One of the Hawaiian Islands is for sale!

[elder999]

By making an argument you acknowledge that you exist and can make something. If you exist and you can make something, you are responsible for it. If you are responsible for it, you own it.

You are conflating doing with being,, when we are talking about "being." While what we do may or may not be part of what we are, and what defines us as a person, it isn't what we are, any more than our bodies are.

A question: does the ocean own the wave? Even after the wave has broken on the shore, and surely no longer exists, but its substance, the water, has remained part of the "body" of the ocean?

What if I found a way to make the matter that holds myself indefinitely organized in such a way that it maintains my Self?

It wouldn't matter: in a year or four hundred, you wouldn't be the same person, so your "personhood," that you are arguing that you "own," would be lost to you-just as you are no longer the "person" you were when you were 2-that personhood is long, long lost, and, I'd wager, barely someone you'd remember......

in any case, if the "matter that holds yourself" became "indefinitely organized," you'd hardly be a "person" anymore, would you? :lol:

 

[Makalakumu]

To be is to do. To do is to claim that you exist. To claim that you exist is to claim ownership of yourself. Claim your existence, Jeff, and sup at the table of reason.

We are like waves in matter, but unlike waves, we seem to have a little more control over our direction, hence ownership exists.

 

[elder999]

To be is to do.

Tell that to a quadriplegic, or a person in a coma.

Or a rock.

"To be is to do,"
sounds like Sinatra,
"to be is to do,"
that's John's mantra"
:lfao:
Just keep telling yourself that....:lol:

To do is to claim that you exist.

To exist is to claim one exists: existance is self-evident. See: a rock.

To claim that you exist is to claim ownership of yourself.

This is an as yet unsupported leap in logic on your part.

We are like waves in matter, but unlike waves, we seem to have a little more control over our direction, hence ownership exists.

I'm going to maintain that the illusion of ownership exists-if ownership exists, and you're in control of the matter that defines you, do me a favor to prove it: take a deep breath, and hold it. Don't let it out.......

for the rest of the day. No inhalations permitted. Try not to do that, okay? :lol:

 

[Makalakumu]

This is an as yet unsupported leap in logic on your part.

Oh, well, why do you practice SELF-defense?

You exist, the products of your existence exist, you are responsible for the products of your existence, therefore you own those products.

Maybe this will help you better understand...

Can I have YOUR liver?

I'm going to maintain that the illusion of ownership exists-if ownership exists, and you're in control of the matter that defines you, do me a favor to prove it: take a deep breath, and hold it. Don't let it out.......

This is entirely possible after a short trip to the hardware store...but no thanks.

Since I own my life, I can decide to do anything I want with it. Even terminate it.

To be is to do
and if I fling poo
at you
you might get pissed...

Why?

LOL

 

[elder999]

Oh, well, why do you practice SELF-defense?

But I'm not denying the existence of the "self," or "personhood." I've only argued that "owership" is illusory.

With that in mind, self-preservation as motivation is self-evident: again, try to hold your breath all day, and you will fail: in an effort to preserve itself, your body will draw breath, independent of what your "self" wills......

I practice self-defense because I never got to play football, and I wanted to be James Bond as a child......:lfao:

 

[Makalakumu]

But I'm not denying the existence of the "self," or "personhood." I've only argued that "ownership" is illusory.

It's a terrible argument and it's one that you don't accept anyway.

Can I have your liver?

See my above post, I've added to it.

 

[elder999]

Can I have your liver?

Sure, just as soon as I'm through with it. :lfao:

 

[elder999]

Oh, well, why do you practice SELF-defense?

You exist, the products of your existence exist, you are responsible for the products of your existence, therefore you own those products.

My children are the products of my existence-I don't own them.

In fact, I dare you to try telling them that I do....:lfao:

This is entirely possible after a short trip to the hardware store...but no thanks.

No, it truly is not. The motivation to draw breath is chemically induced in most healthy people by high levels of CO2 in the bloodstream. This cannot be mitigated for the length of a day by O2 saturation, or any other means-you breathe in because you must-it's why people drown-they breathe in water as though in air.

Since I own my life, I can decide to do anything I want with it. Even terminate it.

You have now re-identified the "self" with the body. You can certainly terminate the life of your body, if you decide to-at which point, the illusion of ownership of that body will have come to an end.

Of course, for the purposes of this discussion, neither of us can definitively state that the "self" would actually come to an end at that point, or the illusion of self-ownership-we can only say that the self will be separated from the body.

 

[Makalakumu]

Sure, just as soon as I'm through with it. :lfao:

I bet if I came to get it now, you'd demonstrate some ownership.

And, yes, for a time you own your children until they are responible enough to own themselves.

Lastly, the self ends when the body ends. Can you demonstrate otherwise?

 

[elder999]

I bet if I came to get it now, you'd demonstrate some ownership.

It would be a response directed toward self-preservation, no different than that demonstrated in response to any other threat to the body-including inhaling water and drowing.

And, yes, for a time you own your children until they are responible enough to own themselves.

I'd submit that I had stewardship of my children-which is not "ownership."

Lastly, the self ends when the body ends. Can you demonstrate otherwise?

Can you demonstrate that it's a fact that the self ends when the body ends? No. It's simply what you choose to believe, based on other apparent facts. It's as I posted, for the purposes of this discussion, neither of us can make a definitive statement on the status of the "self" after the dissolution of the body.I can assert that the self is separated from the body, of course, whether it has actually ceased to exist or gone elsewhere-it is clearly separate from the body, once the body is dead.

 

[Makalakumu]

If I came to get a kidney, and had the proper training, you could survive that. Therefore, it's no longer a matter of self preservation. You could choose to defend yourself and demonstrate ownership of that kidney.

I agree, stewardship is a good concept when dealing with children, but ownership is unfortuneately more accurate. A person can sell their children and there is a certain age this becomes impossible. And don't forget Dueteronomy...lol.

If I damage the brain, I can permanently alter the Self. Therefore, the Self is dependent of the function of the body. Thus, we can infer that if we damage the body to a point where it ceases to function, the self dissolves. If you believe that the Self is separate from the body, it's up to you to prove it.

On a side note, are we misusing the word Self?

 

[elder999]

If I came to get a kidney, and had the proper training, you could survive that. Therefore, it's no longer a matter of self preservation. You could choose to defend yourself and demonstrate ownership of that kidney.

If you needed a kidney, I'd give you one.

I agree, stewardship is a good concept when dealing with children, but ownership is unfortuneately more accurate.

No, stewardship is what it was.

A person can sell their children and there is a certain age this becomes impossible. And don't forget Dueteronomy...lol.

One cannot legally sell children, so it doesn't fit that model of ownership. Nor would a quasi-legal "grey market:" adoption.

Deuteronomy? I don't think so.

Deuteronomy 4:9-10Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.
"Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children."

If I damage the brain, I can permanently alter the Self.

You can permanently alter the expression of the self-there is no telling what the actual state of the self (of another) is.

Your example also is further demonstrating the lack of ownership of the self, thank you. If the self (or its expression) can be permanently altered, how can you claim ownership.

Therefore, the Self is dependent of the function of the body.

The expression of the self might be dependent upon the function of the body, but the self clearly is not: ask Stephen Hawking.

Thus, we can infer that if we damage the body to a point where it ceases to function, the self dissolves.

All we can infer is that the self no longer has access to that body to express itself.Whether it ceases to function with that body-dissolves-or goes elsewhere-are both equally undisprovable.

If you believe that the Self is separate from the body, it's up to you to prove it.

What I "believe" is irrelevant. As I said, both are undisprovable, and are, therefore, equally untenable.

On a side note, are we misusing the word Self?

Let's see what the Merriam Webster's English language technical manual has to say:

a : the entire person of an individual b : the realization or embodiment of an abstraction
2
a (1) : an individual's typical character or behavior <her true self was revealed> (2) : an individual's temporary behavior or character <his better self> b : a person in prime condition <feel like my old self today>

3
: the union of elements (as body, emotions, thoughts, and sensations) that constitute the individuality and identity of a person

4
: personal interest or advantage

5
: material that is part of an individual organism <ability of the immune system to distinguish self from nonself>

nah, we're using it correctly,.,,,,,,,,,,,

 

[Jenna]

If my personhood isn't comprised of anything tangible, what is it composed of? If I am not my body, what am I?

Imagine you step into a Star Trek teleporter and by some accident (Geordi LaForge has been on the saki) you are duplicated and out steps two known as Makalakumu.

There are now two who both have the same bodies, scars, features, memories from childhood onwards and same experiences, everything.

Which is you?

.. interesting conversation btw.. Thank you

 

[elder999]

There are now two who both have the same bodies, scars, features, memories from childhood onwards and same experiences, everything.

Which is you?

And does he own the other one? :lfao:
]

 

[Makalakumu]

If you needed a kidney, I'd give you one.

You can give me a kidney, because you own it. If it wasn't yours, how could you "give" it to me?

No, stewardship is what it was.

I think if it came down to you and I comparing our parenting philosophies, we'd both agree that we are more like stewards rather then owners. However, logically, parents do own their children until they are capable of owning themselves. There is no universal moral handbook that gets handed out when a child is born and even though we may choose to extend rights to our children, we do not have to. The truth is that humans may sell their children. People all over the world do it all of the time and right now the United States is the #1 destination country for trafficked children. As much as I hate to admit it, for all practical purposes, children are property until they are capable of taking care of themselves.

One cannot legally sell children, so it doesn't fit that model of ownership. Nor would a quasi-legal "grey market:" adoption.

The laws of a country may or may not have any logical basis. Often we conflate the idea that our laws reflect the true nature of things, but most of the time they only show us how we prefer things to be. I like to examine these things from the perspective of an alien observing from his spaceship. What would it say about us.

That said...

Deuteronomy? I don't think so.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21
“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

I might be reading this wrong and you're the biblical scholar, so I'll defer to you, but the alien is going to jot down in it's notebook that humans regularly kill their own children. In our own culture, we kill our children starting shortly after they've been conceived and ending shortly before they are born. The children are treated this way because they are property...but there is something else to consider when it comes to humans.

I do not consider it moral to kill or sell children. This is because I think that it is immoral to initiate force against another individual, which includes children. I think that when you combine the principle of Self-Ownership and the Non-Aggression Principle, your parenting ends up looking like Stewardship.

You can permanently alter the expression of the self-there is no telling what the actual state of the self (of another) is. The expression of the self might be dependent upon the function of the body, but the self clearly is not: ask Stephen Hawking.

We can clearly test the connection between the self and the body, but there is no way we can actually test if the self is separate from the body. I think we can both agree on this. However, why should anyone believe that the self is separate from the body in the first place? IMO, the whole idea is a spiritual hangover from the days of souls, ghosts and demons. All we know is that the expression of the self is dependent on the body, therefore we can infer that the self is the body and nothing else.

Stephen Hawking has a diseased damaged musculature, but his brain still works. I know plenty of people who are not the same people they once were because of the damage taken to their brains. The physical arrangement of the anatomy determines who that person is and is the source of the self.

All we can infer is that the self no longer has access to that body to express itself.Whether it ceases to function with that body-dissolves-or goes elsewhere-are both equally undisprovable.

Essentially, we are debating whether the body is an antennae or a transmitter. We both know that we can prove the physical nature of both. What we are missing is the signal. Can you prove that a signal exists? Do you follow my metaphor?

 

[Makalakumu]

Imagine you step into a Star Trek teleporter and by some accident (Geordi LaForge has been on the saki) you are duplicated and out steps two known as Makalakumu.

There are now two who both have the same bodies, scars, features, memories from childhood onwards and same experiences, everything.

Which is you?

.. interesting conversation btw.. Thank you

A zygote splits into two identical halves. They are born identical to one another. Are they the same person?

 

[Makalakumu]

And does he own the other one? :lfao:

Nope, but I own my self. And my Star Trek Transporter Identical Twin would own himself.

Self-ownership (or sovereignty of the individual, individual sovereignty or individual autonomy) is the concept of property in one's own person, expressed as the moral or natural right of a person to have bodily integrity, and be the exclusive controller of his own body and life. According to G. Cohen, the concept of self-ownership is that "each person enjoys, over himself and his powers, full and exclusive rights of control and use, and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else that he has not contracted to supply."

Therefore, my twin has no obligation to give me one of his kidneys. If I chose to take it by force, he would have every right to defend himself.

 

[elder999]

You can give me a kidney, because you own it. If it wasn't yours, how could you "give" it to me?

I don't own it, any more than I own my body.

I would actually be giving over stewardship of my body's kidney. Just as with my children, I have stewardship over my body-I don't own it; we will be separated. You would have stewardship of my donated kidney, with all that entails, including regular doses of immunosupressive drugs.

If you think you "own" the organization of the matter that constitutes your body, try maintaining its functions with donated stewardship of another body's organ, and no immunosupressive drugs......:lfao:

I think if it came down to you and I comparing our parenting philosophies, we'd both agree that we are more like stewards rather then owners. However, logically, parents do own their children until they are capable of owning themselves.

Parents don't own themselves or their children. No one "owns" anything, especially someone else: if you don't own your self, how can you own anything else?

We can clearly test the connection between the self and the body, but there is no way we can actually test if the self is separate from the body. I think we can both agree on this.

Good-then I'll maintain that the self is separate from the body.

However, why should anyone believe that the self is separate from the body in the first place?

Goes back to one of my original, unanswered (by you) questions: where is the "self" when he body is sleeping?

IMO, the whole idea is a spiritual hangover from the days of souls, ghosts and demons.

Did those days ever end? :lol:

Souls,ghosts and demons are all also equally undisprovable.

All we know is that the expression of the self is dependent on the body, therefore we can infer that the self is the body and nothing else.

Writing is dependent upon a pencil-can we infer that thought is pencils, and nothing else? :lol:

. The physical arrangement of the anatomy determines who that person is and is the source of the self.

Again, you're confusing the pencil with the thought.

Essentially, we are debating whether the body is an antennae or a transmitter. We both know that we can prove the physical nature of both.

That's funny-we're getting closer here.From the end of a long poem I wrote 20 years ago:

And the luckless just-just stand there.
It is not the terror of the sky-
that giant sky-that sky
whose points of light we connect
to write our daily tales of other worlds
of chemical life, gaseous life,
of earths that are the mirror of this earth.
It is not that terror that breaks the I,
but the fresh report of disaster:
"THERE IS AN ANTENNA IN THE SPINE OF MAN!!"
and who can bear
to bear that news within?

What we are missing is the signal. Can you prove that a signal exists? Do you follow my metaphor?

and the last verse:

To switch it off. To hear intricity,
to crawl, eyeless on the city floor,
to switch it off,
and sink in stars' harmonia.
THe patterns of particle and molecule,
the long-dancing message
that sings in the spirals
-that will sing in spite,
to switch it off and live in static.
Yes, this hand is a retreat.
The airwaves are full of voices:
shades sing in the alley:
their songs smear the window:
the revolutions of history
the repetitions of myth,
the tale of blood running
through the brain, and through the street.
Like many others,
I try to live within this shape.

We live in very different worlds, John. I'll let you know when I'm in Hawaii next, though I don't imagine it'll be soon-though I plan on being in the South Pacific in December, I think I'll be a bit far off from your islands. Perhaps you'll make it here to New Mexico-in either case, I'll be glad to help you tune into that signal, and see for yourself. Normally it shouldn't take more than a night. Really-it will either happen or it won't.

 

[Makalakumu]

If stewardship is the closest we can get to agreement, that is good enough for me. I think my concept of ownership is probably closer to stewardship anyway because I fully acknowledge my own impermanence. I can only "own" a thing for a little while until I dissolve into the mists of time.

That said, this business about the nonlocality of self is not something I'm going to go with. I feel lots of strange things, but I don't "see" the signal. I don't think there is any reason to believe in the signal. Maybe a strong dose of entheogens would help? Lol!

 

[Makalakumu]

Oh and yeah, when you come to Hawaii, let me know. Two consciousness waves in matter can constructively interfere with another kind of matter wave.

Surfs up and Lanai is for sale...whatever that means...lol.