Why can't I be "my mind"

[reku02]

Hey guys,

 

quick disclaimer: I thought this matter through many times and I understand Leo's position as that we can neither be body or mind, so my question is based and built upon this knowledge and I don't intend on getting answers like "no problem: just watch the self-inquiry video". I am also not trying to defend a fixed position nor am I claiming that I am "my mind" nor am I arguing for or against something, I am merely wanting to understand. Additionally, I have understood that ultimately everything is nothing and regularly experience no-mind states in meditation and other situations, but this question is aimed at a more surface-level understanding. Lastly, I do meditate (60mins/day) and the like, so replies like "just meditate more" or "just use psychedelics" are not helping, as my question is aimed at conceptual understanding (knowing that concepts are not defining reality itself). 

 

The main argument that I cannot be "my mind" seems to be that it is transitory (i.e. it changes over time) and I am less transitory, meaning that if my mind changes vastly over 10 years while "I" stay the same over e.g. 100 years there is a mismatch implying that I thereby cannot be my mind, because I am constant. The neurologic standpoint on the other hand is basically that we are electric current transferred through neurons. Nevertheless, this neurologic standpoint could also be interpreted in a constant way, meaning that the constant would be that I were electric current for 100 years, while only the content of that current were to change.

 

But am I really constant? Obviously, everything perishes on a macro-level, but what is to say against the argument that I am a dynamic system that is in constant flux? There is no absolute necessity of me being constant and I do not feel as if I was constant (except for on the deepest consciousness-level, i.e. that everything ultimately is consciousness / nothing). The constant of my being could thereby be change, which would then (even following the aforementioned logic that because I am constant and my mind is not => I can't be my mind) allow for me being "my mind" as both elements would be transitory and in constant change, now. 

 

Simply put: saying that I need to be constant is another arbitrary concept => if I were in constant flux, I could thereby be my mind / electric current, can't I? 

 

If I look within, I cannot say with certainty that I am electric current, but I can also not exclude the possibility that I am in fact electric current. There is also no absolute necessity for me to have the capability to ever know myself. It might therefore be that I am electric current and I 
a) just don't realize it, because the visualization and interpretation of said current is so perfect that it feels perfectly real to me
b) don't have the intellectual capacity to truly know my nature ever

I do not consider the arguments I have heard to this point for it not being possible that I am "just" neurons convincing.

 

So to conclude: why can't I be the mind / electric current / whatever you want to call it?

[Faceless]

Don’t approach with past knowledge. Question this knowledge. Otherwise you will make mistakes along the way. There can’t be any incorrect information overlooked or else there becomes a flaw in the inquiry. Then it’s like a domino effect...Start with nothing and move from there. No presuppositions of any kind. A good scientist is aware of the nature and structure of any presuppositions. Attention is essential. 

Edited February 9, 2018 by Faceless

[Patang]

let me describe visually how i perceive of what you are. you are like a truck, got out of the factory empty without any cargo. in time, all kind of packages are been loaded on the truck, which slowly been identified with all of those packages, as they are not separable. now you see, you are the truck but non of the packages.

[cetus]

@reku02 Everything you thought and said here happened within consciousness which is prior to mind.

[snowleopard]

@reku02

34 minutes ago, reku02 said:

my question is aimed at conceptual understanding (knowing that concepts are not defining reality itself)

So you want a conceptual explanation for that which cannot be conceptually explained? 

[reku02]

@Faceless You're right about the necessity of excluding past knowledge, thanks 

[reku02]

@Patang thanks for your reply. To stay within your metaphor: how do I know that the truck (=me) is not made out of electric current / neurons? How do I know that the factory (=what creates me) is not electric current / neurons?

[Patang]

@reku02 ahhh that's a good question, a bulls-eye. the truck is only a metaphor, there is nothing behind it, and so are you.

Edited February 9, 2018 by Patang

[reku02]

@cetus56 I agree on the deepest level, but on a more surface-level I still do not see the reason that disproves the relation of consciousness  == my mind (or in other words that I am merely electric current / neurons / etc). The belief usually held in spirituality is that consciousness is the superset and the mind the subset, i.e. that consciousness renders the mind or in other words the mind happens in consciousness, but consciousness could theoretically also happen within the mind => I cannot find an argument that truly disproves the hypothesis that consciousness can happen within the mind (or in other words that mind > consciousness).

(Of course one could argue that everything more surface-level than the absolute cannot describe / be reality itself, but that mindset taken to extremes would mean that our practical living would collapse (medicine / science / ”optimization" of situations / solving of "problems" / etc were just content of the mind, which of course they are but nevertheless they are still very much relevant to our lives) and as a rather conceptual person it helps me to understand things conceptually to thereafter implement them into my life.)

[reku02]

@snowleopard not really, I see that absolute reality on the deepest level cannot be explained and I agree. My question is based in the world of concepts, which is obviously not the deepest level, yet still very much relevant (think of medicine / science / "optimization" of situations / solving of "problems" and the like (also the only reason that people use this forum (or any) is because they discuss concepts of some kind)). To rephrase my question: instead of the mind happening within consciousness, why can't consciousness happen within the mind or in other words why can't consciousness be the subset of the superset which is the mind (mind > consciousness)?

 

I know that in theory one could just meditate 24/7 and bliss out on being, but here, I am interested in understanding the concept. 

[Faceless]

Why can't I be "my mind"???

is it your mind or just mind???

[snowleopard]

@reku02 Well, it's a philosophical question, and basically you're wondering if an ontology based in physicalism is more or less plausible than idealism. One case to be made for going with idealism is expressed by Bernardo Kastrup, who makes the case that idealism need not be incompatible with scientific empiricism.  Here is a recent talk in which he gets into this, with a good Q&A session ... if so inclined.

[cetus]

 "Mind" happens within consciousness as with all else. "Your" mind. "My" mind. One consciousness.

[reku02]

@Patang thank you again! but how do I know that? We assume here that there is nothing behind me as in that "I" am an illusion and the next level is nothingness, like in:
nothingness > I       (i.e. that there is nothing between the illusion of "I" and nothingness)

But how do I know that the relation is not:
something so much greater than me that I cannot even imagine it > mind/electric current/neurons > nothingness > me  (i.e. that nothingness is rendered in the mind, which then is another subset of something so complex that I cannot even imagine it)

Imagine you are a cell in some body: You live in your world (=some body part) and do what you want / have to do (implying for this example that cells act consciously) => the cell might not be aware that it is just a tiny part of the superset (=the body in which it lives), which is again a tiny part of the next superset it resides in (=e.g. the ecosystem<planet<galaxy<galaxy cluster<...<nothingness) and so on, yet the cell lives in the body and imagines that there is nothing behind its existence on the micro level, but here that assumption would be false, as there in fact is something behind its existence (=the body in which it resides). In this example, the cell would do what it does without even imagining that it is just a part of a body, which is a part of the ecosystem and so on. => How do I know that the ultimate superset of my life is not electric current (or something else that is not consciousness)?

For example when I meditate, I hear a very subtle background noise / rustling like probably everybody does in a quiet place => this  sounds similar to a radio that is not tuned in correctly or the white noise that old TVs produce when no channel is tuned in = electric noise or electric current respectively. So when I sit in quiet meditation and do nothing, sometimes this noise comes to my attention and the way that it reminds me of electricity also makes me wonder if I am not just electricity and this might e.g. be the subtle noise of "me" being constantly created and re-created and maintained or in other words of my being.

[reku02]

@snowleopard that pretty much sums up my question. Thanks, I'm going to watch it.

[Faceless]

6 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

@Faceless "Mind" happens within consciousness as with all else. "Your" mind. "My" mind. One consciousness.

It’s just mind.. we see it as being mine and yours. But the me and the you ‘self’ are creations through the fragmentation of thought. 

Only thing with validity is thought/mind/conciousness 

Edited February 9, 2018 by Faceless

[Faceless]

Consciousness is only possible as it is the product of a material process. Without that material process there is no consciousness/mind/thought/the thinker

[Patang]

@reku02 yes, you are but just a cell in an organism, a droplet in an ocean. from a wide perspective, the droplet is the ocean. you are a subset of consciousness, you are consciousness. the mind is only a concept, so are the body, the brain and the electric currents, and all the rest...