Sean Hayden wrote:Little Idiot,
or invite me to continue and tell you what I think you are if you prefer.
Of course, and as simply as is possible please.
My question 'what am I?' is a more modern version of the classic 'who am I?'
It does not pre-suppose an individual personality, however.
The answer;
Am I the body - no; If I sever large pieces of body, my sense of individual identity, individuality, 'self' is not reduced.
Am I the thoughts, feelings and emotions - no; all these things come and go while 'I' am the same.
Am I the mind - yes! I am that awareness which 'has' the thoughts, feelings and emotions, I am the knower of them, but I am not them.
So 'I' am the mind.
What ever I experience or know, be it as thought, feeling, emotion, knowledge or experience I know as content of the mind.
Even the
experience of the physical world can, by analysis, be considered as mental experience. There is no knowledge or experience available other than as content of the mind.
Few would argue against the case that what we experience of the physical is experienced as mental content, we can not claim knowledge of the outside world, only of 'our mental copy of it.'
Some would argue that we experience a mental copy of a physical world, based on parsomony and objective experience.
If we each experience our own mental representation of the objective world, then a group sharing an objective experience are doing nothing of the sort, they are each experiencing a subjective experience, with a large degree of agreement between them; so-called 'objective experience' is only inter-subjective agreement. In a group, no-one member knows other than his or her own subjective experience, each of which is a mental experience; a group sharing a so-called objective experience of a tree are only experiencing a collection of subjective experiences, no one member, nor all members together experience anything beyond the mental.
Objective experience provides no evidence of an experience beyond mental. However it does show agreement between the subjective mental experiences, there is a common element, but no evidence of a non-mental element.
There is some common source of the experience (say a 'real tree') which we each form a subjective representation of.
However this 'real tree' must interact with the minds of each individual in order to be experienced by each individual.
Since either
1 only the mental can interact with the mind
or
2 we have duality of mental and non-mental which can interact.
If duality is a flawed metaphysic, then only the mental can interact with mind, this ''real tree' is a mental object.
All we ever experience of the world is a mental representation. We have a foundation (above) to show how all physical objects (as opposed to the experience of the objects) are mental.
Have we any foundation to show the world is not mental, to show why there needs to be any thing of any other nature there to cause our mental experience?
Do we have any evidence to suggest the physical world we experience is not infact mental in its real nature, and is mental appearing in our experience as physical?
I have suggested we do not, and can not have evidence for anything other than a mental world. I asked for such evidence many times, but never recieved any.
Do you, Sean, know of any compelling reason to suppose a non-mental 'real tree' that causes out mental experience, or do you wish to dispute that our experience is a mental representation?
Maybe you agree that we do not and can not know that there is a non-mental world causing our experience.
An advanced intellect can consider fairly the merits of an idea when the idea is not its own.
An advanced personality considers the ego to be an ugly thing, and none more so that its own.
An advanced mind grows satiated with experience and starts to wonder 'why?'
