You are not matter!

AhnimusAhnimus Posts: 10,560
edited June 2007 in A Moving Train
I've made this point before with the analogy of patterns or songs.

Here is Steve Grand:

"[Think] of an experience from your childhood. Something you
remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even
smell, as if you were really there. After all, you really were
there at the time, weren't you? How else would you
remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren't there.
Not a single atom that is in your body today was there
when that event took place . . . Matter flows from place
to place and momentarily comes together to be you.
Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of
which you are made. If that doesn't make the hair stand
up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does,
because it is important."
(The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins; Page 363)

Sweet, it really is a weird thing, isn't it?
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Post edited by Unknown User on
«13

Comments

  • JeanieJeanie Posts: 9,446
    That's really interesting Ahnimus. A really interesting thought. :)

    I'm just wondering if not a single atom was there how is it possible to remember? Has the memory been passed from atom to atom?
    NOPE!!!

    *~You're IT Bert!~*

    Hold on to the thread
    The currents will shift
  • Alex_CoeAlex_Coe Posts: 762
    OK it's official: my mind has sufficiently been blown.

    Either that or it's all bull. Hopefully the latter.
  • What is it...we have trillions of neutrinos or something like that flowing through space and us every second. Cosmic stuff going right through us...the earth and onwards to where ever perpetually.

    Yeah that's a trippy angle I haven't stopped to put much thought into.

    cool..
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    I felt very...organic, after reading that.

    Then, I lit a cigarette.

    Soon after, there was a voice in my head.

    It said:

    I am Jack's DNA.

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • Oh wait... I get it exactly what he is saying. Deepak Chopra gets on about this too. All our atoms swap out. A lot faster than we think.

    We grow new lungs, liver bones, teeth... in months...every year or two all our atoms 99.9% are replaced with new atoms from food and whatever we ingest.

    I suppose it is our DNA which instructs new food energy etc... that we eat on where to go and how to become us.

    Yeah this makes sense and is true afaik. That is freaky.

    I never thought of that...How do the memories remain? Our brains must have an EPROM/EEPROM circuitry for hard wiring memories.
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • keeponrockinkeeponrockin Posts: 7,446
    What does AFAIK mean?
    Believe me, when I was growin up, I thought the worst thing you could turn out to be was normal, So I say freaks in the most complementary way. Here's a song by a fellow freak - E.V
  • normnorm Posts: 31,146
    being as stoned as i am right now, that made perfect sense......:p:D
  • What does AFAIK mean?

    as far as I know...
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • cutback wrote:
    being as stoned as i am right now, that made perfect sense......:p:D

    damn straight it would :D
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    What does AFAIK mean?

    I didn't know, either. It was like some middle eastern thing. Like a name. Afaik Ali Mohammed.

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • chadwickchadwick up my ass Posts: 21,157
    Yes perhaps I wasn't there when I broke my ankle playin football.
    Atoms, cells, bones, hair, everything is new/changing from day to day.
    Or even second to second.
    But what about our spirits/soul being there since before we were born?
    I know, I know.
    Some ppl on here will be like, hey dude we don't have spirits/souls.
    A spirit/soul, I M O doesn't have cells, atoms, bones, hair.
    So I suppose my fleshly mass wasnt ever around, not even now as I am
    typing away on a PJ board thingy.
    I would say my spirit/soul is right here with my lone typing finger.
    for poetry through the ceiling. ISBN: 1 4241 8840 7

    "Hear me, my chiefs!
    I am tired; my heart is
    sick and sad. From where
    the sun stands I will fight
    no more forever."

    Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    chadwick wrote:
    Yes perhaps I wasn't there when I broke my ankle playin football.
    Atoms, cells, bones, hair, everything is new/changing from day to day.
    Or even second to second.
    But what about our spirits/soul being there since before we were born?
    I know, I know.
    Some ppl on here will be like, hey dude we don't have spirits/souls.
    A spirit/soul, I M O doesn't have cells, atoms, bones, hair.
    So I suppose my fleshly mass wasnt ever around, not even now as I am
    typing away on a PJ board thingy.
    I would say my spirit/soul is right here with my lone typing finger.

    Sure it is. I agree.

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • catefrancescatefrances Posts: 29,003
    Ahnimus wrote:
    I've made this point before with the analogy of patterns or songs.

    Here is Steve Grand:

    "[Think] of an experience from your childhood. Something you
    remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even
    smell, as if you were really there. After all, you really were
    there at the time, weren't you? How else would you
    remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren't there.
    Not a single atom that is in your body today was there
    when that event took place . . . Matter flows from place
    to place and momentarily comes together to be you.
    Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of
    which you are made. If that doesn't make the hair stand
    up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does,
    because it is important."
    (The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins; Page 363)

    Sweet, it really is a weird thing, isn't it?

    maybe this explains deja vu.

    i disagree with dawkins. i dont believe the matter that i am made up of comes together momentarily just so i can become me. i believe i became me ONCE and so i remain me until my body dies. then the energy keeping me together dissipates and i decompose.
    hear my name
    take a good look
    this could be the day
    hold my hand
    lie beside me
    i just need to say
  • AhnimusAhnimus Posts: 10,560
    The thing is; you are a pattern of matter that is arranged by the DNA and stuffs. This pattern does change in regards to memories and perceptions, however, by enlarge it does remain the same.

    Ask anyone who's pattern has been disrupted by environmental factors, such as brain damage, they are not the person they were before.

    Poetically speaking, and to quote Mystery of http://www.mysterymethod.com you are a pattern like "a song". That's good for picking up chicks.
    I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
  • gue_barium wrote:
    I didn't know, either. It was like some middle eastern thing. Like a name. Afaik Ali Mohammed.

    afaik I thought he had Jack's DNA? :D
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • Can a soul have zero mass and still exist in this universe? .....is what I ask myself sometimes when I'm high. It usually winds up as a stand off at the fridge...
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • chadwickchadwick up my ass Posts: 21,157
    probably so.
    your soul/spirit is one with the universe.
    or rather one of the universe.
    for poetry through the ceiling. ISBN: 1 4241 8840 7

    "Hear me, my chiefs!
    I am tired; my heart is
    sick and sad. From where
    the sun stands I will fight
    no more forever."

    Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
  • chadwickchadwick up my ass Posts: 21,157
    i dunno but things get deep around here.
    for poetry through the ceiling. ISBN: 1 4241 8840 7

    "Hear me, my chiefs!
    I am tired; my heart is
    sick and sad. From where
    the sun stands I will fight
    no more forever."

    Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    maybe this explains deja vu.

    i disagree with dawkins. i dont believe the matter that i am made up of comes together momentarily just so i can become me. i believe i became me ONCE and so i remain me until my body dies. then the energy keeping me together dissipates and i decompose.

    No, you have one life. Don't get it confused with your dying and reborn cell-energy structure.

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    Can a soul have zero mass and still exist in this universe? .....is what I ask myself sometimes when I'm high. It usually winds up as a stand off at the fridge...

    Does the refrigerator light/mass go off when you close the refrigerator door?

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    gue_barium wrote:
    Does the refrigerator light/mass go off when you close the refrigerator door?

    Q: You should stick to tennis and marijuana.
    A: Noted.

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • gue_barium wrote:
    Q: You should stick to tennis and marijuana.
    A: Noted.

    You crack me up man. I think the light bulb unscrews itself hops down and messes around with the lettuce then flips me the bird.

    could just be my meds though.
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • chadwickchadwick up my ass Posts: 21,157
    You crack me up man. I think the light bulb unscrews itself hops down and messes around with the lettuce then flips me the bird.

    could just be my meds though.

    That is damn funny dude.
    for poetry through the ceiling. ISBN: 1 4241 8840 7

    "Hear me, my chiefs!
    I am tired; my heart is
    sick and sad. From where
    the sun stands I will fight
    no more forever."

    Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
  • Oooh good thread Ahnimus! This one I ponder about often. Did you ever get the chance to watch Waking Life? Here's a part from the movie talking about the aging paradox and cells regenerating every 7 years. I couldn't find the scene on youtube or anywhere else so this is all I've got.

    http://strivinglife.net/wordpress/2006/05/25/94/waking-life-chapter-7-the-aging-paradox/


    [7 The Aging Paradox]

    (Two women are having lunch - English professor Lisa Moore and author Carole Dawson)

    Time just dissolves into quick-moving particles that are swirling away. Either I’m moving fast or time is. Never both simultaneously.

    It’s such a strange paradox. I mean, while, technically, I’m closer to the end of my life than I’ve ever been, I actually feel more than ever that I have all the time in the world. When I was younger, there was a desperation, a desire for certainty, like there was an end to the path, and I had to get there.

    I know what you mean, because I can remember thinking, "Oh, someday, like in my mid-thirties maybe, everything’s going to just somehow gel and settle, just end." It was like there was this plateau, and it was waiting for me, and I was climbing up it, and when I got to the top, all growth and change would stop. Even exhilaration. But that hasn’t happened like that, thank goodness. I think that what we don’t take into account when we’re young is our endless curiosity. That’s what’s so great about being human.

    Yeah, yeah. Well do you know that thing Benedict Anderson says about identity?




    No.

    Well, he’s talking about like, say, a baby picture. So you pick up this picture, this two-dimensional image, and you say, "That’s me." Well, to connect this baby in this weird little image with yourself living and breathing in the present, you have to make up a story like, "This was me when I was a year old, and then later I had long hair, and then we moved to Riverdale, and now here I am." So it takes a story that’s actually a fiction to make you and the baby in the picture identical to create your identity.

    And the funny thing is, our cells are completely regenerating every seven years. We’ve already become completely different people several times over, and yet we always remain quintessentially ourselves.

    Hmm.
    If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.

    Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
    -Oscar Wilde
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    Oooh good thread Ahnimus! This one I ponder about often. Did you ever get the chance to watch Waking Life? Here's a part from the movie talking about the aging paradox and cells regenerating every 7 years. I couldn't find the scene on youtube or anywhere else so this is all I've got.

    http://strivinglife.net/wordpress/2006/05/25/94/waking-life-chapter-7-the-aging-paradox/


    [7 The Aging Paradox]

    (Two women are having lunch - English professor Lisa Moore and author Carole Dawson)

    Time just dissolves into quick-moving particles that are swirling away. Either I’m moving fast or time is. Never both simultaneously.

    It’s such a strange paradox. I mean, while, technically, I’m closer to the end of my life than I’ve ever been, I actually feel more than ever that I have all the time in the world. When I was younger, there was a desperation, a desire for certainty, like there was an end to the path, and I had to get there.

    I know what you mean, because I can remember thinking, "Oh, someday, like in my mid-thirties maybe, everything’s going to just somehow gel and settle, just end." It was like there was this plateau, and it was waiting for me, and I was climbing up it, and when I got to the top, all growth and change would stop. Even exhilaration. But that hasn’t happened like that, thank goodness. I think that what we don’t take into account when we’re young is our endless curiosity. That’s what’s so great about being human.

    Yeah, yeah. Well do you know that thing Benedict Anderson says about identity?




    No.

    Well, he’s talking about like, say, a baby picture. So you pick up this picture, this two-dimensional image, and you say, "That’s me." Well, to connect this baby in this weird little image with yourself living and breathing in the present, you have to make up a story like, "This was me when I was a year old, and then later I had long hair, and then we moved to Riverdale, and now here I am." So it takes a story that’s actually a fiction to make you and the baby in the picture identical to create your identity.

    And the funny thing is, our cells are completely regenerating every seven years. We’ve already become completely different people several times over, and yet we always remain quintessentially ourselves.

    Hmm.

    And this is why, even though politically atheistic, I have no problem with "believers" of all kinds. It is embracing Art, it is embracing a story.
    All of us do it...we all wait for signs...

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    Jeanie wrote:
    That's really interesting Ahnimus. A really interesting thought. :)

    I'm just wondering if not a single atom was there how is it possible to remember? Has the memory been passed from atom to atom?

    Read 'The holographic universe' by Michael Talbot for the answer.
  • catefrancescatefrances Posts: 29,003
    gue_barium wrote:
    No, you have one life. Don't get it confused with your dying and reborn cell-energy structure.

    i know i have only one life. what im debating is the constituting and reconstituting of matter that becomes me. i don't agree with dawkins on this and i don't agree that because my cells have regenerated a total of 6 times(in my case) during my lifetime that every 7 years i have become a completely different person. my shell may have grown and adapted, but i see becoming a 'completely different person' as essentially a continuous thing that has nothing to do with cell regeneration or the reconstitution of matter.
    hear my name
    take a good look
    this could be the day
    hold my hand
    lie beside me
    i just need to say
  • KannKann Posts: 1,146
    I never thought of it that way but it is a little strange.
    What about non replicative cells? Such as neurons for example : no replication of the cell = no replication of the DNA. The DNA strands are the same than the ones you had when you were born?
    And atoms never get lost, so technically the atoms that left me could very well be the same that are making your physical you right now.

    (the post below me : considering the quote is from a book called "the god delusion" I would say no to that)
  • even flow?even flow? Posts: 8,066
    Ahnimus wrote:
    I've made this point before with the analogy of patterns or songs.

    Here is Steve Grand:

    "[Think] of an experience from your childhood. Something you
    remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even
    smell, as if you were really there. After all, you really were
    there at the time, weren't you? How else would you
    remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren't there.
    Not a single atom that is in your body today was there
    when that event took place . . . Matter flows from place
    to place and momentarily comes together to be you.
    Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of
    which you are made. If that doesn't make the hair stand
    up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does,
    because it is important."
    (The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins; Page 363)

    Sweet, it really is a weird thing, isn't it?


    If this is to be true. Shouldn't all scars heal back to normal?

    Does this mean you are starting to lean towards god now?
    You've changed your place in this world!
  • OutOfBreathOutOfBreath Posts: 1,804
    Ahnimus wrote:
    I've made this point before with the analogy of patterns or songs.

    Here is Steve Grand:

    "[Think] of an experience from your childhood. Something you
    remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even
    smell, as if you were really there. After all, you really were
    there at the time, weren't you? How else would you
    remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren't there.
    Not a single atom that is in your body today was there
    when that event took place . . . Matter flows from place
    to place and momentarily comes together to be you.
    Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of
    which you are made. If that doesn't make the hair stand
    up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does,
    because it is important."
    (The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins; Page 363)

    Sweet, it really is a weird thing, isn't it?

    Yes. And it starts making the concept of soul interesting again too. Since something makes us be what we are, and it ain't matter, well.... Couldn't that be called soul, nevermind particular christian beliefs about it?

    But interesting to ponder.

    Peace
    Dan
    "YOU [humans] NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?" - Death

    "Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
Sign In or Register to comment.