These are the central questions of human existence. In this blog we shall explore the possible answers to these questions.

A summary question might be: "Who Am I?"  Let's see what the answers which have been given in history from many different disciplines and then decide for ourselves.

Let's start next time. But, first let's set the stage. 

All of life presumes that I, you and the world exists.

But first take a look at the nature of existence written about in my blogs on this site, especially the ones on Einstein and Physics. 

The idea here is simple: In order to know who I am I have to have answer to the question of what is the nature of existence itself; and, since I exist, I must be part of that larger existence which we call the Universe.

This is the only real topic of literature, science, love, marriage, history, etc. Let's see if I am right.

Yep. This is not going to be easy. Let's get started tomorrow.

2/5/13

As we begin you might want to peruse these blogs below. They deal with the latest science on the Universe but I look at it as the lastest ideas from the science community as to the nature of existence.

After you read those come on back and we will look at the various ideas on the nature of existence as they relate to us as human beings being part of that existence.

Then we start at the bottom with you and I and our individual selves and work our way up to the nature of existence itself trying to understand how concepts of Self, Identify, and Story-Telling all fit into trying to answer the big questions of Who Am I, Where Did We all Come From, and What is the Meaning of Life Itself.

A tall order, indeed, but a fun one to explore. We will go through all of history and see how others have answered that question and then I will have a go with my own ideas.

Finally, after all that work we will see if we can surmise the answer to the central question which is "What is the Meaning of LIfe-Why Am I Here?

 The first article below might blow your mind. Scientists now have proven that all particles, atoms and, by extension, individual brains and individuals therefore, are in continuous contact with one another across the entire universe. This is called "Entanglement."

It seems that the Universe, in the latest scientific thinking, has a universal consciousness and might be a form of life in itself. (Gulp)

I know. It is a wild idea. But read on and decide for your self. Then we talk.

(PS: You might want to read more of the articles on this site which are part of the Einstein series. Most are relevant to this discussion) Then we are back to continue this discussion.

This blog might go on forever.

 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070905133621.htm

"Entanglement is a fascinating property connecting quantum systems. Albert Einstein called it the "spooky action at a distance." This bizarre coupling can link particles, even if they are located on opposite sides of the galaxy."

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=55503&authorid=121255

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=46412&authorid=121255

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=52321&authorid=121255

More Tomorrow.

  http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=55379&authorid=121255

 http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?id=55503&authorid=121255

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100927083907.htm

 2/6/13

What is the summary of the science view?

Well if you have read the above from the scientific community, the Physics community  you can see there is more or less agreement on the following:

1: The Universe is connected from galaxies to atoms, to biology, to the human brain, to extra dimensions and parallel universes. The Large Hadron Collider in Geneva (see my blogs on this on this site) is designed to try to answer further questions on all of this.

2: The everyday world we see actually hides an unseen world which is controlled by electo-magnetism, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force and gravity. Pointedly, the real nature of existence is hidden from us and we cannot see atoms even as we now know they really exist.

3-Existence may be multiple, multiple unverses, multiple verisons of ourselves; that past present and future might be united and exist at the same time.

4-Finally, these universes may be all connected not only together but in the human brain that is within our individual selves as well. We are all one entity, is the logical conclusion of the scientific view. Surprizing huh?

What is the Religious View?

Surprizing, the religions view is very close to the above. From pagan religions, to Christianity, to Islam, to the Eastern Religions, all agree that there is an unseen world which is not immediately accessible to most of us and that world is relevant to our every day lives.

That other world may contain God orGods, demons, spirits, angels, heaven, hell, Nivarnna, or the like, but it is real and relies on our faith, on magic, or special shamans for us to access it, but, it is considered real even if we canot see it.

Sounds exactly like the scientific conclusions except the religious folks sometimes claim that existence is the purposeful creation of God, or of forces of nature or of entities like Greek or Roman Gods. From this is derived meaning for our lives, and rules to govern our lives. The science paradgm does not go as far as positing a God or controlling entity, but most religions do go this far.

The Ancients:

Ancients. like Plato. also posited an unseen world, that is the world of the "perfect forms."

We in our understanding live in a cave not able to see the hidden world of perfect forms lying outside our cave, but the perfect world exists and forms the basis of our understanding of the generic aspects of our cave world.

For example, we see a dog but that dog is a reflection, an imperfect reflection, of the perfect dog which exists outside the cave. We have these perfect form memories in our brains which is how we recognize a dog we encounter in this world. The other perfect world is the one where we or our mind actually came from and we have memories from that which is how we recognize the artifacts of that world as we live in our cave.

Humm,,

But, humans being human, want to know not only about existence and hidden worlds. We want to know what does it all mean to us as individuals and we want to answers to questions such as "Who Am I" what is my unique identity in all of this.

Existence is nice to understand but I would like to know more about ME.

So we ask, what about our unique identities in the existences identified above. What have been the ideas around that in history.

That on the morrow.

2/7/13

Chapter Three

Now the question becomes who or what is the entity that contemplates Existence itself;  who or what is the entity which is conscious of itself, and what is individual about each of those entities even as we acknowledge that somehow we are all connected together at the Universal level?
Humm, that is a tall order. How has it been discussed in the past and with what results?

The Rene Decartes methodology was to ask who or what is doing the thinking about all this. He concluded with his famous dictum that "I think therefore, I am" as a way of proving that individual existence is comprehendable by individuals who think. 

After all, groups don't "think" in the way an individual does, the way an individual can monitor his or her own thoughts. Who is doing that thinking separate from the thinker or the thinking?

Is this identity, consciousness, self, ego, superego, or is that entity thinking merely telling itself a story about thinking.?

Indeed, is existence itself a story that this thinking entity tells itself to make sense of the world and, indeed, is existence itself the central story this individual entity  tells itself to make sense of the world.

Are we merely ideas in the mind of God, are we living a a made-up SIMs simulation or in the bowels of some super computer?

Last, is all of the world, existence itself, merely reflections of a real world which exists only in the mlnd of God and we participate in this but are destined never to fully understand it all because we are not God?

Weighty topics indeed. But let us proceed fearlessly. Let's start our examination of the entity that thinks about itself thinking with a little experiment.

We are sitting here at our desk reading or writing this very sentence. Who is reading this sentence, who is thinking about it? How is it possible for one individual to comprehend another's thoughts on paper and who is that individual thlnking, reading, and thinking about her or his thinking while thinking?  Huh, you say?

That is the question that questions of identify often start with. Sometimes the question is evaded with a ready answers like, I am a child of God, I am a warrior for the state, I am a family member, I am a mother or father, or an American etc.

But sitting  here at your desk who or what is the entity that is thinking that?

 Clearly, some process involving the idea of the above, is located inside the human brain separate from the roles described above.

Stated differently, we know nothing of the world which is not filtered through our senses and our thoughts, stories, and the interpertations of the outer world we make. 

A blind man will describe the world very differently that a sighted man.

More, perhaps each individual, if we could really see inside that person, may be living in very different world that the one we think is clear, real and obvious.

We know this is true to some extent.

But as Lord Berkeley once demonstrated while walking in a garden: (paraphrasing) "I walk over to this rock and I kick it and it hurts my toe. The rock is real to me and real to you as well because our toes hurt. The world exists and is real, that is the message of our hurting toe. The world is not, thus a story we individually tell ourselves.

But maybe a more interesting question in all of this would be "I Am Therefore I Think;" This would be interesting to explore.

Humm, let's discuss on the morrow.

2/8/13
Chapter Four

The upshot of the above statements is that it is either the fact that existence preceeds thinking, or thinking preceeds existence.

If you believe that we all exist in the mind of God, or even the Universe itself, or in a computer matrix you would conclude that thought, (here in the mind of God, or in the composition or even the entanglement of the Universe itself,) preceeds existence.

Thought ,therefore, produces what we see as the material world, or existence. If thought preceeds existence then it is logical to also assume that the thinker preceeds existence. This is the view of Plato, of Nietzsche  and many other reputable thinkers.

See link below on Nietzsche:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche

In summary, this view simply states that existence as created by God or primal forces, Gods etc. preceeds mortal thinkers.

So I the thinker came after creation and my thought process is conditioned by that existence and its maker or creation.

Scholars have argued, we the thinkers and our thoughts, are a part of that creation process, which is why we seem to have certain built-in tendencies.

For example, humans and many animals seem to have built in moral sense, a sense of right and wrong.  Humans seem to need, want and sense there is a higher meaning to life, existence and human intercourse.

That, the prior existence people claim, comes from the nature of existence and whomever or what ever built it. Strangely again, both the science community and the religious community member might agree albeit for different reasons. 

Others claim that thought, the human brain, and the act of thinking is throughly explainable in ordinary terms of evolution, brain chemistry, and human interactions which stimulate us from which we form ideas, culture and society. This, they claim does not require the presence or continuing influence of makers or a creator.

Confused. Why yes, I am too.

So lets us step back and try to brush aside the words and get at the kernel of the ideas here.

Let's start with a simple question: Where does appitude come from?

Some children, prodigies, for example, seem to be born with abilities which they simply could not have acquired in society. But where did the appitude come from then?

Here have been some answers:

Aptitudes are God-Given and mysterious
Aptitudes are a function of multiple selves existing simultaneously in multiple universes and dimensions. (Gulp)
Aptitudes are simply accidents of brain chemistry
Aptitudes are simply the accident of birth and brain construction.
Aptitudes are the result of genes and the interaction of the child and its parents.

But there is a rub in all of the above ideas: None of them can answer the simple question of what is an idea, and where do thoughts come from?

No one knows. We know where in the brain ideas, thoughts, and even feelings are located and active. But we don't have a clue how an idea happens out of nothing or where it came from. Spooky, huh?

More on the morrow.

2/8/13
Chapter Five

Now let's distinguish the concept of identity from the question of who am I?

If you think about identity  it is a very peculiar notion.

For example:

  1. Your identity can be stolen. Huh? Yes, and the reason is that this notion of identity highlights the incredible idea that identity is bestowed upon you by institutions, mainly the government.  And, therefore government and others can take that identity away. Happens everyday.

If you don't have a birth certificate or papers in many countries you don't exist in the eyes of some governments.

Thus identity is often a governmental matter. It goes much further. You aren't married unless some government says you are, and if you try to get married without official government approval you are a criminal. This is an amazing notion if you think about it carefully. A private matter has be made subject to governmental control and for governmental purposes.

2.Identity is often a role-based notion. My identity is that I am a mom, or a dad, or a police man. 

This is a notion that our identifies are based in our roles in institutions. Again a peculiar notion. Am I simply my role in institutions, even the family?

Apparently.

But why should this be the basis for identity? Obviously I still exist even if society takes away my identify. So what is still there and is independent of all of the above?Aha, that is what we are after and trying to understand.

3. Identity is often described in terms of one's skills, or accomplishments. A fascinating  exercise is to read what people say about themselves on Twitter profiles. Here you have only 140 characters to answer the question "Who Are You?

Most give a name, their accomplishments, their status as mom, dad, or something work or goal related. Some are rebellious and give us only an icon to look at. Some don't say anything for various reasons.

This tells us what the problem is: People don't know how to identify themselves beyond the parameters of what society allows and bestows.

Now do other societies do it differently? We have examples. Perhaps early Christians would have identified themselves first and foremost as "Children of God."  

Today it is common for people to identify themselves as "scientists" What is that?

Here we see identity placed outside of society and/or above society depending upon your point of view.

But notice that often, as well, their identity pointers are simultaneously fudged onto the individual as the pointers which gives meaning to that person's entire life. If I come to believe that the entire meaning of my life is to play some role society has placed upon me, I will fail to have a concept of an individual identity for myself, and will as many do, come to feel something is missing. I may make for myself an identity as that of the rebel, against society, against my family, against some theory in science or religion and thereby, in my mind, create a new identity for myself.

Is it possible to create an identify for oneself separate from society?

So you see this identity thing is not easy to get our hands around.

So, if the state and society notions of identity most often do not give meaning or understanding to us about our individual selves what to do?

Perhaps, asking of the world to explain our individual meaning to the world in terms of our individual selves is asking too much and doomed to failure. Could that be true ?

The quick among you will surmise that what many have done and do is story telling about ourselves in that gap with story-telling to ourselves  to give life more meaning that it currently may, in fact, have.

Humm,,


Let's have a look on the morrow. 

 2/11/13
Chapter Six

The longing for individual meaning is clear among humans and is, perhaps, what distinguishes us from animals. But how to derive individual meaning among billions of individuals where each individual is given his or her special meaning and place in the universe?

Humans, nonetheless, insist upon such individual meaning and have sought it through out history.

We invent meaning if none is readily available, deriving it from religion, science, society, insititutions and individual concoctions. One can look at all of history as humankinds search for such meaning not wanting to accept a world where Existence is all there is and has no intrinsic meaning.

This need to create meaning has given us imagination, creativity, literature, poetry, music, all of what we call culture and much of what we call progress.

The capacity to imagine what does not yet exist and then pursue that dream in order to make that dream come alive and into existence is perhaps the greatest gift humans have.

And it is the most mysterious gift humans have. Story-telling is where I think this gift was honed, created around cave campfires and continues to fuel human imagination.

We, indeed, do tell stories, to ourselves, to each other, about each other and about worlds, and in science fiction, worlds which do not exist at all.

We love story-telling because through stories we betow upon our selves and others that missing meaning. Or we amplify current meanings and extend them.

In fact, language itself may be the result of the drive toward meaning, toward some kind of orientation for ourselves in the world.

Who Am I?

This question makes it readily apparent that humankind has shown that it is ready to answer that question by literally making up stories to explain ourselves to ourselves.

But is story telling truth?

Does simply making up a story make it true or even possibily true ? Does it satisfy that deep longing in us for meaning, for usefulness in our lives, to feel that we are worth something and have or can accomplish something in our sojourn on the planet?

If we are the animal which seeks meaning then we see we have come full circle from the above:

How is it that we are the animal which can create ideas and stories about things which do not exist?

 That is, what does it mean to be an animal which can create ideas which, it appears, can come from nothing. We, as pointed out above, have no clue where ideas come from or the imagings which they represent.

So what is the nature of this process of creation from nothing?

 Secondarily, is the focus on ideas which is a cerebal function wise?
Are you one giant brain? Where is meaning found, in the brain, in the body, in one's living circumstance, in one dreams?
Where does meaning live? 
There have been different answers to this question down through history. Lets have a look.


That on the morrow.

2/14/13
Chapter Seven

The locus of identify, personality, the Soul, meaning, Self and a number of other identifiers has varied through out history.

Some have located the capacity for creating meaning totally outside the perview of the individual.

Meaning is bestowed, sometimes with effort, through faith or belief in God or Gods, entities which lie outside the individual, Only through right practice can the individual receive, or participate in meaning through higher beings, higher laws, or even community itself.

The latter is the actual faith upon which precepts about democracy and democratic rule is based. The individual can only find meaning in the community which democratic participation represents. We are one and one are we. So you see meaning is not an abstract idea at all and is embe dded in the institutions we deal with every day.

Here we see that meaning adheres not to individuals but to groups, or systems of various kinds; in democractic government, in Communism, in Capitalism, in religious groups.
Here individual meaning is de-emphasized and replaced by groups and components of society. Some of the ideas here claim that human kind became and is human only to the extent each of us is part of a group.

After all, no individual gives birth to himself or herself. We are all born into a group, family first, presumably.

So individual meaning for one's life has to derive from the group experience.
 

But some philsophies claim, once here, individual meaning can be derived from accomplishments, status, or within groups, or by aherence to various customs and rules, the group might require. Connectedness then provides the ultimate nature of meaning available to us.

Other groups declare that individual meaning in the end is a fruitless quest because it doesn't exist outside the group at all no matter how many groups one might belong to.

Ultimate meaning here is often a re-union with the one ness of heaven, God, Nirvanna, or the everlastin-available to us only after our deaths.

Life is seperation itself and cannot give meaning to individual lives. Existence is the veil of sufferiing we must endure until re-unity is achieved after we leave this earthly plane.

Well, this is a very large peanut and butter sandwich indeed to take on.
Let's have another look at other ideas on the morrow.