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Daetyrnis -Recent Account
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 Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:50 pm
This can be down to if a different sperm cell fertilized the egg, or vice versa.
Would you exist? Would you be a conscious within a different body, or would you never participate in existence?
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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:39 pm
I like this train of thought. The idea that we only exist because of something that happened against odds. Weird idea. I'd say, that you still would, but it is interesting. Who knows? Maybe we will have the technology to test that someday.
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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:26 pm
Hmm. I think my teacher once talked about something along those lines, but I can't really remember since he rambled a lot. lol But I think that I would still exist, but I would most likely be a completely different person than I am now. I would look different, talk different, and have a different personality, possibly a different response to my upbringing.
I'd like to think I;d be conscious within a different body, but I don't think that would happen since who I am now was made by my experiences and the events in my life, so there is no way I would be conscious in a different body since I haven't been, well, developed so to say. It would be like a clean canvas waiting to be painted on, no previous outline avaliable.
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:31 am
hm, sometimes I would think about this and come to the conclusion that it wouldn't matter. If a random person's parameters of existence changed as stated, even if it was just a tiny detail, their whole life could be different, or very similar and not really changed at all. But one wouldn't really be able to tell, because they wouldn't be aware of their "other self" because it wouldn't exist.
Usually I just decide that it wouldn't matter whether "I" would be conscious, because "I" is a very strange concept if I think about it too much. It's very specific and means a very specific person, but only when that person uses it. Everyone can use "I" or "me" so it can apply to everyone. Everyone has the ability to be self-aware, so it wouldn't matter if I think "I" would exist if things were different. Someone would exist, and someone would probably ask the same question. In the end, it would all come out equal.
Not sure if that made any sense. confused
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:41 am
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 12:08 pm
I don't think he is questioning our existance but who we are, such as the eternal question: Nature vs. Nurture. Are we raised to be who we are or were we born the way we are?
Personally, I think it would be nurture. I think it wouldn't matter what genetic make-up we may have inside us, it would not define our actions or limitation. What does is what we are taught and how we use those experience in our life. I mean, an example would be those who are children to murderers, child molestors, and other criminals. Many didn't grow doing the same things their parents did, but instead, took a different route in life. Why? Well, one could theorize that they could of gotten the recessive gene, but I strongly doubt it. I believe it was the environment and the effect it had on them. *shrugs* Eh, would type more into it, but i'm in a blah state right now and don't feel like continuing to explain why it is more likely probable that nurture affects our behavior more than our genes. Though I'm not saying genes don't play a part, but in the whole grand scheme of things, it is has a very small role.
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Daetyrnis -Recent Account
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 1:06 pm
I am questioning our existence by the way, not nature versus nature.
What I mean is that if the circumstances leading to your birth were altered, would you exist? By existing, I mean perceiving things, being able to experience things.
We should all agree, at least so a semblance of a verdict, that we all have perception. We view our reality from a specific point of view, and no other. This is exclusive of physical manifestations, as well as personalities; at least in my opinion. For one can change over time, developing new traits and losing aspects of themselves. Are they gradually being replaced by a different conscious? I take a stand with a negative answer to that.
So, if we choose to believe that if this body we inhabit right now did not come to be, that our perception, our state of mind, our existence, this would be perceiving from another physical body.
If we choose to believe this, then we also choose to believe (to some extent) that we all have "souls" (by souls, I am referring to this existence, the "me" inside all of us). This means that your soul exists, correct? Did it always exist, will it continue to after your death? Also, since there cannot be a finite amount of souls (shown in population increase), how are souls created?
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 1:08 pm
Maku the Fox I don't think he is questioning our existance but who we are, such as the eternal question: Nature vs. Nurture. Are we raised to be who we are or were we born the way we are? Personally, I think it would be nurture. I think it wouldn't matter what genetic make-up we may have inside us, it would not define our actions or limitation. What does is what we are taught and how we use those experience in our life. I mean, an example would be those who are children to murderers, child molestors, and other criminals. Many didn't grow doing the same things their parents did, but instead, took a different route in life. Why? Well, one could theorize that they could of gotten the recessive gene, but I strongly doubt it. I believe it was the environment and the effect it had on them. *shrugs* Eh, would type more into it, but i'm in a blah state right now and don't feel like continuing to explain why it is more likely probable that nurture affects our behavior more than our genes. Though I'm not saying genes don't play a part, but in the whole grand scheme of things, it is has a very small role. I wholeheartedly believe that is a combination of both nature and nurture. People can be brought up in entirely different ways, but only to the extent that they can go.
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Daetyrnis -Recent Account
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 5:35 pm
Good threat.
I think maybe i wouldn't exist as myself, but if some of my "brothers" who couldn't live as me, would live, he'd be very similar as what i am, because my parents would bring him up the same way they done with me.
And having the same experience as me, the same traumas, the same education... it would have to me the same similarities that i have with my sister, for example. But if he would born with my same personality (artist, bohemian, unconventional, bold, spontaneous), then he would be very very like me.
But i guess never the same neutral
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 6:57 pm
Well, I believe I'd still exist, just I wouldn't be the way I am now and my thoughts/beliefs would most likely be different. Though, they may be the same. Who knows? It depends on the events that would happen in my life and how my parents acted.
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High-functioning Bookworm
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 8:25 pm
Okay, to make things less confusing, my name is Meg, and my 'other self' is Sue. Meg's parents are Ralph and Mary, and Sue's are Rachael and Bob.
Now, if Ralph and Mary were married, and planning on having a baby, but Ralph went off and had Sue with Rachael, Meg would not exist, because Meg would not be the biological child of Ralph and Mary. Sue would be, as far as genetics go at least, part of what would have been Meg if her father had not copulated with Rachael.
In essence, Meg's and Sue's personalities would, chances are, not be the same. They would be two separate people, with two separate ways of being raised (coming back to Nature vs. Nurture.
I am soo sorry if that was confusing. I find things easier to map out in my mind if I give things names. x.x
()() ()()
( . .) (. . )
O('')('') ('')('')O
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Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 6:57 am
Lets see..... If my grandmother died in the desert when she got lost instead of being rescued by my grandfather.....NO. If my OTHER grandfather was executed (during World War II) instead of escaping thanks to the help of my OTHER grandmother.....NO. If my father never got into a bad motorcycle accident and my mother wasn't his nurse......NO.
In other words, I think that I WOULD exist in a different body, but I would not be me. My grandfather wouldn't have taken me to Egypt and my grandmother wouldn't have taken me to Japan. So I'd be far less cultured.....I've been to many places and if you'd like to see a list then please check out my profile.
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Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 9:31 pm
Well, as my mother told me once when she was drunk, If the condom had done it's job, I wouldn't be here... Okay, so that's a bit crude. But still, if you want to get right down to it, there are a thousand things that could have gone wrong in the process of each person's coming into existance.
I believe that if my body did not come into existance my... awareness or way of perciving things, soul, as you put it, would not be in another body. I belive the two (awareness and flesh) are inextricably(sp) linked.
As to your idea of the developing new traits over time and losing different aspects of a person meaning that they are gradually being replaced by a different conscious... I also view this in the negative. Everything that a person has seen, heard, smelled, done, thought, ect, ect, contributes to his or her personality at this point. Just because a person overcame thier habit of smoking or is better at controling their rage doesn't mean that said chapter or experiance in their life did not affect their personality in some way. Our consciouses are not replaced, merely added to. Or destroyed, eventually.
I hope that made sense... sweatdrop
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Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 2:37 pm
Ah...I believe in the concept of "no self".
Basically, there isn't really a "you" or "me" that can be pinpointed or clearly defined, because it is always changing.
So being born in a different body would just be another change to the impermanent thing that makes the person, or personality in question. And with different circumstances, a different perspective is gained. It would be entirely possibly to gain entirely different morals and values.
However...to take it a step further, you could say that whatever force causes you to occupy a particular body may gravitate toward a certain kind of circumstance, so some things would be surprisingly similar if you had a different life.
But...yes, I do think there would be a "me", just how different it'd be we'll never know.
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Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 2:10 am
I don't think we will exist if we were born; seeing as our existance is merely our brains thinking we semething more than the existance of just a cup. >.>;;
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