? Well that too is anything and everything. Some "I's" are kind, some are violent. Some love and some hate. Some are mothers, some single, some make stuff, some destroy stuff. Some make the world a better place, others make it a horrible place. So we can't even define the "I" by what it does.
I will try to define it. The "I" is a point of awareness or point of perception, an entity, that is fully merged with one human body and it's mind. The mind of the body is heavy programmed and conditioned by it's experiences and culture and how it looks and feels and it's age etc.
The "I" because it is so merged with the body and stuck with it comes to think of itself as the body. The "I", in a human life, basically becomes that which cooperates with the body and it's mind and projects the content of the mind with it's conditioning etc outwardly into the world and inwardly into the "self talking" in the mind.
I think the "I" has lost all knowledge of it's true nature and identity as it has been "hardwired" into the body and it's mind. We all think we are this person and this body because it is the content we are provided day and night. There is no way to "un-merge" though I tend to think "mystics" and those who have had experiences of enlightenment or God or God realization come to see through some of the merging and get glimpses of their true identity and can alter their perception of everything for moments or months or years.
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