Ultimate questions: Is the examined life worth living?

[shnarkle]

I'm not sure they've figured out who they really are which is probably where one ought to start before examining their life. After all whose life is one examining? If one doesn't know who they are, why examine their life at all?

The question is: Have you discovered who you are, and if so; who are you?

If you haven't figured out who you are, why not?

This is not a question of identification. It isn't about the roles one plays, the persona presented to the world, your attributes, achievements,goals, etc.. It isn't a question of what you have or what you possess. This is not the question: "What am I?"

Can anyone answer the question; who are you?

Has anyone here asked themselves the question; "Who am I?"

Does anyone here know who they are?

[mgb]

You're getting close to answering the question though. Who are you when you stop thinking every night?

I'm not sure that we stop thinking when we are asleep. We dream. We move and talk in our sleep. We just forget our sleeping experiences. Did you ever suddenly remember a dream half way through the day that you had forgotten about on waking?

[ThePainefulTruth]

[Replying to post 23 by Divine Insight]
But you have absolutely no clue whether or not you can make moral choices via free will. All the choices you make that you consider to be moral choices may very well be determined by your brain.[/quote]

If our choices are predetermined, then this is all a big joke. If they aren't it's not. If we surrender to the idea that this is all meaningless, that too was predetermined. But if it's not predetermined, our surrender is real. What do we take away from that but to continue under the idea that this is real whether it is or not? If that assumption is wrong, we'll never know.

In short, unless you can demonstrate that a "free agent" is actually "running your brain", then you cannot say that you are anything other than your brain.

So, if we can't "say" that it is or we can't, our surrender to our ignorance is up to our genetics or whatever. But if it is a genuine choice, we end up making that choice of our own free will after all, even though we can't know it.

[mgb]

So, if we can't "say" that it is or we can't, our surrender to our ignorance is up to our genetics or whatever. But if it is a genuine choice, we end up making that choice of our own free will after all, even though we can't know it.

We intuitively understand that we are free. Mind tends to be infinitely subtle; it doesn't look like a determined machine. If we were physical machines we would be more like mentally ill robots, to put it charitably. We are so much more than that.

[shnarkle]

You're getting close to answering the question though. Who are you when you stop thinking every night?

I'm not sure that we stop thinking when we are asleep. We dream. We move and talk in our sleep. We just forget our sleeping experiences. Did you ever suddenly remember a dream half way through the day that you had forgotten about on waking?

Rest assured, it is well documented that no one thinks or is aware of anything when in deep sleep. Brain activity dwindles down to nothing but the autonomous functions. It is also well documented that monks can drop their thinking minds to nothing and yet remain completely conscious. They are conscious of nothing, not even a single thought.

[mgb]

You're getting close to answering the question though. Who are you when you stop thinking every night?

I'm not sure that we stop thinking when we are asleep. We dream. We move and talk in our sleep. We just forget our sleeping experiences. Did you ever suddenly remember a dream half way through the day that you had forgotten about on waking?

Rest assured, it is well documented that no one thinks or is aware of anything when in deep sleep. Brain activity dwindles down to nothing but the autonomous functions. It is also well documented that monks can drop their thinking minds to nothing and yet remain completely conscious. They are conscious of nothing, not even a single thought.

That may be so but brain activity and mind are not the same thing.

[shnarkle]

You're getting close to answering the question though. Who are you when you stop thinking every night?

I'm not sure that we stop thinking when we are asleep. We dream. We move and talk in our sleep. We just forget our sleeping experiences. Did you ever suddenly remember a dream half way through the day that you had forgotten about on waking?

Rest assured, it is well documented that no one thinks or is aware of anything when in deep sleep. Brain activity dwindles down to nothing but the autonomous functions. It is also well documented that monks can drop their thinking minds to nothing and yet remain completely conscious. They are conscious of nothing, not even a single thought.

That may be so but brain activity and mind are not the same thing.

Yep. I'm not sure how that advanced your argument though.