The Buddhist view of self

[Gavin]

I would like to discuss the buddhist idea that there is no permanent, identifiable, distinctive "self", but that human beings are simply streams of conscienceness, similar to the flame on a candle burning down the wick. Buddhists say that impermanence characterizes a human being.

Is this idea logically tenable? Thoughts?

[Peter Kirby]

I am not nearly familiar enough with Buddhism, so I would want to be careful about not mixing in modern Western Buddhism or popular science into the teachings of the actual religion ... where can I read about the ancient Buddhist teaching on the self?

On the level of ideas, though, I had great fun many years ago discovering the book _The Mind's I_ by Hofstadter and Dennett. It is pure philosophical cotton candy and is highly recommended if you'd like to clarify to yourself your concept of 'self'.

There are many different intuition pumps one can use on the subject. One is the fantasy that nanotechnology somehow has developed such that it is possible to analyze a human being down to the molecular level and create an identical replica elsewhere--on the other side of the room or on the other side of the galaxy, it matters not. If there are now two copies of your body, which is 'you'? I would guess that the older body is 'mine' because it is the one with all the same stuff. So presumably this other body is an imposter. But what if this was billed as a teleportation device? What if my entire body was reassembled on the other side of the room with all the same physical parts, after being disassembled? If the copy was an imposter, why wouldn't the recreation be an imposter?

When you ponder things like this, one wonders if the concept of a single indivisible and enduring 'self' that is above and beyond our body and memory may be illusory.

best,
Peter Kirby

[Gavin]

Hello Peter!

Thank you for your response.

I am not nearly familiar enough with Buddhism, so I would want to be careful about not mixing in modern Western Buddhism or popular science into the teachings of the actual religion ... where can I read about the ancient Buddhist teaching on the self?

Well, for starters, try here.

As for your other comments, I don't think the idea of possessing an eternal soul dictates that there are "two copies" of human beings. I think the idea is that there is a part of our being which is spiritual and eternal and invisible.

Blessings,
Gavin

[Peter Kirby]

Hi Gavin,

Thanks for the link.

I wasn't trying to suggest that spirit-belief presupposes the existence of two copies of a human being. Most spirit believers (as far as I know) think that the spirit is a non-physical part of a human being where lies consciousness and responsibility. My intuition pump concerned the question of what would happen if technology allowed someone to make a perfect replica of a human body.

best,
Peter Kirby

[Gavin]

Peter,

Hi Gavin,

Thanks for the link.

I wasn't trying to suggest that spirit-belief presupposes the existence of two copies of a human being. Most spirit believers (as far as I know) think that the spirit is a non-physical part of a human being where lies consciousness and responsibility. My intuition pump concerned the question of what would happen if technology allowed someone to make a perfect replica of a human body.

best,
Peter Kirby

Whoops, sorry, I must have misunderstood.

[ACFaith.Com]

03-13-2003 @ 03:24 AM
Peter Kirby:

Hi Gavin,

Thanks for the link.

I wasn't trying to suggest that spirit-belief presupposes the existence of two copies of a human being. Most spirit believers (as far as I know) think that the spirit is a non-physical part of a human being where lies consciousness and responsibility. My intuition pump concerned the question of what would happen if technology allowed someone to make a perfect replica of a human body.

best,
Peter Kirby

Convert energy into an exact replica of a human now in existence? That is the science fair project I've always been looking for!

Interesting question, by the way.

Vinnie

[Jin-Roh]

I have a Buddhist friend named Savaat. He comes straight out of cambodia and he used to wear the orange robes.

He's a real Buddhist, not one of the phony "pop-culture" Buddhists (Richard Gere) out there. I look forward to talking with him, I hope to share a little bit of Jesus with him in the future.

[Ryokan]

I think it is tenable. There reasoning, as far a they like to go with reasoning, which isn't very, is that each of us have experiences. Consciousness is a flow of experience. These experiences are individual moments in time, drops in the river of "I", waves in the ocean. Each is different. Each one of these experiences has memories as part of it that give the appearance that it is part of a nique whole seperate from everything else. Buddhist say that isn't true, and that while they are part of something, it is the whole of everything, not you. You are a line drawn in the sand by your memories in each experience.

[Woman]

Jin-Roh

He's a real Buddhist, not one of the phony "pop-culture" Buddhists (Richard Gere) out there. I look forward to talking with him, I hope to share a little bit of Jesus with him in the future.

I'd be curious as to how you know he's a "real Buddhist" and why you are sure that a Cambodian would necessarily be more knowlegeable about or authentic in their beliefs than a westerner.

Don't get me wrong. I have NO interest in what any celebrity is currently "into." In general, they are certainly not good role models for anything except fashion and that's debatable.

Sometimes a person who is raised in a certain tradition is less knowlegable about it than a convert. They may never have questioned or studied. That is especially true of traditions where there is a strong cultural element. For instance, an American evangelical protestant may find that the Finnish Lutheran holds very different beliefs though both are Christian. The Catholics in Ireland and those in Mexico would find that even their religious holidays are different.

Buddhism has many different paths, but all have the same goal. Different kinds of teachings include Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, Zen, and Lamaistic. Also remember that just as what it means to be a Christian today is very different than what is was in the middle ages, a Buddhist today lives differently than its founder did 2500 years ago.

And finally, Buddhism is technically a philosophy not a religion.

[yougotstachill]

"The mind is very hard to see
and find, it falls on what it wants.
One who’s wise should guard the mind,
a guarded mind brings happiness."

Explanation: The mind moves about so fast it is difficult to get hold of it fully. It is swift. It has a way of focusing upon whatever it likes. It is good and of immense advantage to tame the mind. The tame mind brings bliss.

[shunyadragon]

I would like to discuss the buddhist idea that there is no permanent, identifiable, distinctive "self", but that human beings are simply streams of conscienceness, similar to the flame on a candle burning down the wick. Buddhists say that impermanence characterizes a human being.

Is this idea logically tenable? Thoughts?

The problem with this is from the western point of view we want to define the undefinable. The reality is that all the human efforts to define the soul and its journey is not any more productive than a hampster on a treadmile. It's like asking how many angels can stand on the head of a pin.

In the teachings of Buddha we enter the river and beyond that nothing is absolutely known. You can chose to enter the river before you die and become aware of the river, or wait until you die and enter it unenlightened and unaware. Buddhist teachings in the original languages were by analogy and metaphor and there was no effort to make such definitive statements defining that which cannot be defined. This one of the reasons that even reincarnation itself is not really an original belief, where the journey through many worlds became a vain immagining. It is like the concepts of heaven, hell and purgatory, which are more cultural human efforts to define the undefinable to resolve peoples fears of what happens after we die.

[shunyadragon]

Jin-Roh



I'd be curious as to how you know he's a "real Buddhist" and why you are sure that a Cambodian would necessarily be more knowlegeable about or authentic in their beliefs than a westerner.

Don't get me wrong. I have NO interest in what any celebrity is currently "into." In general, they are certainly not good role models for anything except fashion and that's debatable.

Sometimes a person who is raised in a certain tradition is less knowlegable about it than a convert. They may never have questioned or studied. That is especially true of traditions where there is a strong cultural element. For instance, an American evangelical protestant may find that the Finnish Lutheran holds very different beliefs though both are Christian. The Catholics in Ireland and those in Mexico would find that even their religious holidays are different.

Buddhism has many different paths, but all have the same goal. Different kinds of teachings include Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, Zen, and Lamaistic. Also remember that just as what it means to be a Christian today is very different than what is was in the middle ages, a Buddhist today lives differently than its founder did 2500 years ago.

And finally, Buddhism is technically a philosophy not a religion.

I agree very much with your first statements, but the last does not work. Most Buddhists would likely say Buddhism is not technically anything. Buddhism is just as much a religion as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It teaches a spiritual way of life that relates to the journey after death, it has scripture and ritual, whether real or imagined. There should not be stigma on the word religion as to what is and is not a religion.

Philosophy is in reality far different. Aristotle. Plato, Descartes and Popper are examples of philosophers or thinkers, who contemplated on the nature of existence, and offered debate and dialogue concerning understanding the nature of being human and existence.

[Magdalenbrother]

I agree very much with your first statements, but the last does not work. Most Buddhists would likely say Buddhism is not technically anything. Buddhism is just as much a religion as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It teaches a spiritual way of life that relates to the journey after death, it has scripture and ritual, whether real or imagined. There should not be stigma on the word religion as to what is and is not a religion.

It really depends on one's definition of "religion". If religion is what you describe: "a spiritual way of life that relates to the journey after death, which has scripture and ritual, whether real or imagined", then Buddhism is apparently a religion.

I could challenge this definition on several grounds, but because this is not a thread on the exact nature of religion I will leave it at that.

Is Buddhism focused on the journey after death? This is debatable...Don't forget that reincarnation is one of central tenets of Buddhism. The journey is mostly here on earth, rather than in immaterial realms of darkness or light.

Philosophy is in reality far different. Aristotle. Plato, Descartes and Popper are examples of philosophers or thinkers, who contemplated on the nature of existence, and offered debate and dialogue concerning understanding the nature of being human and existence.

This is a Western approach to philosophy. I could say, adopting a less ethnocentric and historically narrow* definition of philosophy (can one do that? Is not the word "philosphy an exlusive product of the West to start with?), that "philosophy" is a spiritual path aiming at elucidating the great questions of the human condition that is based on eminently rational considerations and requiring active thinking and critical observation of its followers. In order to attain greater lucidity of mind, the philosopher may engage in what looks like religious rituals of worship and prayer, but in fact these rituals and prayers are not religious at all but therapeutic and strictly utilitarian.

Buddhism could be a philosophy in that sense.

*Historically narrow because the word "philosophy" was apparently invented by the divine Pythagoras in the first place. Now, what his followers did, the way they lived, does not correspond to your description of a purely intellectual and individual quest.

I really see no fundamental difference between the "stream of consciousness" and a more conventional self/soul, except that the term "stream of consciousness" insists on the inherently changeable nature of the content of the self/soul. But since the "stream of consciousness" persists after death, what is the difference with the concept of soul?

The difference seems to reside in the concept of reincarnation, a process in which memories of a previous personality become unavailable to the new manifestation of mind.

One of the most luminous illustrations of anatta and reincarnation is this authentic anecdote, related by a Peruvian friend who is a journalist and writer:

(One day, as my friend was busy writing an article at his desk, his four-year old daughter asked him:)

-Papa, es cierto que despues de morir volvemos a vivir?
-Si, hijita, claro que si...
-Dices la verdad, pero...ya no somos los mismos!

[shunyadragon]

I really see no fundamental difference between the "stream of consciousness" and a more conventional self/soul, except that the term "stream of consciousness" insists on the inherently changeable nature of the content of the self/soul. But since the "stream of consciousness" persists after death, what is the difference with the concept of soul?

The difference seems to reside in the concept of reincarnation, a process in which memories of a previous personality become unavailable to the new manifestation of mind.

Still object to your attempt to differentiate and define things in the afterlife. The reality of the soul may be a stream of consciousness, or the reality of the stream of consiousness may be souls or nothing at all.

One of the most luminous illustrations of anatta and reincarnation is this authentic anecdote, related by a Peruvian friend who is a journalist and writer:

(One day, as my friend was busy writing an article at his desk, his four-year old daughter asked him:)

-Papa, es cierto que despues de morir volvemos a vivir?
-Si, hijita, claro que si...
-Dices la verdad, pero...ya no somos los mismos!

Nice quote!

Your attempts to define philosophy and religion, East and West?, stumbled all over the place. Of course it is a western term, but 'women' was making a reference to it being 'technically' in western terms a philosophy as opposed to a religion. This does not work. If you want to discuss the differences between religion and what may be called a philosophy in the eastern realms, that is indeed another whole ball game. It is very clear that Buddha's teachings involved the journey of whatever whatchmacallit in this world or the after whatever. There is the problem that the language, cultural and everything about the subjective spirtual realms, between the west and the east make such a distinction in the spiritual realms of spliting frog hairs and counting angels.

Your use of 'insist' still reflects your western logic where the inherently changeable nature of anything concerns that which cannot be defined.

[Magdalenbrother]

Since there are no words in most Oriental languages which correspond exactly to our terms "philosophy" and "religion", I wonder whether trying to classify the spiritual phenomena of the Eastern world in such a way has any meaning at all.