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#11
08-08-2007, 10:55 PM
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Re: I am me, right? What if I wasn\'t completely me? Would I still exist?
[ QUOTE ]
Physically, I was once a single sperm and a single egg, right? What if in the race to the egg, the sperm beside the one that created me had won? Would I still be alive today? What is it that makes me who I am? Is this a stupid question? That's the thought that has always confused me about identical twins. They both came from the same egg and sperm, right? So even though they split and became 2 different people, what if they hadn't split? Which one of them would exist? I'm probably going to be roasted for asking such a dumb question. I'm just curiuos about some of your thoughts [/ QUOTE ] Its an excellent question and I'll try again without the twin. The millions of sperm running after the egg cause conception when one hits the mark. Now if all of the individual spermatazoa were different you can see that the chance of an individual coming to life would be of the measure of 1 in a 1,000,000. If you see yourself as that very sperm this is great luck, quite a lottery. the other alternative is that all the sperms are alike and perforce are going to produce you and only you. If different then there are a lot of lost beings in a reproductive process which appears in effect a hell of a gamble. Of course the above are the logical conclusions of a materialist but this where the religious, theists, spiritual philosophers who see the soul come in. You, as a spirit soul being, enter into the sperm/egg at conception and this body is that which you use during your lifetime. This is why most thinkers say that you have a soul and are a spiritual being who rides the chariot of the human body through the development of the embryo, birth, life until death when you leave your body and return to that world of soul and spirit in which you have your source. QED 
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#12
08-09-2007, 02:26 AM
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Re: I am me, right? What if I wasn\'t completely me? Would I still exist?
You are a unique combination of physical attributes (attributes whcih include what constitutes in the brain your unique conscience), stemming from the unique combination of sperm+egg. Any other of the approx forty million sperms getting inside the egg first woulda meant you never waking up! Imagine if on that fateful day your dad had decided to jerk off instead of having it off with your mum. Youdve ended up inside a hanky in the toilet.
Imagine now if your dad's dad never had a son! Even more improbable for you to exist. And so on and so forth - to zero probability... [ QUOTE ] That's the thought that has always confused me about identical twins. They both came from the same egg and sperm, right? So even though they split and became 2 different people, what if they hadn't split? Which one of them would exist? [/ QUOTE ] Coin flip.
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#13
08-09-2007, 03:44 AM
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Re: I am me, right? What if I wasn\'t completely me? Would I still ex
[ QUOTE ]
Read the last chapter of Poker Gaming and Life. [/ QUOTE ] From other thread: [ QUOTE ] I explain it in a few pages in Getting The Best Of It. Anyone who hasn't read that book has no right to have an opinion about anything. [/ QUOTE ] It's good to know anyone looking for an education can get it from the PokerStars FPP store.
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#15
08-09-2007, 11:43 AM
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Re: I am me, right? What if I wasn\'t completely me? Would I still ex
[ QUOTE ]
You, as a spirit soul being, enter into the sperm/egg at conception and this body is that which you use during your lifetime. [/ QUOTE ] You forgot the part about the magic fairy dust. [ QUOTE ] QED [/ QUOTE ] [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
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#16
08-09-2007, 11:46 AM
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Re: I am me, right? What if I wasn\'t completely me? Would I still ex
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] "You" are an illusion. Every moment a new illusion is formed. This new illusion seems to be the same as the previous illusion, but that is also an illusion. [/ QUOTE ] "Illusion" seems a bit off the mark, in the sense of "what is suffering the illusion?" [/ QUOTE ] Nothing. Or the illusion. Depending on how you want to look at it.
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#17
08-09-2007, 01:12 PM
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Re: I am me, right? What if I wasn\'t completely me? Would I still ex
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] "You" are an illusion. Every moment a new illusion is formed. This new illusion seems to be the same as the previous illusion, but that is also an illusion. [/ QUOTE ] "Illusion" seems a bit off the mark, in the sense of "what is suffering the illusion?" [/ QUOTE ] Nothing. Or the illusion. Depending on how you want to look at it. [/ QUOTE ] I'm in the 'the illusion is enjoying the illusion' camp if I'm stuck with word 'illusion'. At least I can't seem to conceive of something that is me but not having any illusion of conscious me that would still have the qualities that make me me. If my brain could stop 100% and then be restarted, what was in existence in that stopped period would not be me. That seems obvious ... which sends out warning puffs to me :-) luckyme
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#18
08-09-2007, 01:46 PM
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Re: I am me, right? What if I wasn\'t completely me? Would I still exist?
This is probably a dumb question, but it's one that I don't know the answer to: Are all of the individual spermatazoa different? I mean, aren't I "lucky" to be alive?
And if they are different, that leads me back to my original question. If the same egg were fertilized with a different sperm or even a different man's sperm, do you think that the person that was created would be part of me? I don't mean me as I exist now, I mean would the consciousness of me exist as that person? I know that I'm not clear on what I mean with that question. I know that twins are 2 seperate people that have different thoughts, but the fact that genetically they are identical is wiggin me out. What makes us individuals? I feel that only perspective changes when you are born and die. I am not talking about god or anything spiritual. Life is life. I've always kind of thought that when I die, I would like to be buried in the ground but not in a casket so I can be eaten by other animals (this is such a weird thought, I know) so that the energy they get from my body can help create new cells within them that may create sperm within them, and then maybe I will be born again and again my perspective will change. I promise you that I'm not high and I'm only semi-retarted. I think I'll end this post now before I get any weirder...
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#19
08-09-2007, 01:48 PM
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Re: I am me, right? What if I wasn\'t completely me? Would I still ex
If you like this topic you might enjoy Douglas Hofstadter's books, i.e Godel, Escher, Bach and I am a Strange Loop.
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#20
08-09-2007, 02:09 PM
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Re: I am me, right? What if I wasn\'t completely me? Would I still ex
[ QUOTE ]
I know that twins are 2 seperate people that have different thoughts, .... What makes us individuals? [/ QUOTE ] You kinda answered your own question. You, your "self", is an emergent property of matter & energy existing within our space-time continuum. When you move, you are no longer the same "self". You think you are the same person, but that is just an illusion. Or, if you prefer, that's just the way we label "you". You are mostly the same from second to second, but ever changing. Are you the same "you" as you were when you were born? Every cell in your body has been replaced or changed. "You" now have different matter, different energy than "you" did then. You have different thoughts, even. So, what is it exactly that makes that "you" when you were born the same "you" now? Nothing. It's an illusion, or just the way we like to think about "you".
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