I was thinking last night, Who or What am I? Am I an Essence? Or is my mind is me? I aksed someone this question,( he was influenced by buddism) and they told me I don’t exist. That only the Mind, body, and the soul working together create and illusion of me! I would like to think that deep down their is a soul within me that is different than anyone else’s and thats me and the body is pointless for it is only matter, but i don’t know. Look deep within yourself and ask Who am I? Anyone care to share their opinion?
What am I? At the very center, the very core of my being, stripped of all contingencies? After removing every arbitrary aspect of my nature, before social conditioning and genetic influences? What is my original face…?
Mu! (“Nothing.”)
You have asked the basic question for a human.
The answer you get (assuming you find a answer)
will guide the rest of your life. I don’t believe we are
just mind. I believe in the physical. We exist in
the physical realm and we are physical. I don’t support
the idea of the metaphysyians who say there is something
out there, such as god for example, beyond our physical realm.
NOPE, What you see is what you get.
Kropotkin
My take is this - we are our dna. It can exist on the end of a pin or in whole body shape. Either way, the potential is there for ‘us’. But without this physical entity - this ‘dna’ - we don’t exist. We’re subject to natural laws as are all objects.
I am alive and i am dead. I am Life and Death.
I am mortal and immortal. I am fresh and poisoned.
I am pure and imprefect. I am friend and foe.
I am dead and alive. I am here and lost.
I am one and all. I am customer and chasheer.
I am free and trapt. I am rich and poor.
I am good and bad. I am man and woman.
I am yours and mine. I am the beginning and the end.
I am slave and master. I am the wormhole and the vessel.
I am human and inhuman. I am reality and illusion
this is who and what i am. I am the stairs and the elevator.
I AM
lets see…i would assume that I am indeed something. what that is i could only define with human terms.
so really what I am, who are you, who are we. who knows?
nobody.
on an individual level however we are all unique. that I know for sure. whether it be your soul that influences the certain ‘mysterious aspects’ of your mind and personality, or if its simply just your DNA. i dont know.
so im left with what I began with
i would assume that i am indeed something…
this mind-body-soul concept by buddist which create the illusion of me, makes no sense.
for instance when did the mind and soul begin? if not from the begining of a me!!
as far as the body is concerned. it brings the soul and mind together to experience dimension. the universe.
for without which soul and mind could not exist.
There is no self. No personal identity. If you dont believe me i can step by step deduct to my conclusion and will if i am asked. There has always been 3 components that people use to define identity, mind, body, soul. The materialist might say the body is our identity but that is easlity dismissed. The mind might get a little further and the soul concept further still, but in the end you come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as personal identity. Life is just the imagination of our self as an individual.
Welcome to philosophy. You’ve just ask the first question, that every new philosopher asks to begin his journey. So get ready to continue on asking questions until the day you die. The ups of philosophy can be the most elated of experiences, the downs can be of the most painfully depressing.
As for your question the answer is, both. You do exist, for as Descartes quite rightly pointed out cogito ergo sum, but you are not some immaterial soul as Descartes and other continental rationalists would have you believe. There is no cartesian theatre, Therefore the self doesn’t really exist as dualistic soul.
Rather the self is the result of the necessity of intentionality. Its merely beneficial, and an innate quality of living organisms to take on the intentional stance. To view others, and therefore oneself, as conscious agents. You are the result of 3.4 or so billion years of evolution, a combination of millions of atoms, cells, proteins, genes, and memes. Of course “you” aren’t real, its just a necessary fiction. Its quiet simply useful to have a “captain of the ship”. But you see then again the answer depends on what you mean by real.
Do people have selves? It seems quite evident they do. Just ask them!!! So there most definetly is a self, is it real? Its as real as ‘justice’, the stock market, and money… but how real is that ?
If you mean do I exist as a central whole being? An essence? Then no of course not. Thats simply silly. If you mean do I exist as the outcome of language, evolution, and the physics that govern our world. Well most definetly.
There is a soul… but its made up of lots of tiny robots.
nonsense and well i’m asking.
Heh yea…I’m in too. 
who has ever pinched there self? i’m a mind body sunday, not sure which ones the nuts?
A philosophy which regards nature as all there is to reality would logically, according to present scientific knowledge, deny the uniqueness of the person. A series of gradual brain modifications could transform one mind into another. Suppose identical twins have very similar minds at birth, but are raised in radically different cultures. When they are grown up, they would likely have much more in common with those of their culture than with each other.
The only way I see that a person can have a truly unique identity is by means of a property that transcends nature. The only place I could see this property existing is in the sentience of the person. The person’s sentience would require a uniqueness that is independent of all other properties of the mind. Radical changes could then occur in the person’s brain without changing that sentient identity. If sentience is a purely natural phenomenon, then this would not be possible.
I think what we “are” is defined by our physical composition. I think the real question is "What will we become?†As we are only who we strive to be and even then we may not truly become what we wish… if that makes any sense.
I am myself.
Strip man of his vices and watch him become aware of his nature.
K_N
Buddhism denies the soul so I don’t see the Buddhist influence. However if he would have said emotions in place of soul, I would have agreed.
I agree with the Buddhist assertion that we do not possess “I” but rather respond as a plurality of many small i’s each having their moment in the sun when the appropriate external events call them to respond in kind. From this perspective “I am” doesn’t exist for us in any large sense. Instead it is “we are” as in say "we are collectively male"or “we are collectively female.” “I” in the large sense as unity only exists in us as a potential.
March 27, 2006
Dear Kurai_Ninja and all you other real or possible ninjas (more accurately perhaps ‘Possible-real’ ninjas, hee-hee-hee),
I ask myself, for fun, ‘Who am I and what am I doing here?’ when I find I have gone to a room and forgotten why.
I always answer my first name for the first part; that implies that ‘I’ am (Luxin) (which subsequent analysis has proven to be false). In my philosophy it is said, ‘you are your name’; whether this is a misleading statement I must also reflect upon. It seems that how we appear to be to ourselves and others is illusive, in the sense of being misleading. Our outer manifestation of body and mind have a purpose as a means of expression of our life force, which is characterized by joy, happiness, love, inspiration and Reason. The question ‘What am I?’ is really asking ‘What is my essence?’, also known as primary motivating potential ‘power’. ‘What is I?’ should really be the question, for “I” is as impersonal as God, though He may work through us. In Hinduism, the inner spirit of consciousness is called the True Self, which implies that our outer temporal form and mind are the false self. As long as the false self seeks to know the True Self or “I” consciousness (which I interpret Nick as having implied), there is theoretically some hope for its realization.
Actually, then, ‘I’ am not what ‘I’ think ‘I am’. We ‘are’, in the sense of our temporal existence, an illusive thing called ‘i’ through which ‘I’ may or may not express. ‘I’ and ‘i’ depend on each other for their existence, so there cannot be Spiritual Consciousness without the human consciousness of mind and it’s home the body. Ascetics and hedonists abuse the body in the belief that it is pointless and is theirs to use as they see fit. The body is the sacred temple of the spirit. They both value one thing above another in their quest, and fail to find what they seek, because Nature has dictated that the full complement of the pleasures of Reason (spiritual desire) or physical desire will not manifest without each other. They both become zombies. Life does not exist unless ‘I’ and ‘i’ manifest together in balance. I will not be alive – Life cannot manifest through me – unless the light of ‘I’ can shine through the comparative darkness of this life of ‘i’.
The soul is the creation or child of Divine and human consciousnesses. Once it is born, it is what gives us ‘eternal life’. Yes, you may have a soul. Osho said he chose his parents; this suggests soul that sometimes must return to a physical life for further growth. Regardless of whether we have a soul or not, the important thing is to seek the answer to the question ‘What is I?’, for soul cannot exist without the Divine.
Love,
Luxin (some kinda ninja)
(Giggling a lot, but it’s just me; it’s no reflection on you. What would life be without death? Humor can only exist with respect to gloom and depression. Perhaps the Humor Police should investigate me?)
luxin729y@yahoo.ca
You know there may be something more that has not been touched upon here that I have seen. Perhaps there are subsets of humans reaching evolutionary levels. If I exist what am I. Why the question? Why do only so many people ask that question? Others never do, they trust in what they are taught and go no further. Is there a circuit in brains that changes or is more developed in some then others? Levels of self awareness seems to be changing world wide. Why? Is it just mere education or is it a physical change?
Is the rising religous interest a part of this? Is it because religion seems to be where the question is answered in a less frightening way? or is it truth? How much does education and nutrition have to do with self awareness? Are kids minds being evolved faster then two generations ago or even more?
So many more people now claim to have experienced some sort of out of body projection or what is termed angels or ghosts. Telepathy and empathy seem to be rising also. More and more these things are being brought out into the light where 50 yrs ago you were a nut case to even mention it. In the ancient times If you claimed certain powers it was believed. Yet few did. And even fewer claimed they had powers. Now though it seems believed and more people are claiming powers.
Is this human evolution or mass hysteria or something else.
I believe it is a form of evolution until it is proved different.
IF you believe in telepathy, and other worldly “powers” you most certainly are a nutcase, and more of a nutcase now then in the past, because you should know better now.
And your knowledge of history is quiet flawed. People have been claiming other worldly powers since the dawn of time. Or rather since our records seem to show. Science in the guise that we now know it is relatively new on the seen. You can’t go back much further then Galilleo on this score.
In closing… your a silly person if you believe in such things, and the fact that you have other silly people to look to is not evidence for your very silly claims.
Rounder,
Boy, did you get up on the wrong side of the bed. Go get some coffee or something and come back when you are civilized. Attacking a person when they merely ask questions is a sign that you got issues deary, Go wake up or go to sleep Ok. Either way you should feel better. When you can have a civilized conversation without being nasty I would enjoy hearing what you have to say.