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Originally Posted by ketzer
I expect there is not much to be gained from this interaction as we are operating from two different paradigms. It seems to me that you are envisioning the ego as an integral part of the human at birth. And reflexive reactions of the body as happenings that are the doings of that mind contained in that body, that has or is that ego. Doings of 'choice' of an I, that exists from birth and is that doer. Perhaps even that the ego existed prior to birth and associated itself to the body at birth?? IDK. Almost like the ego is a part of the soul. If so, that is not a wrong paradigm, but is a different one then the one I am using here.
I do not see the body as the self, nor do I see the ego as the self. Both of these things are transitory, always changing. Yes the mind comes to identify itself with first the body and then the ego as a part of the life experience, but that is a process of identification. Those things become identified with the self during life to the point where during the life experience, they may come to feel as if they are only what self is. And many a materialist may argue that indeed they are, that self itself is temporary and transitory and will cease to exist at death. If so, then I suppose at death the self will indeed become no one.
An infant cannot understand nor believe anything it's parents say. It is still at the early stages of pairing auditory nerve signal patters with other nerve signal patterns and trying to look for consistent correlations. Based on which it will build an internal picture of reality, a virtual reality in which it will eventually build a virtual reality avatar of self, that ego model of self from which to view that internal virtual world as a separate self. A virtual reality world in which it will live out its entire life. More often then not, the human will live out its life believing that the ego avatar is itself, and that the self created virtual world it is living as that avatar in, is really something out there, something physical and separate from itself. Believing it to be an objective reality that exists independent of itself. Never really questioning any of it because it seems so much like common sense, and that is the resounding opinion of most of its kind.
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You are basicly saying that I think fear, pain and suffering are an integral part of the human at birth, when I do think that...
I simply accept that the ego/the mentally, emotionally and physically conditioned sense of self/I am just happens/forms in the self/I am whom has experiences of fear, pain and suffering. Physical pain, suffering and discomfort is both physical and mental for the self/I am.
An infant does not and cannot think I AM because the infant does not know how to use words to speak/talk at all yet, let alone say I AM. The infant can only feel the presence of his/her individual physical presence/existence.
Try and practice feeling your own presence of your individual physical presence/existence in the present moment/eternal right here and right now. You feeling your own presence of your individual physical presence/existence in the present moment/eternal right here and right now is all there is!
Thoughts and thinking requires a person to use words, or to put it in another way, thoughts and thinking are nothing except words in our minds.
It is not a matter if an infant has a sense of physical or mental self or not, it is a matter of the infant learning to speak.