What do we really own?

[mkirkpatrick]

I would like to start this thread with the question,Whatdo we really own?What
is it that we can truly call ours,mine,yours,theres,If I am truly trying to be
philosophical,then the answer could well cause me discomfort,for in my heart of
hearts,the answer seems to suggest that I truly own nothing!Is what I think to
be mine,really Yours instead.?I would be grateful for any comments,thankyou.




kindest regards michael.

[force5]

I would like to start this thread with the question,Whatdo we really own?What
is it that we can truly call ours,mine,yours,theres,If I am truly trying to be
philosophical,then the answer could well cause me discomfort,for in my heart of
hearts,the answer seems to suggest that I truly own nothing!Is what I think to
be mine,really Yours instead.?I would be grateful for any comments,thankyou.

kindest regards michael.

Hi Michael;

I assume the question refers to material things. If I'm wrong about this assumption, please correct me.

Of course, at different stages of our lives we take possession of things and make choices as to keep, consume, maintain, destroy, giveaway or sell. I'm sure we could come up with a few more options. But eventually, it all becomes pointless since we can't take anything with us. Well, maybe for only a short while. But, take it where?

I guess my thinking on the matter is, when my level of awareness drops to zero(excluding temporary comas), which it will some day. hopefully not real soon. Whatever I am Vice President in charge of, just want matter very much any more. Well, actually, it shouldn't matter at all.

Is this a stupid response or what?

Maybe David can strighten me out on this matter. LOL

John

[mkirkpatrick]

Thank you Force5,for your comments,I have been thinking about this some more
and Find,that all that I really think I own,only seem to be loaned to me for a
while,and then have to be returned to a central pool?Do I own my life?Is it really
mine?Who exactly is this "I" that "owns" anything!The more I ponderon this the
less there seems to be for me to own!




kind regards michael

[michellemfry]

Oh Michael, you own the universe. There are enough stars for everyone to have their own, to own, to keep, until you are no more. If you don't own it, it might not go to the bother of existing, expanding, etc. Your faith in it's ability to be owned may be all that is sustaining the cosmos. Doesn't that fill up your shopping cart just a bit?

[Mike 5]

I would like to start this thread with the question,Whatdo we really own?What
is it that we can truly call ours,mine,yours,theres,If I am truly trying to be
philosophical,then the answer could well cause me discomfort,for in my heart of
hearts,the answer seems to suggest that I truly own nothing!.

Our children.

And it is not that we own them - at all. The question is sort of meaningless - and I do like the definition from Michelle. The fact is, as consciousness embodied in material forms, we are mortal, we die, and even the breath in our bodies, the flesh and bones is only borrowed. Ownership is a legal term enforced by Kalashnikov or whatever, supported by the ingenuity people can apply to hiding what they own instead of enjoying it.

When we die, two things remain. Firstly some aspects of our "work" - Einstein Plato Euclid etc. or Da Vinci Michaelangelo Rubens etc. Or Spielberg Moses Amunhoteb IV etc. Apart for this "legacy" children remain here as the only indication that we lived. My children are the only "possessions" and I do not own them, but even my RX8 is just a lifeless box, as is my beloved Roland piano sitting in silence until I play music upon it.

However there are reincarnation and other theories that have another viewpoint which I also like so I will mention it - you take with you, as it were, all the love you gave to others. Figure that out for yourself, if you have not already mused on the role of giving and receiving love. Above other philosophies, this idea that your rewards are in heaven or beyond here do actually bring a sense of bliss beyond drugs. I know a man in a remote village near Siem Riep Cambodia who runs an orphanage for the Seventh Day Adventists. His smile shows a wealth of something which he happily admits is the ultimate joy in life, the possession everyone truly wants, the feeling you feel when you give give give your life in service to others.

Wow, I am deep today. I'll drink some coffee and calm up.

[Guille]

All of what a mind can know is that it exists in the mental existence.

Neither can I know that my body exist. Or my mind know that other minds exist. Or that other objects exist. Or that "other" exists. Or that my mind has a physical existence (the brain). The thing is that we can only KNOW and be SURE to have the TRUTH when we THINK that we THINK (have a mind).

[michellemfry]

The sad truth of the mind is that it is subject to illness sometimes. I was diagnosed with a bipolar disorder this year. I take a mood stabilizer, so is it my thoughts or the medicine, I often wonder? Mental illness is no picnic, and I liken it to living in a haunted vortex of one's self. I am grateful all I have to do is take a pill to be healthy. So when you speak so absolutely about the mind remember the fragile side of the flesh. Even so, you have some good thoughts on the mind.

[Guille]

The sad truth of the mind is that it is subject to illness sometimes. I was diagnosed with a bipolar disorder this year. I take a mood stabilizer, so is it my thoughts or the medicine, I often wonder? Mental illness is no picnic, and I liken it to living in a haunted vortex of one's self. I am grateful all I have to do is take a pill to be healthy. So when you speak so absolutely about the mind remember the fragile side of the flesh. Even so, you have some good thoughts on the mind.

Hi. I haven't noticed any what-you-call (and I like the name) "bipolar disorder" kind of behaviour in you, so I guess either the medicin works or the doctor are wrong. By experience, I will choose the second.

It is defended by many contemporary philosophers a thoery which is sort of in the middle of dualism and monism (about the body-mind problem): all mental states are reducible to physical states and yet independent.

[Mike 5]

Aha! So we move from ownership to existence... and also fragility. I conclude that conceptually we are not clear what any of this is "about". Or rather I become cynical and suspicious of the words used - do they mean for you what they mean for me? Sometimes I think everything is just linguistics.

But I have some comments on this from Guille:

All of what a mind can know is that it exists in the mental existence. Neither can I know that my body exist. Or my mind know that other minds exist. Or that other objects exist. Or that "other" exists. Or that my mind has a physical existence (the brain). The thing is that we can only KNOW and be SURE to have the TRUTH when we THINK that we THINK (have a mind).

Very Cartesian. I do not agree though. All the mind can know is the appearance and the appearance is not "mental existence" at all! On the contrary all the mind can "know" is what appears to be sky and furniture and Tuesday and the taste of nmaple syrup and so on. As to what that actually is, and what we are as we take this possibly illusiary reality into us, we cannot know that.

The only thing that for me "is" and "is sure" is that duality is the process of all processes. To simplify, to start somewhere, presumably we are contained bubbles of consciousness apparently in material forms, but we cannot really know, we just make that up as an unquestioned axiom "just supposed". Ten or ten hundred years later we might invent some other starting point and on we go. Yet there is something in our existence and our thinking about that existence - and that is the constant reframing of figure and background. Thinking is the thing the mind does, and thinking goes - this here piece of "reality" is something DISTINCT from ... some background or other thing. "God" is distinct from "not God", sardines are distinct from herrings and whales and monkeys, and thought is ultimately COMPARISON (apparently the words "mind" "maia" and "measurement" are all from the same root). Comparision is the essence of thinking, it is basically dualistic or dialectic and it winds on and on and on and on recursively, umbilically, or in a word, fractally. Which is why Fractal Dialectics is the nature of the mind thinking, but as to the nature or "reality" out there, we can never know for sure. That we all agree upon. And yet, we wish, it is only human, we wish for a glimmer of sunlight in the darkness that is "real" beyond this "game" of thinking round and round. In that yearning for some solid foundation, often people settle for orgasm, epiphany, passion, and other experiences which to the scientist are merely sets of waves in a human neurology.

Coming back to "ownership" - I will post separately now...

[Mike 5]

There is a delightful and empowering way to rethink what ownership truly is. And that is that when you give something away, you realise you had it to give away. This is the spiritual realisation that by giving, you experience yourself as not only generous, but generative. Giving more and more love, you experience yourself as having abundant love to give. And so on.

This view of ownership rests on the moment ownership is surrendered as the discovery that you owned something. You don't know what you have till it's gone.