I was here
Or was I? What does "was" really mean? Or does "I" really have significance? If you trust your senses about what they say about the concept of time and self, surely your brain is as comfortable as Cipher in the Matrix 1, saying "ignorance is bliss". "Time" is but a concept, an illusion brought about by that constant change that can be detected by your senses, and these messages from your eyes, nose, ears, and skin is merged by your brain. This frame by frame and incremental change in stimuli is later interpreted by that organ in your head as "time".
And self? Even the greatest philosophers provide but the vaguest explaination of its "reality" and "tangibility". If the ship of the Argonauts, they argue, are incrementally replaced with new sail, hull, and other parts of the ship unknown to me for I am not a sailor, when would be the ship be a "new" ship? Is it still the "old" ship? When did the transformation happened? Same goes with "me". I was a grade school student, and several years from now I have shed hundred of tons of dead skin and hair cells, each piece of me constantly dying and regenerating. Am I still "me"? What is "me"? Is there a "core" to my "me-ness", the kind of concept the Christians call a "soul", the essence of an individual? If I changed every cell of myself and undergo a total personality change, "am" "I" "still" "me"? (pardon for the abuse of quotations, these four words are subject to further exploration and debate)
Close inspection of things, whatever it is, may it be love, God, ideas, among others is surely painful.
/*I believe it was minutes ago that I was eager to write something in this blog but I can't just figure out what to write*/
And self? Even the greatest philosophers provide but the vaguest explaination of its "reality" and "tangibility". If the ship of the Argonauts, they argue, are incrementally replaced with new sail, hull, and other parts of the ship unknown to me for I am not a sailor, when would be the ship be a "new" ship? Is it still the "old" ship? When did the transformation happened? Same goes with "me". I was a grade school student, and several years from now I have shed hundred of tons of dead skin and hair cells, each piece of me constantly dying and regenerating. Am I still "me"? What is "me"? Is there a "core" to my "me-ness", the kind of concept the Christians call a "soul", the essence of an individual? If I changed every cell of myself and undergo a total personality change, "am" "I" "still" "me"? (pardon for the abuse of quotations, these four words are subject to further exploration and debate)
Close inspection of things, whatever it is, may it be love, God, ideas, among others is surely painful.
/*I believe it was minutes ago that I was eager to write something in this blog but I can't just figure out what to write*/
according to Ardee Aram at 5:52 PM
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1 Comment/s:
am i still the same me? is change really change?
unless we proudce a whole new world view when a comet hits us, or other life forms land here, or something very very profound happens, it probably is still change. still. haha.
funny how things have changed. i just checked out the graviton site (gosh i miss high school.) and came across the web version of our class paper. the 2nd issue headline was "feeling daw tayo". and then i remember: a moderate, er, exchange of emails between you and me back then on the "star section" issue. haha.
but look where we are now, what we've gone through, and where we're going. (ang drama ko naman.) do i think the "past" was only of silliness anymore? no. g++ pa rin ako. (that can't be translated.) things have changed but the absolute extent of it doesn't apply. do we really want things put into mathematical equations or something seemingly exact?
/* too lazy to do anything after the eee9 exam; let me recycle this comment too :P */
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