Are You Still You?

[evenflow1121]

I am not sure who I am, but I hope I am not the same person I was yesterday.

 

[heretic888]

Barton is not saying personality is immutable. if anything he's saying the complete opposite.

Really? Despite the colorful wording about "change" in the first sentence, he goes on to say:

"Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance. If you have anything really valuable to contribute to the world it will come through the expression of your own personality, that single spark of divinity that sets you off and makes you different from every other living creature."

What I got out of that was some immutable "divine personality" in each person. Perhaps you can point to where I am mistaken??

and how is personality in infinite variety mistaken thought?

Because that's not how the personality works. All personalities exist as varying degrees of the Big Five, with a finite number of possible combinations. Its even more finite when we're dealing with infants, in that there are only three possible temperaments that have been observed.

individuals are "unique" from everyone else, at least on the planet i live.

Sure, but the "unique"-ness of any given individual depends on much, much more than their personality traits.

it's clearly evident you failed to understand the meaning behind that quote.

Perhaps, but I'm still waiting for a specific explanation as to why this is so.

Laterz. :asian:

 

[Sapper6]

a disagreement of personal interpretation. i see where you are coming from. i just see it differently. it doesn't matter. :asian:

 

[heretic888]

a disagreement of personal interpretation. i see where you are coming from. i just see it differently. it doesn't matter. :asian:

All's well that ends well.

Laterz. :asian:

 

[Tgace]

Some people are just as annoying now as they were a year ago......
So there is obviously some consistency.

 

[heretic888]

Some people are just as annoying now as they were a year ago......
So there is obviously some consistency.

Hee hee.

I was referring moreso to long-term changes in personality than those that could be discerned in a year's time, but point taken.

*wonders who exactly Tgrace is talking about*

:supcool:

 

[ed-swckf]

It was Heraclites (aka Heraclitus) who is sometimes quoted as saying:

"No man can cross the same river twice, because
the second time it is a different river and a different man."

(also have seen it quoted as "No man can step in the same river twice as other waters are flowing by" but great quote anyway...)

I can't remember who it is, but there is a regular poster on this forum who uses it as their signature, and it has stuck in my mind since reading it. Nice choice of signature, whoever it is!

Respectfully,

Dan

I think he was refering to either of the following:

"Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend. Adapt!"


"Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves."

 

[Dan G]

I think he was refering to either of the following:

"Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend. Adapt!"


"Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves."

That interpretation sounds more Eastern, but does overlap in a lot of areas.

I did a quick web search to see what is out there.
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/h/heraclit.htm

"According to both Plato and Aristotle, Heraclitus held extreme views that led to logical incoherence. For he held that (1) everything is constantly changing and (2) opposite things are identical, so that (3) everything is and is not at the same time. In other words, Universal Flux and the Identity of Opposites entail a denial of the Law of Non-Contradiction. Plato indicates the source of the flux doctrine: "Heraclitus, I believe, says that all things go and nothing stays, and comparing existents to the flow of a river, he says you could not step twice into the same river" (Cratylus 402a = DK22A6).

What Heraclitus actually says is the following: On those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow. (DK22B12)There is an antithesis between 'same' and 'other.' The sentence says that different waters flow in rivers staying the same. In other words, though the waters are always changing, the rivers stay the same. Indeed, it must be precisely because the waters are always changing that there are rivers at all, rather than lakes or ponds. The message is that rivers can stay the same over time even though, or indeed because, the waters change. The point, then, is not that everything is changing, but that the fact that some things change makes possible the continued existence of other things. Perhaps more generally, the change in elements or constituents supports the constancy of higher-level structures."

Cheers

Dan

 

[White Fox]

I had to put my dog down Early one morning. At the exact second she was given the shot to kill her body I could feel her leave it. Not only that but at that exact second all the other dogs became restless in the kennel like when someone comes to your house and I could feel that someone else had entered the room. As if to come and get her. When I looked at my dogs face I could see that "she" was no longer there "she" had Left her body. Believe me or not I feel that there is an individual soul and that is who each of us as individuals really are. That is why when the body changes you are still the same person. Dig it!

 

[evenflow1121]

I had to put my dog down Early one morning. At the exact second she was given the shot to kill her body I could feel her leave it. Not only that but at that exact second all the other dogs became restless in the kennel like when someone comes to your house and I could feel that someone else had entered the room. As if to come and get her. When I looked at my dogs face I could see that "she" was no longer there "she" had Left her body. Believe me or not I feel that there is an individual soul and that is who each of us as individuals really are. That is why when the body changes you are still the same person. Dig it!

I had an instructor who used to say the same thing. All in all I agree with your concept, even if you do change for someone else, you will come back to whom you really are eventually.

 

[heretic888]

Personally, I tend to side somewhere between the existentialists (such as Kierkegaard and Satre), the developmental-constructivists (such as Piaget, Loevinger, and Habermas), and the Mahayana Buddhists (such as Nagarjuna and Kobo Daishi) on the issue of subject-constancy.

Laterz.

 

[tradrockrat]

Personally, I tend to side somewhere between the existentialists (such as Kierkegaard and Satre), the developmental-constructivists (such as Piaget, Loevinger, and Habermas), and the Mahayana Buddhists (such as Nagarjuna and Kobo Daishi) on the issue of subject-constancy.

Laterz.

That's a lot of sides! Or is it no sides at all?


(sorry, but it struck me as funny):lol2: :lol2: :lol2:

 

[heretic888]

That's a lot of sides! Or is it no sides at all?


(sorry, but it struck me as funny):lol2: :lol2: :lol2:

Personally, I think they all say pretty much the exact same thing about the "self".

Laterz.