Can you surprise yourself? Dilemma!

Peopke surprise themseves every day! I was surprised just last week that I could play a good bocce game.

People lie to thenselves all the time. Maybe I did that, too.

Yeah that's true and a good point. But possibly it's a fallacy of equivocation. I don't mean THAT kind of surprise. I mean the kind of surprise in which you find a box and you don't know what's gonna be inside of it. Or when you surprise someone else with a gift. Seems different than your example. ? I may not be able to articulate myself well at this time but surely you see where I'm coming from. Maybe someone can help me out.

You can not tickle yourself for that reason.

Well, I'm sure your theory about god will be as good as any other.

People with very bad memories can surprise and lie to themselves. People can and do convince themselves of things that aren't true, which is in effect lying.
Lying to yourself is I think the best way to explain god.

G.I.Gurdjieff.

Given the brute facts of life believing in a personal god is more then just lying to yourself. For many coping with reality requires necessitates this sort of belief. Who am I to deny them the right to relief the best way they can? Its inumane uncivilised and frankly naively stupid to go down that road.

The one time you can't be surprised is de ja veux. Lol

So which one of Gurdjieff's selfs said that, and did his other selves agree or disagree? :-)

I realise that that is a rhetorical question for you, but the answer for others is that Gurdjieff claimed that the 'wakened man' recognised his 'sleepwalking I's' which was their usual state. G claimed to be more awake than most and offered the path to awakening to others.

...there is a simpler picture of Fresco comment about the I's that refers to neurons competing for attention, creating more or fewer synapses to other neurons as they are used more or less often. In that sense is not much of a quantum leap to assume we have more then one set of pattern thinking about reality, therefore more then one "I" at work.
I am sure Fresco for instance has a very repressed "I" that agrees with some of my statements deep down in the colection of "I's" that govern his life...

The whole point of the "self" lies in its unity across time and space. Take that unity out and you're not a person anymore, just a fancy robot.

I think Gurdjieff was more asleep than most.

Your robot picture is exactly what Gurdjieff claimed for 'most'. G might have suggested examining the possibility of a knee-jerk reponse to the word 'fresco', for example !

I have come to respect your povs on politics debates and you have come across as a surprising charming amicable individual, but anyway we are bound to clash on the free will topic, in that regard what is wrong with being a "fancy robot" when the alternative is "magic"?

Be a gentleman...I was agreeing with you for a change, and I played a bit with your set of possible self's to make it amusing regarding our eternal typical disagreements...you get offended real quick.

Pay someone $10000 to pick a random day in the future (between 5 or 10 years from now). Have him kick you in the kidneys when you are not looking or just stealthfully pour a bucket of ice water on your head from anywhere in this time frame. Who knows...? They might even dump the water on your head in 5 months despite the time clause. You technically (indirectly) surprised yourself.

Other than that? Please lay off the meth, the pot, the acid, and/or the LSD.

So you think I get 'offended' (or one of my I's does) because you tend take a scientifc/reductionist/mechanisistic/realistic line ! Not at all....I think you are projecting your own offense there because I suggest that nobody knows what you are talking about ! Put it this way, wearing my philosophers hat, rather than my hat as a published scientist, I assert that 'neuroscience' is to 'verbal communication including thinking' as metallurgy is to rail travel. On cannot get offended by what one considers to be irrelevant or 'wrong level'! I simply cannot commune with your agenda especially when you demand 'an axiom' from me in line with your own pov.
Here, I am merely giving the OP an interesting reference in answer to his question. I personally neither accept Gurdjieff nor dismiss him ( or maybe I have an I in each camp ). All I will say is that if one discounts his weird cosmology (which gives 'a reason for Man being asleep') his psychological observations are significant.....indeed significant enough to have attracted many 20th century celebrities to his door (from Frank Lloyd Wright to Kate Bush).

I couldn't be bothered at my age to be offended by God much less with a Peacock like you. I don't give a rats ass to your publications or your rants. I merely read what ppl have to say and look for a couple of things, first, internal consistency, second, plausibility, third analysis of base axioms, fourth scientific understanding. Either I get to agree at least partially, or find the pov reasonable, or I dismiss it. You don't have a self consistent system, and you could be the most credit scientist on earth that I would still give you the same look from where I stand. I was teasing you out of boredom of your ad nausea record talk. Found amusing for a change we agreed on something and made a little joke.
As for your linear judgement on reductionism vs holism I rather have both...you have read me wrong! ...yeah I can live with the two approaches...
(but then you are not at fault nor am I...to each his own!)