arewe just figments of our own imagination!

[mkirkpatrick]

Michael, that is the eternal quest of self-knowledge. I find that as soon as I figure out who I am, I have changed! (VERY Sissiphus!). Maybe the I is whomever i chose (or am destined) to be? Or maybe I am part of the all and maybe it doesn't matter which part? I know there is a whole section of some libraries devoted to the analysis that in the phrase "I think therefore I am" the I that does the thinking is different from the I that does the existing. I don't buy it.
Guille just because you can never know yourself completely, it doesn't follow that you are not yourself. Self-knowledge is not a precondition to existence. I don't know that the one you could be is necessarily a stranger. Interesting notion though...

At the very end of you,we begin!We will then be as one?What do youthink ofthat idea H>G>.
kindest regards michael.

[baudrunner]

I have always harboured the secret question of whether we exist only to act as hosts to viruses...

HG, we exist only to maintain our purity.

In my family there is a 91 year-old who thinks, shops, cooks, and cleans all for herself and wants no one to butt into her life. She is a very high self centered individual who needs no more than what she knows and has. She lives alone in a three bedroom house. She eats all the wrong foods and says what she likes and keeps herself sharp by doing jigsaw puzzles and entertaining her many friends. She is a spinster.

I like to tell people on occasion that we may all share the same reality but we do not all live on the same plane.

[harmonygirl]

All very interesting points. Guille, I agree you can only act of yourself, but once again, this is independent of self-knowledge. Haven't you ever in a situation, done something or said something that puzzled you? (and hopefully figured it out later?) I think this is you acting of you, but without complete self-knowledge.
Michael, I think we already are one, we just don't get it (like the grove of trees that the discovered shared a common root system, so weren't separate trees as they appeared, but actually one giant organism.
Baud, I'm not sure I agree. Purity is a socially defined concept and it strikes me that there are more intrinsic reasons for our existence. (viruses aside, perhaps we exist so that the Goddess can experience this reality up close and personal?). I agree we do not all live on the same plane. That doesn't mean that we aren't all on the same plane. You know how higher dimensions contain the simpler dimensions? Why can't we all be on the same plane, but with differing awareness levels? I think of it like we are all on the same path, just at different places.

[Guille]

Harmonygirl,

Yes we do exist as "I" independently of self-knwoledge. But it's in the mind, for if we are not consciouss of something we've said, it is in our subconsciouss. Even if we act differently to what we say/believe/know/would, it is on purpose and part of us.

[Dave]

Hello. This is my first reply, also I am slighty dyslexic so please be patient with my grammatical and spelling errors. However, the question of, " Being " or existence ( which is the true topic of discussion here ) can only be answered by the enquierer as no other frame of reference can truely be conceived or made manifest within any other place than the source of enquirey itslelf and it is the origon of this source which is the only true continuant.

To this extent I would like to compound upon the theory of the individual taking into account the often ignored or all to easily dismissed branch of philisophical endevour known as "Solipsism" to this I would like to bring into play, " Existentialism " and also the notion of, " Qualia " Qualia: The Knowledge Argument please refer to site for detailed over view.

Here I shall demonstrate that nothing more can be considered about mind, being, conciousness and extention into physical space once the fragile bounderies of presupposed ideas of actuated being have been deconstructed. What we shall hopefully be left with is a total theory of everything.

Thomas Beckett, the playwrite ( Waiting for Godot ) once wrote, " I am the only man " In this quote we have the first ray of truth and also the first crack in the armour of Being in itself.

Please allow me to pose my opening postulate

i. What cannot be refuted firstly is the fact that there is a substance within the Being experience called, " I " or , " me ", " Mine " and so on and so forth.
This experience is substansive, that is to say it has, " mass " a gravity of thought materials which manifest themselves as actions innwardly and then are either transmuted from and by the predetermia of actuated mental strata, much in the way water must always conduct itself according to the predetermia of hydrothermic responses and processes, to put it simply; it must follow the nature of its own objective right down to the predetermia of the most simple substance ( Simple substance can be defind as that which if it were to be reduced further would result in an absolute 0 or nothing state or to increase in incriments equal to itself would result in quantity).

With that being the case, no more, at this stage can be deduced than all knowledge is at least," Apparent ". This is an, " Invariable Object ".
( Simple Substance is an Invariable Objective ) Apparentness cannot be desputed unlike thought and mental materials actuated in Time as if Time and mental materials must be a shared componant of the Being experience. In truth, there is only that which is Apparent and only Apparentness can be a conceivably actuated componant of Being irrespective of all else. Upon the invarialbe foundation of Apparentness can any realistic attempt to reveal a theory of everything be based.

Please respond to this posting with absolute honesty, intellectual vitality and rigour, bring all of your own knowledge and reasoning to the fore. Only through contradiction, thesis and antithisis can the out come be accurately
arrived at. Thankyou...Dave.





In my next posting ( and I hope that this generate some interest as I believe that the illusion of the shared experience can be a comforting one ) I shall begin by explain the above.

[mkirkpatrick]

Firstly I bidyou welcome to toequest,may your stay be long and happy,thanks for your comments dave,will get back to you later,keep up the posting.
kind regards michael.