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I can't wrap my head around this
June 13, 2014 at 6:50 pm
(This post was last modified: June 13, 2014 at 6:51 pm by Tea Earl Grey Hot.)
The question whose answer eludes and perplexes me the most is "why am I me and not somebody else?" Why is my state of consciousness that of being a male born in 1990 rather than say a woman in china 4000 years ago or an alien in another part of the universe? For all I know I could have been a turtle but I'm not. I'm me!
Why?!
Does anybody else wonder this?
Does this make any sense?!
My ignore list
"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
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RE: I can't wrap my head around this
June 13, 2014 at 6:53 pm
Because A is A, if A was B, it would be B?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: I can't wrap my head around this
June 13, 2014 at 8:10 pm
(June 13, 2014 at 6:50 pm)Tea Earl Grey Hot Wrote: The question whose answer eludes and perplexes me the most is "why am I me and not somebody else?" Why is my state of consciousness that of being a male born in 1990 rather than say a woman in china 4000 years ago or an alien in another part of the universe? For all I know I could have been a turtle but I'm not. I'm me!
Why?!
Does anybody else wonder this?
Does this make any sense?! It doesn't make sense unless you believe in a soul that waits in some kind of limbo to choose or be assigned to a body.
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RE: I can't wrap my head around this
June 13, 2014 at 8:17 pm
(June 13, 2014 at 6:50 pm)Tea Earl Grey Hot Wrote: The question whose answer eludes and perplexes me the most is "why am I me and not somebody else?" Why is my state of consciousness that of being a male born in 1990 rather than say a woman in china 4000 years ago or an alien in another part of the universe? For all I know I could have been a turtle but I'm not. I'm me!
Why?!
Does anybody else wonder this?
Does this make any sense?!
I wondered. But I am feeling much better now.
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RE: I can't wrap my head around this
June 13, 2014 at 8:17 pm
Maybe, at this exact moment, you ARE a woman in China 4000 years ago, asking why you weren't born in 1990 as a man, or as an alien in another part of the universe, and perhaps that is why you are now asking the question. 
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RE: I can't wrap my head around this
June 13, 2014 at 8:23 pm
(This post was last modified: June 13, 2014 at 8:32 pm by Ravenshire.)
I was think of this not long ago when My wife made a comment that our kids would be the same people even if we had waited a couple years or had them sooner. I don't think that's the case. I may be way off base but this is the way I figure it. You are you, because of your unique chemical and biological make-up coupled with the fact that you were raised in a unique environment. Your conscious self is tied to your physical self and is, at least in part, dependent on it. You could never have been born earlier or later than you were. You could never have been born to a different set of parents or as an animal.
I think that it's a mental frame of reference that not only divorces the mind from the body, but puts the mind before the body. The body must come first, then it's inseparable mind.
It was a bit of an epiphany for me to completely change the way I had looked at something and see that it made more sense than what I had thought before.
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RE: I can't wrap my head around this
June 13, 2014 at 8:24 pm
(This post was last modified: June 13, 2014 at 8:25 pm by Vox.)
If you were a Hindu whom believed in reincarnation I would suggest perhaps a Chinese woman was one of your past lives and you may be experiencing nostalgia.
Since your an Athiest, I'd just say it's the luck of the draw and there's not really much deeper to think about it. Any arguments attempting to probe deeper into that line of thought would likely hinge heavily on some sense of destiny, fate, divine will or something of that kind.
Tis' pot luck
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RE: I can't wrap my head around this
June 13, 2014 at 8:48 pm
(June 13, 2014 at 8:10 pm)bennyboy Wrote: (June 13, 2014 at 6:50 pm)Tea Earl Grey Hot Wrote: The question whose answer eludes and perplexes me the most is "why am I me and not somebody else?" Why is my state of consciousness that of being a male born in 1990 rather than say a woman in china 4000 years ago or an alien in another part of the universe? For all I know I could have been a turtle but I'm not. I'm me!
Why?!
Does anybody else wonder this?
Does this make any sense?! It doesn't make sense unless you believe in a soul that waits in some kind of limbo to choose or be assigned to a body.
I hope that was sarcasm.
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RE: I can't wrap my head around this
June 13, 2014 at 8:59 pm
Tegh, if you were somebody else, then that somebody else would be you and you'd be right back at square one, asking the same thing and getting same reply.
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RE: I can't wrap my head around this
June 13, 2014 at 9:01 pm
(June 13, 2014 at 6:50 pm)Tea Earl Grey Hot Wrote: The question whose answer eludes and perplexes me the most is "why am I me and not somebody else?" Why is my state of consciousness that of being a male born in 1990 rather than say a woman in china 4000 years ago or an alien in another part of the universe? For all I know I could have been a turtle but I'm not. I'm me!
Why?!
Does anybody else wonder this?
Does this make any sense?!
I think everyone wonders this sometime or another, usually early. The answer is really very simple: BECAUSE. I wish there were a better answer, but that appears to it.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.
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