two questions

two questions [+ favourites]

i don't profess to be any sort of expert on the subject, but i do enjoy philosophy immensely.

i love the fact that almost all philosophical questions don't have "right" or "wrong" answers. its' basis of study is to simply keep asking questions. in a child-like fashion, philosophers do not take for granted the answers that society says are "true". for example:

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1. who are you?
mother, daughter, uncle, cousin, boss, employee, expert, lover, confidante, instigator, mediator, writer, photographer, observer.
>> are you the summation of your relationships, resposibilities and deeds here on earth?

tall, short, fat, skinny, brown hair, green eyes, small nose, big lips, happy-go-lucky, sensitive, shy, out-going.
>> are you merely a group of physical and emotional attributes?

what if you grew up with a different name? would you still be "you"?

who *are* you?

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2. where did the world come from?
whether or not you believe in the big bang, big god or big nothing, there are two schools of thought in this:
a) something has always existed (ie: god or a rock that exploded), or
b) something was created from nothing.

where did the world come from?

"get busy livin' or get busy dyin'..."
[  Edited by rollergirl at   ]

I'll try to answer #1:

I think you are a result of your environment combined with the chemical and biological properties your parents gave you.

Of course, there is no mathematical formula that explains what environmental influences do to you, but even little things may totally alter your life.

I think there are certain events that happen to different people, thereby making them somewhat similar...generally you feel closer to someone who also lost their dad in a burning car crash if you lost your dad the same way.

They understand you better than other people, because they are similar to you.

Which, theoretically means, if they went through EVERYTHING you did, they would be similar to you.

Not necessarily the exact same, because you do have individual hormonal characteristics, but more similar than anyone else on the planet.

So I don't think you would be you if you were born somewhere else with a different name to different parents. You would be that person.

"Hating everyone protects me from elitism."

i'm pretty sure i agree with everything you've said, Decius. good points that make a lot of sense.

however, to me, in a way what you've said describes "what" you are. what you believe, what you would do in certain situations, what you look like and what you think about.

personally, i think "who" you are is tied closer to something intangible that we can't define. some might call it a "soul"...

i think that somewhere in between all of the genes and effects of the environment, there has to be an extra ingredient. something that ties everything together and makes the mathematical forumla a real-live person. as you've noted, 2 + 2 does not always equal 4:

quote:

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Which, theoretically means, if they went through EVERYTHING you did, they would be similar to you.

Not necessarily the exact same

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"get busy livin' or get busy dyin'..."

some comments on "what" you are:

first off, i think the differences in identical twins are well accounted for by genes and differing experience alone. while they may grow up together and can't help but reach similar conclusions based on their (and each other's) experiences, their overall upbringing WILL be different. ex: they'll have different girlfriends (i hope), and get hurt in different ways. in addition, there are psychological mechanisms that multiply any slight differences the twins have. ex: if one is slightly weaker than the other, he may think physical strength is not as important a quality as he would if he were the stronger one. because of this, the strength gap gets bigger with time. same with intellect. a few decades pass, and you've got 2 very different people, even though they started out virtually the same. not to mention the original slight difference may have been due to an insignificant event ... one twin was out with the boys and developed an edge, while the other had dish night.

this is a bit off topic to what rollergirl said though. more on topic stuff coming up...

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i think what you mean with the identical twins stuff is that even if the twins WERE truly identical, there's something different about them.

...correct me if i'm wrong.

i think this something has to do with consciousness, and ties into a discussion i had with a friend a while ago. basically two people that are identical down to the molecule seem identical to the outside world, but if you are one of these people, you still differentiate between yourself and your double. you do not see out of his/her eyes. the relevance of this is really difficult to explain, so i will use my world famous teleportation theory:

say you wanna teleport yourself from one place to another using a machine that disassembles you into your atoms, and reassembles you at your destination. all is well so far. but what if this machine reassembles 2 copies of you, at 2 different locations. which one are you? where do you appear? it cannot be both destinations, unless you mean that you now see out of both people's eyes, and that your experience of life has suddenly drastically changed. you could say neither and that you died, but that is a bit of a copout answer (did you say neither, you die, when there was only one destination?).

i have yet to solve this riddle, but i believe the answer lies in the wacky world of quantum mechanics, where indeed you would be both people, and somehow your 2 brains would instantly communicate with each other.

#2 is an interesting question, although i don't think i've ever met anyone who truly thought everything came from nothing (as you say, even god must've existed before in order to create it).

there might be a freakish mathematical anomaly which states that nothing existing (not even time) somehow leads to stuff appearing out of nowhere, including space, time, the laws of physics, and the rules that dictate what happens when nothing at all exists. however, the reason i accept this possibility is that anything i say to the contrary is based on logic or reasoning that is based on rules that came about during this creation. if nothing exists, not even logic, then nothing has to make sense. if nothing makes sense, then all i know is what i've experienced (and you can even rip that one apart), .. ie. no amount of reasoning can help me find truths. i obviously wasn't there to witness creation. the problem is, reasoning starts after the rules of reasoning are in place, and this question has to do with what happened before that. i have no tools to dig that far.

based on this, i think the notion that nothing existed is a bit of an unsolvable riddle, and i for one believe something was always there.

in addition to all that, the whole concept of before/after has to do with time which didn't exist before the universe. if there was ever nothing at all, it only existed for an instant, since there was nothing to measure how long this state was there.

I'll answer #2 in the way that I believe it. "I believe that In the beginning was the Word, & the Word was with God, & the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; & without him was not any thing made that was made." In the beginning God created the heaven & the earth. The earth is the Lord's, & the fullness thereof; the world, & they that dwell therein.

Deke: Such a theoretical and speculative explanation cannot be argued So, it could be true, but there is absolutely no where to go from there.

Fru: Regarding your transporter riddle, my explanation is as follows:

If you went through a transporter and two of you were created on the other side, you would be both people.

The fact that you are not able to see out of the other person's eyes, or think their thoughts, or feel their feelings has nothing to do with you being two different people; it is the fact that you are too unaware to be able to bridge that gap and make the link.

What I mean is, if you put your hand in a box, and 12 other people did, and all you could see were fingers on the other end, you would not be able to tell (immediately, at least) which fingers were yours. This does not mean they are now seperate from your body...they are still a part of you, connected to you, but you simply are not aware enough to make that definite connection.

Similarly, if you were split in two, you would be both people...you just wouldn't see/feel/use the invisible link, and therefore be unable to share the senses.

"Hating everyone protects me from elitism."

that's an interesting way to look at it, decius, but i'm not sure it solves my problem (and i hope i'm understanding it correctly). the central idea of my teleportation riddle is the contrast between one's 1st person experience of being teleported to one destination, vs two.

if there is only one destination, the what you would experience is obvious: your surroundings would instantly become those of the destination, kind of like time travelling in back to the future. a flash of light, and your surroundings have changed to where you wanted to be. however, if there are 2 destinations, what would you see happen to your surroundings, or to you?

i can see how in some sense the 2 copies of me may actually be one person (i think), but is this any different from arguing that YOU and I are actually one person, too unaware to realize it? "you" and "i" are then 2 components of a greater whole. i've always been *this* part, and you've always been the other. however, if you suddenly died, i would have no idea that it happened, but you certainly would. if an alien being took over your body and assumed your behavior, no one would know anything happened, except you. it is this disconnectedness that for me (for the purpose of this discussion) defines where one person ends and the next begins. thus if 2 people came out of the teleporter, and their consciousness was disconnected, i would call them 2 different people. i don't think this matters much though, as long as we agree that one's experience is the same whether you think you're a whole person, or only a component of a > 1 person total. my question is, regardless of whether i'm part of something more or not, if i went in, what would i expect to see coming out?

let's say i'm in moscow and wish to go to london to meet my wife. i'm given the opportunity to catch such a splitting teleporter with destination 1 = paris, and destination 2 = london. is this a good deal for me? or do i have a 50% chance that i'll end up in paris, while another guy who claims to be me is getting busy with my wife?

what if i were split, and the paris copy was destroyed before it fully materialized? well, i would expect this to be just like a 1-destination teleportation. i should just end up in london, unaware of anything that happened in paris.

what if the paris copy were destroyed AFTER it materialized?

is this a safe means of transportation, assuming that teleportation with 1 destination IS safe? consider also that i may not even know a second copy is being created. what would i experience, and where would i end up?

all this suggests to me that consciousness or the soul (whatever it is that makes me ME, in *this* body, with *these* ideas) is indivisible and is not physical (at least not physical in a classical, non-quantum way).

quote:

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it is this disconnectedness that for me (for the purpose of this discussion) defines where one person ends and the next begins.

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"Hating everyone protects me from elitism."

To answer the question: who are you?

It is a basic answer to me that you, are simply you. Thats it.
You cant say 'who would you be if your name was different cause it wouldnt be you. I believe that one tiny event in life can change everything. Though it's not pre-determined. A prime example of my belief is the film sliding doors. Not a great film but I think it shows that 'you' are just a being, living out a list of events, which creates 'you'. Therefore there is no 'what if' questions to be asked because everything that happens is a creation of 'you' and this is why people change throughout there life.
Hope that makes sense to some of you.

"Live by the sword die by the sword"

quote:

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To answer the question: who are you?

It is a basic answer to me that you, are simply you. Thats it.

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"get busy livin' or get busy dyin'..."

I think melon (I think) is basically agreeing with me...

He is saying that if you were to be split, you would in essence be two different people because you have now experienced two "different" events in your life (one appearing in once place, the other in the other).

"Hating everyone protects me from elitism."

Melon is right. You are you only because of your experiences in life.
I have noticed in things I write, maybe I’ll check it a month later and I’ll have a different point of view only because I have more experiences that I have gone through since then that change me so much that i'm no longer the same person.
So you are not only, just you but also only the person, you are at a specific point in time. You can never be anyone else or even yourself again. God i’m good. lol

"Emotions are for the weak minded, so cry me a river build a bridge and get over it."

Saying that you cease to be 'yourself' every moment because your experiences have changed is fine, but are you saying you die every instant and are replaced by a different 'soul' -- not you? (I don't actually believe in souls per se, but I use it to illustrate a point)

Clearly, your 'soul' gets transfered to the new you every instance that passes by as you change, so you don't completely stop being you after the moment passes. To me the question is basically what is it that makes up the soul, and what traps your soul in *this* body and not some other one. If it's the fact that it must travel continuously through space with time, then obviously it can't jump out of your body all of a sudden and go somewhere else, but then my teleportation thing is meant to illustrate that whatever this soul is, it can't be completely defined by matter because matter can be duplicated, while your experience of existence should not be. Aside from the fact that experiencing life in 2 bodies simultaneously sounds like madness, you also have to explain why/how information between the 2 is able to flow. Can the soul *just* be a physical thing, and a byproduct of classical physics? I don't think it can.