Identity (Identity)

by BBella , Monday, August 17, 2009, 18:07 (5576 days ago) @ dhw
edited by unknown, Monday, August 17, 2009, 18:17

[bbella wrote from Arguments against Design] None of us hold or have any identity apart from that which we relate with and to. In other words, we are nothing without each other.
>>[dhw responded]I think this is only partly true. We have relations with ourselves as well as with others, and these depend largely on our own characteristics. Perhaps, though, you can develop this idea on the new "Identity" thread. - If I existed within a blank space with nothing but myself to relate to, no matter how long, I would very unlikely ever exhibit anything but nothingness. I would have no reason to move, talk, feel, etc. Without any surroundings I am nothing. Without something (any-thing!) to relate to, I would not know what I am or what I am capable of. Perhaps it's not by chance you chose "Identity" as title for this thread? For without what we now consider the uni-verse, I/God/UI/We, our surroundings, we would be nothing and have no identity...maybe that is what UI was shooting for when it first replicated? It is as if we see this TRUTH with our microscope on a grand scale within life itself happening on an ever continual basis. Even within the stories of old, we get this thought...there is one, and one decides it is lonely and so from one creates two and so here we are. It some way this is totally mythical, yet, we see it happening every day in life. Of course, this is also the crux....how did ONE come to have thought in the first place and how did ONE realize it had the ability to become TWO...this is the real question here, right? And, low and behold...maybe UI actually does not have an answer for this question and is searching to understand itself? Who knows? - >maybe it doesn't matter whether it (free will) is or isn't free, but the question I would like to pursue is the source of the ability to make the choice, because it's that source (whatever it may be) that shapes our identity. - Again, this is the crux of the question....even if the source, we could call it the ONE, was, then what sparked ONE to make the choice to become two and so on? - Good question. - The only thing that comes to mind is, because it realized it could?