What am I

What is meant by "rock you?"

A classic rock song?

Ray,

I agree. It is a more fundamental question.

For an extreme view about the "myth" of "the unity of self" read Gurdjieff.

"Our personality is formed by many I's
that alternate in the command of our actions.
Most of the times they don't know each other
and usually they have conflicting desires and intentions."

Great Just looked him up, asleep in dreams; sounds like me

I am the apple pie. I am the walrus.

Fer sure, I agree Ray. Most questions end up bringing us back home to "who am I ?".

A LIGHT-HEARTED LOOK AT ONTOLOGY

"I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content."
--Walt Whitman

Popeye and the Poker

Walt leans forward and draws a balloon coming from the sailorman's lips and fills in the words: "I yam what I yam! A few deft strokes of the pencil and the drawing is finished - a figure of a sailor with billowing biceps and a corncob pipe stuck in the gash of a mouth stares out from the page."That's right Popeye," breathes the thin-legged woman with pigtails beside him on the sketchpad paper - "You are what you are!"

"Ahhhhhhh! Shucks Olive," responds the cartoon navy man, "At least we both exist now - that's something - but what do we exist AS - that's what puzzles me?"

"I am what I am," muses Disney laying down his pencil and leaning back in his chair, "What does he mean? "I am what I am?" At the moment he isn't anything other than a drawing on a piece of paper - and Olive too, she's just lines of graphite on some white paper."

Is Popeye talking about the simple fact of his existence when he says "I yam whad I yam," or is he talking about the manner of his existence?"

If Popeye was referring to the simple fact of his existence why does he not simply say - "I am" [or I yam] why does he have to add the supplementary "WHAT I yam" - what does the additional: "what I am" add to his statement and how does it change the import completely?

The ?'what' interrogative and relative determinant is Popeye's assertion about the modality, class, kind, or nature of his existence, but he uses it without furnishing us with any life-style details. We are expected to know about the way that Popeye exists a priori - and of course millions of children all over the world DO know in advance about Popeye's manner of behaviour and his liking for spinach, and his love for the skinny-ribbed Olive, and his fights with the huge, towering rival for Olive's three-fingered hand.

Examples of predicational pruning are often produced by intellects anxious to disprove the analysis of the verb "to be" as a non-verb of simple existence.

Another old chestnut is the poetical Hamlet's gloomy: "To be or not to be?" This is often trotted out as an example of how the "to be" infinitive is apparently acting as a verb of simple existence, when in fact it is nothing more that a predicational trope - a fragment shorn of its descriptive implications for purposes of scansion, metricality, and poetical licence: "To be ALIVE or not to be ALIVE?" We all KNOW the import of the excised predicate ALIVE, and that is why we respond to the effectualness of the line with so much compassion, for it ushers in intimations of our own mortality.

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/popeye.htm

Interesting article.

What if Popeye were to change his personality, or become a driver instead of a sailor, or eat carrots instead of spinach. He would still be him, but his personality would change. Would he be what he was? Yes, in that he's the same person, though with different personality. Don't mind me, I'm just typing this to take up time.

If Popeye started eating carrots instead of spinach he would get his ass whupped... and he'd probably see it coming.

Which begs the question, what's so special about spinach? If spinach gives him superstrength, then maybe carrot would give him super eye sight.

And, I suspect, these many I's are, themselves, formed by many other I's (or whatever). It's all meaningless.

 
My favourite word:

"i"

It defines who is responsible.

It defines who can make a difference.

It defines who is accountable.

It defines who one must love before one can love another.

and "I"

Which defines God.


Speculation: 6 What are we?


We are the spirits (entities) of God.

God morphed into Us and we continue to create according to God's purpose.

Our physical bodies are simply the means we use to experience and function in the physical dimension.


Speculation: 7 Why are we?


We are for the purpose of gaining knowledge and experience.

In the end, we gravitate back into the Oneness of God allowing for the fulfillment of God.


"We" are the collection of the particles of God. We choose to exist in this particular incarnation or the state of being between incarnations.

"Will" is the ability to choose. We have the ability to "freely" choose what probabilities of paths and circumstances shall befall us as we pursue the goals that we have individually set.

speculations...