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1) (thread) I just had a kind of realization in the shower tonight of what philosophy, particularly the philosophy of mind and the concept of consciousness, gives me, even as it sometimes tends to take away answers and substitute more questions.
2) I thank Marianne Talbot @OxPhil_Marianne and author Rebecca Goldstein @platobooktour for both engaging me with their thought & learning processes, and also by keeping philosophy alive and relevant especially in today's info-packed scientific world. THeir thoughts guided mine.
3) What came to me as I was soaping up my hair this evening was a realization regarding trying to think deeply about self, and about the question of "Why this me?" that ties this self to this body and brain out of myriad organisms I perceive I could have been.
4) The realization was a kind of a meta-realization, a realization about realization: When I look into another being's eyes, when our minds are able to come in contact with one another, when they meet, so to speak, that kind of gives part of the "Why this me?" answer I seek.
5) Because there in that other being, and in that mental connection between me and them, is a realization that I am not alone IN BEING ABLE TO THINK THESE THOUGHTS. Not nearly alone, in fact. And in not being alone, I am not entirely different.
6) There is nothing inherently special about this being named J. Calvin Smith whose sensorium fills me with all there is of the universe with which I can be filled. When my mind meets with that of that other being, I see that they could feel the same way, wonder the same way.
7) What an equalizer! I could have been, in fact, a consciousness tied to any of those bodies and brains - or, more precisely and correctly, there is nothing special, nothing evidently special, that differentiates my consciousness from theirs. Race, gender, religion, culture...
8) ... country, sexual orientation: None of these categories prevents them from the ability to stand now as I do and look at the strange phenomenon of being one consciousness with a finite lifespan, but also being the only one that is actually ME.
9) How many can answer "Who are you?" How many can say "My name is..."? How many others recognize their name when you call it? How still many others have a purpose and a motive force even if their mind is nothing like mine?
10) Even if there is nothing demonstrably true about saying "I could have been any one of those organisms, but somehow I'm me!" there is something to the fact that some of those organisms could just as likely have come up with such a statement!
11) Friends, lovers, good authors, all of them connect with us. Co-workers with whom we can get in the groove, or "in the sleeve," like the Episcopal church choir with whom I sing every week, they show this bond that comes from what I could call "equality of consciousness."
12) We are each so, so different. And how we got to this state of being able to talk about it, together, and to get what each other is saying, that's a miracle. But even those who cannot say it share in some of it. That ant. That plant.
13) Whether I am, will be, or ever have been a soul attached to some other body, or to some other kind of body, mortal like I am now, immortal like I have been taught may be possible, I feel like I am a star in an undulating universe full of them. What can I really see of that?
14) And yet what can't I see of that ... in the Beloved's eyes? (To borrow from the Sufi.)
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