This forum is primarily dedicated to higher quality posts and discussions. Those are welcome from everyone but will be filtered by the moderators. In order to foster more discussion, we have decided to start a weekly stickied discussion thread for the subreddit. This discussion thread is a place for people to post things that are more casual regarding subjective idealism, and things that are more exploratory. Here is a place for individuals to propose ideas and ask questions and figure out subjective idealism.
There are two levels to the idea of self, imo. There’s your ultimate self, and your conventional self. It’s possible for these to be the same or to be different.
To take an incorrect but helpful analogy from convention consider this: you are your human personality. You could play chess, basketball, be a construction worker, etc. These are all roles you could play. As long as you are playing chess, your ‘self’ is your limited role controlling one set of pieces trying to win the game. Within the game you cannot break the rules of the game without abandoning the game. But really, you have the power to stop playing chess and go write a book if you like. You’re not actually limited.
Similarly, ultimately you have infinite absolute power and infinite possible roles and games to play, but you may take on a role where you only exercise your power within a limited range in order to play some game. So your true self is your ultimate self, but there’s a limited somewhat false sense of self which is whatever roles you like to play and be limited in.
What is your self, your ultimate self? The mind. The mind is the infinite potential for cognition taking on one form or another of cognition.
Originally commented by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-07-08 04:41:58 (djwx6lo)
In my opinion this analogy is very instructive. Actually I employ this kind of analogy very often in the meta-contextualization of my experiences.
I would add that as is possible to fabricate a [sense of me] accompanying the chosen role to be played within the game, also is possible not to do so if you will. (Obs: I’m not evaluating one option to be superior just pointing the possibility)
I would phrase it in that way:
Mind is a Threefold Capacity (Being/Will/Intellect) and Mind as such, have infinite potential of creation(cognition).
(I think that in nefandic nomenclature it would be: To experience, To know, To will, but I’m not sure right now. xd).
Regarding Self, I could say that my position is: Mind is a Capacity, I’m the Agent which exercise this Capacity.
However the plot twist to me is:
Of course I have freedom to conceptualize in one way (I’m Mind) or another (I’m transcendent in relation to Mind) and the chosen one would appear true to me, but what the acceptance of each one would entail?
I can see that one possible downfall of my position is that one could begin to fabricate dreams in the form of stressful journeys searching for “realization of my True Self” which would be futile.
Originally commented by u/Veneficvs on 2017-07-08 06:08:36 (djx25fm)
I explain it as knowing/willing/experiencing. This “being/will/intellect” thing is not anything I talk about. Threefold capacity is my term for the mind. Please don’t get mixed up.
To me “being/will/intellect” doesn’t make any sense. I would never talk like that.
It’s you who knows, who wills and who experiences. Without you knowing, there is no mind that knows. Without you willing, there is no mind that wills. Without you experiencing there is no mind that experiences.
SI is an extremely personal, 1st person perspectival way of comprehending experience. Even if you have an experience of operating in 10 different bodies, it’s still 1 experience and not 10 different ones. There is always one root will, and it’s always yours, from your perspective.
You are not something other than mind in the way I explain things.
The important thing here is to realize that mind is not the same thing as a mindset. A mindset is a specific way to configure mind. You use this or that mindset here and there, but you do ultimately transcend any and all mindsets in the sense that you’re never limited to the mindset you currently find yourself in.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-08 08:10:56 (djx8n2r)
One more thing, from the POV of SI, you’re not a human either. You are instead humaning. You are humaning now, but aren’t a human. I say this because when I address you, the “you” that I address is deeper than what is generally conventionally understood. I’m not talking to your body or to the personality that’s associated with the body, when I talk to you here.
I like to use simple language when speaking because if I use words like “Self” people tend to think that there is something on top of their head toward which they need to look up to find themselves, or something like that. I don’t want to create that impression. I want to convey how intimate and private it all is and I don’t want to induce people to look on top of their heads or in the clouds or below the ground. And I also feel like if we make our conceptions too grand people are also mislead, because they then discount their personal experience as insignificant in light of this “something grand.” I don’t want anyone to think that their experience and knowing and willing are insignificant. On the contrary, the idea is to empower.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-07-08 08:17:29 (djx8yly)