What Of Your Essence?

Arcturus Descending

If I look into his eyes for long enough the question is answered.

:slight_smile:

Stripy seems at peace to me.

This is true.
:sad-teareye:

I’ve experienced this with Yoda.

Ps: At the risk of sounding foolish, you don’t really have a tiger cub, do you? :blush:
Would you happen to have a little wolf cub available for me? I love wolves - all animals actually.

Arcturus Descending

That is actually not a foolish question at all. As far as I know, some people do keep them. I don’t really have a tiger cub.

When I saw the picture I was drawn to the Cub’s eyes.

Wendy, I’m not just considering physical change, I’m considering mental change as well (if anything changes, it’s the mind). Other than those two–body and mind–I’m not sure what else there is. The ‘self’ is something we project onto ourselves.

Think of it this way: the soul, to me, is like Northern Lights. If you look up at the Northern Lights one late evening, it looks like glowing waves splashing high above the atmosphere. You could keep your eye fixed on one streak or one wave and watch it dancing around with the others–it may stretch, bend, split in two, join with another, and even change color–this is how I imagine the soul–never remaining still, always changing–but you can still identify it, you can still keep your eye fixed on a particular stretch of light and watch it as it moves around, changes shape, goes through different colors, and all the while say “Yep, it’s the same stretch of light.” ← I think we can say the same of the soul: even though it’s never the same from moment to moment, we can still identify it, saying, “that’s the same soul I had yesterday, I remember being that soul, and I remember my seamless experience from then to now.”

If it’s a question of whether the soul will survive death, that has nothing to do with the permanence or fluctuation of the soul. Think of it like a student taking a course. From the beginning of the semester to the end, the student is undergoing constant change–cells are being replaced, personality changes, new memories are formed, more skills and knowledge are acquired–but then what does the professor say after the final exam: “Sorry, kid, can’t let you pass. You’re not the same person who registered for the course.” ← Of course not! You think God would reject you in the afterlife because you technically go through change in this life?

You are still hung up, blinded by your perceptions of what is physical. Is every aspect of being physical to you in how you frame it in your mind’s eye? Is a thought physical? Explain the essence of a thought?

No, I am not a physicalist. I’m only a believer in change. In fact, thoughts are an excellent example of something non-physical (though they do have physical representations in the brain). What is the essence of a thought? Not sure about that one. I think the essence of concepts are just that–essences–that’s what they project as. The essence of knowledge or belief is truth. The essence of remembering is the past. The essence of mental visualizations or fantasy is the mind itself (or the “unreal” as I sometimes call it). ← These are all examples of “thinking”.

Now, there may be no way to resolve this disagreement. If you insist that there is a constant, unchanging soul and I insist that everything changes and we just project identities on things in a recurring fashion, and if we both take these as starting points, then how are either of us going to convince the other?

Well I didn’t ask you to explain thinking, but more a solitary thought. What is the essence of truth? Is truth change as well?

How’s about we flip a coin for the truth?

Truths are not objects. They don’t exist like rocks or trees or things like that. Truths are properties of propositions or statements. When I say “All circles are round,” ← that statement is true. It will always be true. But there is nothing to persist after I’ve made the statement. It’s one of those recurring things. Every time the statement recurs, it’s true. It’s just difficult to imagine the truth value of the statement when it’s not being made. The very attempt to imagine it requires that you bring the statement to mind, and you see that it’s true every time. It gives the impression that the statement, with its truth value, endures even when we are not thinking about it.

Now you are making a distinction between a true statement and a truth, why? I mean, you are still not answering my question. I’m talking about the totality of what’s behind the Wizard of Oz’s curtain, not how to id a circle.

Other than a property of statements, I’m not sure what a “truth” is. Like I said, I don’t believe truth is an object, it’s not something floating around out there. I suppose what you’re talking about is what some people call “the Truth”–as in, “I want to know the Truth.” ← But what is that? What is “the Truth” in general? Is it the whole body of specific truths? Is it the state of reality summed up in one principle? Is it just the state of reality itself? What?

Hey, what’s going on here? :-k You are supposed to be answering questions, not asking a gazillion more. :smiley: :laughing:

Oh, I’m just getting started. :laughing:

Maybe we can do this: you seem to be partial to “essences”–the being of things that defines them as what they are, a sort of “soul” of things–I’m not against essences at all–I believe in them too–but I think they project from us–we give things their essences–they project from thought, from concepts. For me, this sort of puts them in a timeless state. If the essence of something is what defines it as the thing it is, then essences are definitions, the “is-ness” of a thing. Definitions are timeless. If we define a square as a polygon with four equal sides and four right angles, then that holds for all squares for all time–it doesn’t change as a function of time. ← This is where you get your constant. The only difference for me is that I think of such definitions as timeless–not time-bound and unchanging throughout time–but literally outside time (or rather, atemporal). For me, the word “constant” or “unchanging” makes little sense in this context–constancy and change only makes sense within time, a medium in which things can be constant or changing. I don’t think of things outside this context as “constant”. ← And that is probably where our communication breaks down.

Fine, essences are timeless, now what?

Now we have a whole new understanding of what it means for an essence to be “constant”–one that we can agree on. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Great, how will you identify your constant? :-k

You see innocence there. Do his eyes and body language tell you anything different or more?

idunno. If I identify something, I see its essence. ← That would be its constant.

What about you is constant?

Arcturus Descending

I have decided to remain hung up on extraneous, external change for the time being.

:smiley:

You mean what is my essence? I see myself every time I look in the mirror. I identify myself. I say: “That’s gib.” This happens every time. The next time I stand in front of the mirror, I will say: “Yep, still gib.”

But this identification is a recurrence. I sometimes pull away from the mirror and think of other things. The identification comes back only on occasion.

As for the gib I’ve identified, I’m not sure he will stay the same gib forever. I may look in the mirror in 10 years from now and say: “That’s not the same gib I used to be.” Or I may not. I may think it’s the same gib, but trust me, I will have changed.