How do you answer the question, "who am I?"

[McCulloch]

How do you answer the question, "who am I?"

Bernee 51 has raised this question a few times. I believe that it is a difficult but fundamentally important question. What does it mean? Who am I? How do you approach this?

[QED]

Darn it, here I am starting to suffer burn-out over the Hard problem of consciousness and then I get distracted by a subsidiary question like this.

Given that I appear to myself to exist and have an array of preferences, plans and a past history shaped in part by these things -- it seems to me that I am an intentional agent who's behaviour could be reasonably well predicted by others on the basis of this information.

[bernee51]

Darn it, here I am starting to suffer burn-out over the Hard problem of consciousness and then I get distracted by a subsidiary question like this.

One of the better books that I have read that attampts to deal with the 'hard problem' is Seeing Red by Nicholas Humphrey.

In a postscript to his book he writes: ... maybe there really is something in the argument I put forward in the final pages of the book: that consciousness has been designed by natural selection to appear to us, its so-privileged subjects, to be just too hard to explain!

Given that I appear to myself to exist and have an array of preferences, plans and a past history shaped in part by these things -- it seems to me that I am an intentional agent who's behaviour could be reasonably well predicted by others on the basis of this information.

Whatever you appear to yourself to be is clearly not an answer to teh question "Who am I?" as it is on the object side of the sentance "I am...". IOW it is an object in your awareness. Is it possible to observe the observer?

"The seeker is he who is in search of himself. Give up all questions except one: "Who am I?" After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are. The "I am" is certain. The "I am this" is not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality. To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what you are not. Discover all that you are not -- body, feelings thoughts, time, space, this or that -- nothing, concrete or abstract, which you perceive can be you. The very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive. ..." Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

[bernee51]

How do you answer the question, "who am I?"

Bernee 51 has raised this question a few times. I believe that it is a difficult but fundamentally important question. What does it mean? Who am I? How do you approach this?

Essentially this question is the first (only?) step in self enquiry or atma vichara as it is known in Sanskrit.

Many seem to have the idea that this question is one of ego-based self definition.

"Who am I?" is not a question leading to self definition it is a question leading to self realization.

The self definition is the illusion. Most people when asked the question will produce a list of the nature of "I am a man", "I am a husband", "I am a father", I am a brain surgeon", I am a christian" and so on. This is the illusion of a separate self which manifests because all we perceive of existence is, and can only be, a mental construct.

These are descriptors of objects in awareness. Look at clouds in the sky. They are objects in awareness. Feel the chair you sit on - it is an object in awareness. The feeling in your buttocks where they rest on the chair is an object in your awareness. The thought "He is talking rubbish' is an object in your awareness. Who or what is observing? Who are all these things in the awareness of? Who is the 'I" that is doing the describing? This is the question that creates gods.

When Jesus said I and the father are one this is the 'I' to which he was referring. He was not speaking for himself he was speaking for all humanity.

[Furrowed Brow]

Several ways we can go with this question. But here is a first stab.

Superficially it is quite easy to answer the who question. I am FB or in the real world I am Garry…and I drive a train…..etc there is other stuff I might add to that list. Some of it factual like I am a father, some of it narrative “I am a loving father”. I don’t doubt I - that is this physical person - drives a train. That is a fact. But if I said “am a really honest guy” am I really being honest with myself? It is pretty obvious we all spin narratives around our lives. I’m a great dad, I’m a philosopher, I’m a patient person etc etc. We’ve all got those little phrases we use about ourselves. But how really true are they? When I catch myself saying them I usually ask that question and it is pretty obvious the answer is…half the time not true at all, or maybe just true enough to be able to say it without someone else contradicting me. Though the narratives we spin becomes our role, often we maintain the narrative in spite of the reality of our failure to sustain the role. When we get it badly wrong life usually goes pear shaped. Most time for most people I ’d say it does not go wrong, however we still kind of ignore the white lies, conceits and self deceptions, and blinker out the interpretations of situations incongruent with our self view of who we are. If we did not we would suffer perpetual doubt. So maybe that is just part of staying positive about life and not falling into deep existential depression, or exploding with anxiety every time we wake up in the morning. We create and sustain an “I” in order to function as social animals.

When one starts the process of peeling back the tissues of our lives it becomes apparent we are many things. There is no central “I”. Obviously there is one physical body with an individual nervous system that genetics and environment condition to behave in a reasonably regular pattern of behaviours, but “I” inhabits culture, society and family. That is a far more nebulous concept.



As an anecdote - (possibly partly based on fact). Years ago myself and a fellow philosophy student after discussing something similar decided we would change the way we looked at ourselves and other people. Rather than see say “Wendy the clever witty student” we would just look at life straight on and try our best to see people as they were which was a bunch of molecules, muscles, sinews, nervous system able to make noises and sounds that communicated. In an attempt to filter out all narrative we would look at life as is really was, and people as they were in the flesh. Well after nearly a week of this things had being going rather well the waxy cauliflower held inside this skull permeated electro-chemical pulses to that subjective affect. When this physical unit of various muscles groups eventually caught up with the other fellow - the carbon water retainer -and asked how he had been getting on. Urrghh! He groaned. He had stopped after only a couple of hours. It felt like the onset of madness and he feared for his sanity. Hhmm. I pondered the noises the fleshy bunch of muscles and sinews had aimed in the direction of this mass of molecules, leaving it a few seconds before aiming some noises back released from a noise hole to the affect he could not handle the truth whilst wondering what the liquid in his eyeball tasted like.

[bernee51]

Several ways we can go with this question. But here is a first stab.

Superficially it is quite easy to answer the who question. I am FB or in the real world I am Garry…and I drive a train…..etc there is other stuff I might add to that list. Some of it factual like I am a father, some of it narrative “I am a loving father”. I don’t doubt I - that is this physical person - drives a train. That is a fact. But if I said “am a really honest guy” am I really being honest with myself? It is pretty obvious we all spin narratives around our lives. I’m a great dad, I’m a philosopher, I’m a patient person etc etc. We’ve all got those little phrases we use about ourselves. But how really true are they? When I catch myself saying them I usually ask that question and it is pretty obvious the answer is…half the time not true at all, or maybe just true enough to be able to say it without someone else contradicting me. Though the narratives we spin becomes our role, often we maintain the narrative in spite of the reality of our failure to sustain the role. When we get it badly wrong life usually goes pear shaped. Most time for most people I ’d say it does not go wrong, however we still kind of ignore the white lies, conceits and self deceptions, and blinker out the interpretations of situations incongruent with our self view of who we are. If we did not we would suffer perpetual doubt. So maybe that is just part of staying positive about life and not falling into deep existential depression, or exploding with anxiety every time we wake up in the morning. We create and sustain an “I” in order to function as social animals.

When one starts the process of peeling back the tissues of our lives it becomes apparent we are many things. There is no central “I”. Obviously there is one physical body with an individual nervous system that genetics and environment condition to behave in a reasonably regular pattern of behaviours, but “I” inhabits culture, society and family. That is a far more nebulous concept.

Peeling back the tissues of our lives is an interesting analogy. In Ghost in the MachineKoestler came up with a term - holons - as a way of describing existence. We exist as atom as and molecules - along with the rest of the phenomenal universe. We exist as a biomechanical organism - along with the rest of the biosphere. We exist as a mental construct - along with all else that has access to the noosphere.

These 'holons' could be seen as a 'vertical axis of existence. At each 'level' we also have a horizontal level of existence. Ken Wilber set out these quadrants.

For example:

Subjective or Interior Individual. This person will value truthfulness and operates inside terms of reference based on sincerity, integrity and trustworthiness.

Objective or Exterior Individual. This person will value truth and operates inside terms of reference based on correspondence, representation and propositional communication.

Interobjective or Exterior-Social. This person will value functional fit and operates inside terms of reference based on systems theory web, structural-functionalism and social systems mesh.

Intersubjective or Interior Social (Cultural). This person will value justness and operates inside terms of reference based on cultural fit, mutual understanding and rightness.


Again all this is an 'I' attempting to describe what it is. Is there any way to (or value in) access(ing) the 'describer'?

[Nick_A]

As I see it, the question "who am I" can be answered by any of the i,s that form our plurality. The bottom line is that we do not have inner unity which is what "I" is. Inner unity is our potential. "I" is the soul of man that exists within us as a seed.

I've learned that before a person can say "I am a Christian, they first must be able to say "I Am." We cannot do this simply because we are a plurality. This is why there are so few Christians. We are either this or that but we are not I Am. Am by itself is the expression of "I" that we don't have. God may be I am that I am but we exist as a plurality and are not God.

I am is an expression of inner unity acquired from the integration of the whole of oneself. It is the Trinity in Man comprising the head as consciousness, the heart as feelings and the body as actualizing potentials of mechanical laws.

I is wholeness within which potentials exist but for man "To Be" Man, I must actualize in the form of the levels of reality that constitute "Am."

[bernee51]

As I see it, the question "who am I" can be answered by any of the is that form our plurality.

Then you clearly demonstrate you do not understand the question.

The bottom line is that we do not have inner unity which is what "I" is. Inner unity is our potential.

Inner 'oneness' is our true nature - all else is illusion.

"I" is the soul of man that exists within us as a seed.

The soul is also part of the illusion - part of maya. The soul exists first as a potentiality in a developing human. It exists while we exist. It is in constant flux. Always growing, changing, learning, and adapting; until the day it dies.

I've learned that before a person can say "I am a Christian, they first must be able to say "I Am." We cannot do this simply because we are a plurality. This is why there are so few Christians.

Biker tells me there are 2 billion - someone must be wrong.

We are either this or that but we are not I Am. Am by itself is the expression of "I" that we don't have. God may be I am that I am but we exist as a plurality and are not God.

We are not this and not that (neti neti in Sanskrit). This and that are objects in awareness so cannot be the Self. What is witnessing 'this and that' is what we are and can only be in reality.

As Ramana Maharshi put it: "Questioning 'Who am I?' within one's mind, when one reaches the Heart, the individual 'I' sinks crestfallen, and at once reality manifests itself as 'I-I'. Though it reveals itself thus, it is not the ego 'I' but the perfect being the Self Absolute."

Or in the Upadesa Undiyar

19. 'Whence does the 'I' arise?' Seek this within. The 'I' then vanishes. This is the pursuit of wisdom.

20. Where the 'I' vanished, there appears an 'I-I' by itself. This is the infinite.

We are god.

I am is an expression of inner unity acquired from the integration of the whole of oneself.

"I-I" is a relaization that can only arise with the the disintegration of the illusion of the individual self.

The individual self is a product of the mind - a content of consciousness.

It is the Trinity in Man comprising the head as consciousness, the heart as feelings and the body as actualizing potentials of mechanical laws.

Feelings and the body are objects in awareness. How can they be the Self?

I is wholeness within which potentials exist but for man "To Be" Man, I must actualize in the form of the levels of reality that constitute "Am."

What - more bluster?

When are you going to put some meat on the bones of these beliefs of yours? Do you have an answer to the 'how' and not just the 'what?

[QED]

Darn it, here I am starting to suffer burn-out over the Hard problem of consciousness and then I get distracted by a subsidiary question like this.

One of the better books that I have read that attampts to deal with the 'hard problem' is Seeing Red by Nicholas Humphrey.

In a postscript to his book he writes: ... maybe there really is something in the argument I put forward in the final pages of the book: that consciousness has been designed by natural selection to appear to us, its so-privileged subjects, to be just too hard to explain!

Thanks for that bernee51. I'll look out for it. I enjoyed reading Dennett's denial of the existence of Qualia, zombies etc. So much of what hampers our understanding seems to be bad habits of apparently common-sense thinking. Intriguing to think that the impending madness in FB's anecdote might after all limit what can be understood.

Given that I appear to myself to exist and have an array of preferences, plans and a past history shaped in part by these things -- it seems to me that I am an intentional agent who's behaviour could be reasonably well predicted by others on the basis of this information.

Whatever you appear to yourself to be is clearly not an answer to teh question "Who am I?" as it is on the object side of the sentance "I am...". IOW it is an object in your awareness. Is it possible to observe the observer?

Well, partly in anticipation of your kind of argument, I took care to put the "proof of the pudding" beyond the object by talking about the ability of others to predict on the basis of observations. If we strip away (deny?) all predictive information and add Dennett's denials I still can't see how this necessarily leads us to any kind of collective consciousness -- other than through an inadvertent category error.

"Objects in awareness" implies (reinforces) something that common-sense tells us exists: the Cartesian I Am. An intrinsic inability to think of this as an illusion seems to be the main hurdle to understanding (qualifying thinking and understanding as abstract computational operations).

[QED]

I am is an expression of inner unity acquired from the integration of the whole of oneself. It is the Trinity in Man comprising the head as consciousness, the heart as feelings and the body as actualizing potentials of mechanical laws.

Not everyone is so sure about segregating "mechanical laws" into a group of their own like this. Indeed if, for example, a "thought" of yours actualises a mechanical operation like the lifting of your finger through various amplifications there still needs to be an electrodynamic interaction between whatever constitutes the "thought" and the rest of the system. 20th century philosophy has generally rejected Cartesian Dualism on the basis of this basic system incomparability.