Ourcellves? (Identity)

by dhw, Saturday, April 12, 2014, 12:15 (3660 days ago) @ romansh

ROMANSH: Ultimately language is dualistic (or pluralistc at best). I have problem describing a monistic world view. Consequently while I can understand DHW's point of view he claims to be non the wiser after my explanations.-Sadly, we do seem to have great difficulty communicating! The context of our discussion was that if we are nothing but our cells (the materialist view), it is a false dichotomy to claim that our cells control us and therefore we have no free will. If our cells ARE us, logically we/they control ourselves/themselves. In your response you wrote:-"I am not suggesting that we are (just) our cells. We are much more than that. Poetically speaking we are a reflection of the universe and the universe is a reflection of us."-Although I had not suggested that YOU had suggested we were (just) our cells, it seemed that your comment might shed an interesting light on the subject under discussion (free will), and so I asked you to explain what aspects of ourselves could not be subsumed under the activity of our cells. You replied: "Much more = the universe". And I can only repeat (sadly) that this leaves me none the wiser about whether or not we have free will or, in a wider context, what is the nature of the self.