(October 12, 2010 at 5:58 pm)R-e-n-n-a-t Wrote: Being conscious individually, as I assume everyone else is, the question comes to mind; why do I exist from a 1st person point of view? Obviously I couldn't exist from a 3rd person POV, but when I die it'll seem to me as if the world ends; MY world will end. How can I explain this... When you sleep without dreaming everything is nonremembered, and seems 'black'. If death is the same, then it'll be lights out for eternity, and therefore I'm wondering why I'm conscious to begin with. Why me? Why here? Why now? Why at all? etc.
Any answers or ideas? I've asked my friends and family, but they don't really grasp the concept of the question.
Your question has so many different answers. All answers are relative, and all answers are limited, restricted only by the point of reference from which they are being answered. For example, there is the Quantum Physical reference point; there is the Metaphysical reference point; there is the Natural (i.e. biological) reference point (which seems a popular reference point based on reading some of the answers to your question); there is the, dare I say, Religious reference point; There are other reference points too, but my favourite is the Guessing reference point. This one is easy because it's not based on fact (referring to even the Scientific reference point), but in short, my own opinion.
There are those who will say, "You are not you. You are me and I am you. We are. Where you end is where I begin." But you do not end and I do not begin. We simply are. You are not your biology as much as I can not be your biology, nor can you be my biology. It has nothing to do with biology in the first place except that biology restricts you. This is a necessary thing (consider order, and the order of things, all things - Quantum Physical point of reference scores!). Am I the car that I drive? I am not. Yet, when I am in the car it moves in accordance with my will (faster slower stop left-turn right-turn or not at all). Is my biology not the same? I can not be in me and in you at the same time. As much as I can not drive one car and be inside another at the same time. It is only when I get out of the car that I can enter another (consider demonic possession - Religious point of reference shoots and scores!) When I look into your eyes I can 'touch' you without touching you (Metaphysical point of reference steps up). When I make love to you at what level do we become one, if we become one at all, and are we not one even before the act. I would surely not want to be one with that thug who's just killed a helpless victim! I still am though. I am one even with the victim (enters empathy - as elaborated on so eloquently in a previous answer) So, do I stop when my biology stops? No (with conviction) you don't. You will never stop (as if I know!). Death is a biological experience only, at least the death we know. You are not your biology, at least I'm of the opinion that you are not, and therefore death will not affect you - only your biology.
However, your question still remains unanswered. To this end I say; This much I do know, i.e., your question can not be answered. At least not by anything that has to employ the use of "biological circuits" to answer it. Consider this though; You have free agency (given to you, or just as a matter of biology - it doesn't matter how you got it, fact is, you have it) and because you are not your biology it would follow that you were before your biology. Which leads to the somewhat less than dramatic conclusion that you must have chosen your biology... (and the family into which you were be born into, environmental conditions, etc. Why choose your specific family and not the Royal from Buckingham? Only you will know). So, let is sink in for a minute! And the reason you don't know this is because no one has ever told you, yet in the deep quiet spaces of your heart you have always known it, and realising it now gives you a sense of peace (biologically, metaphysically, religiously, scientifically - and on all other levels too). So it follows, that if you chose your biology you did so for a reason. Dare I say, purpose! Leading to the even bigger question of "what's next?"
Then there is the time paradox (Quantum Physicists please correct me when I stray) which states that time is not progressive as we know it, moving in one direction only (from yesterday to today to tomorrow), but exists all simultaneously. You exist somewhere in a 'yesterday' as you do now in a 'today' as you do in a 'tomorrow' all simultaneously (without even knowing it) and if you can alter the vibrating energies of your quarks and electrons etc. in the slightest that you can move in-between these levels. So do you ever really die? According to quantum theory you have already died. Your death and your birth is happening at the same time, as is your now. Take a few seconds to consider this. If that is so, it only affirms that I am not and can not be my biology. After all, I am able to perceive and conceive my own consciousness. It can therefore not be my biology that does this (I don't know. I'm just guessing).
And again, there are many more answers to your question. One of these will find root in your heart and grow on you and eventually make sense to you and you'll live your life in accordance with it. The key is to never stop asking the question because it's what makes you individually you. First person..
