meekerdb wrote: > > On 11/7/2011 12:02 PM, benjayk wrote: >> I think we only fear the elimination of personhood because we confuse >> being >> conscious as an ego with being conscious. We somehow think that if we in >> the >> state of feeling to be a seperate individual cease to exist, we as >> conscious >> beings cease to exist, which is simply not true. > > Have you ever been unconscious? When you were unconscious, who was > experiencing > unconsciousness? I as a person have been unconscious, of course. I as consciousness, no. Unconsciousness is not really an experience. When we say we were unconscious, we mean that we lacked an experience that could be assigned to the time during which we were unconscious, and that we noticed a discontinuity in experience.
That doesn't mean consciousness ceased to exist, just that it experienced some inconsistency in experience (I experience falling asleep, and dreaming, and waking up, but I am not sure how this was connected, exactly; it wasn't a "smooth" experience). So unconsciousness never means that consciousness (the absolute I) was unconscious. This doesn't even make sense, just like water can't get dry. When we use (relative) consciousness as something that can be assigned to people and time, we can say that, relatively speaking, "I" lacked consciousness at a certain time, because there was no content of consciousness that corresponded to that person at that time. benjayk -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/QTI%2C-Cul-de-sacs-and-differentiation-tp32721336p32802801.html Sent from the Everything List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
