Definition of self: Love or Pain?

Trytostaydead · Post by **Trytostaydead** » 2003-06-03 03:16am

How do we define ourselves? Is it through love or pain?

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-06-03 03:29am

Well, given that you often feel pain through love... I say both.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2003-06-03 04:10am

I say a mix, after all, we know light through our knowledge of darkness.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-06-03 09:16am

Neither and both. "Defining oneself" is not a concrete idea like definine a word.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-06-03 10:31am

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2003-06-03 10:46am

My 'self' is the collective thought processess within my brain. Part of these processes are sensory perceptions of pleasure/pain/heat/vision/etc, and instinctive emotional reponses to situations, love/anger/fear/sadness/etc.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-06-03 10:47am

good. ::warble::

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-06-03 10:54am

to be on topic, the self is the uninterrupted mental process(es) and not the shape of your thoughts. You are clearly the same person/mind as you were a year or a decade ago, but your personality has changed.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2003-06-03 12:08pm

Can it be the pain of others?

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-06-03 01:41pm

kojikun wrote:good. ::warble::

Hey. That's my line.

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2003-06-03 04:26pm

Myself is bounded by the black line that goes around your body in a caricature or cartoon.
If you look really really close you can see it on your body.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-06-03 06:52pm

neoolong wrote:Hey. That's my line.

If you learned anything from the master of confusion you'd know that your memories and thoughts and relations and history and quotations are not who you are.

But you seem to think so, so I stole you!

Darth Yoshi · Post by **Darth Yoshi** » 2003-06-03 07:45pm

I don't feel like thinking right now, so I'll default to: I like swords.
...
Alright, I define the self as basically a collection of emotions, memories, and the way one reacts to stimuli.

The Albino Raven · Post by **The Albino Raven** » 2003-06-03 07:48pm

Self can't be defined as just one thing or another. Its a combination of everthing around you and whats inside of you that makes up who you are.

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2003-06-03 08:16pm

"Defining ourselves" is meaningless babble, done by people who study philosophy too much.

NapoleonGH · Post by **NapoleonGH** » 2003-06-03 09:47pm

i would say neither, we define ourselves based on our experiences be they good or bad, the majority of our life experiences (and of course the guiding force behind parts of said experiences and our interpretations thereof, our genetics) are what determine our "sense of self" and all that other crap

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2003-06-04 05:46am

Trytostaydead wrote:How do we define ourselves? Is it through love or pain?

Love and hate are the two primal emotions.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2003-06-04 05:55am

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:
Trytostaydead wrote:How do we define ourselves? Is it through love or pain?
Love and hate are the two primal emotions.

I thought fear was the most primal.

InnerBrat · Post by **InnerBrat** » 2003-06-04 06:17am

Gandalf wrote:
The Duchess of Zeon wrote:
Trytostaydead wrote:How do we define ourselves? Is it through love or pain?
Love and hate are the two primal emotions.
I thought fear was the most primal.

fear and hate are verty closely related.

[yoda]fear leads to...

[/yoda]No, you all know the quote. I'll not go there.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2003-06-04 07:05am

Gandalf wrote: I thought fear was the most primal.

Fear as a biological impulse, I'd submit, is different than fear as an emotion--and doesn't have nearly as much of an effect on us as fear as an emotion, let alone hate. Fear, ultimately, is one of those generalist terms which is not good for discussing concepts. Being "afraid of the government's black helicopters" is a very different sort of thing than recoiling in fear from, say, encountering a large venomous snake while exploring a tunnel, or the like.

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2003-06-04 08:16am

The Duchess of Zeon wrote: Being "afraid of the government's black helicopters" is a very different sort of thing than recoiling in fear from, say, encountering a large venomous snake while exploring a tunnel, or the like.

In that case, although the person is "fearing" the helicopters, is he really fearing them or just using the word?

I'd say that the immediate fear of a snake and the more thought-out fear of failure/rejection (for example) are related. Both are instinctive reactions to avoid harm. One is just more tangible than the other.

Hendrake · Post by **Hendrake** » 2003-06-04 11:52am

42.

Seriously, isn't it a false dilemma? Either love of pain? As fa as a sense can be given to the "definition of self" mantra, I think the memories are the bigger part of one's self, not emotions of sensations.

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2003-06-04 04:49pm

Without one you can not feel the other. Many people think Love and Hate are opposites. Hate and love go hand in hand. Their opposite is indifference.

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