The Illusion of the Self
The Buddhist concept of non-self says that the self is an illusion, but the meaning of this is subtle and requires some elaboration. First we need to distinguish what I’ll call the “concept of self” and the “sense of self”. The concept of self is what you cognitively think of yourself as. The sense of […]
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A Buddhist vs. a Materialist on Consciousness
This is a hypothetical conversation between a Materialist (who believes that consciousness arises from the physical world), and a Buddhist (who believes that everyone shares one consciousness). Buddhist: How many consciousnesses does one person have? Materialist: One. Buddhist: What part of the body is responsible for the consciousness? Materialist: The brain. Buddhist: If someone’s brain […]
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The Dilemma of Self-Revision
Our genes endowed us with a great power when they gave us an independent consciousness. Unlike probably any other species, we can use thought to change the program that we run during life. Other animals may be capable of some form of experience, but I think it is very unlikely that any non-human animal has […]
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Dreams
Have you ever woken up from an amazing dream and thought “I should go back to sleep so I can get back to enjoying that dream.”? I said this to myself yesterday morning, but before I could get back to sleep, I had a sudden realization. I decided that this thought didn’t really make sense […]
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Zen and Ego-persistence
To maximize expected subjective life quality, it is important to know what life is. We all have a notion of what our life is to us, but that notion may or may not be generally valid. In order to test the validity of our notions, we can apply them in the context of a thought […]
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