• Present awareness
    128
    If “ NOW” has always been, then we must have always been, as well. Before this form, as a separate sperm and egg cell and before that, and so on. At what point along the line did consciousness appear, or was it always there? At what point did that which I call “me” appear?
  • AntonioP
    15
    My best guess is whenever your brain developed enough for you to be conscious.
  • javi2541997
    4.9k


    As @AntonioP said, this thought shows up when our knowledge developed in high scales. Descartes explained this virtue with his famous phrase Cogito ergo sum.
    So, in the moment we are literally aware of our own existence is when appears that feeling of "ME", "I am existing", "I am real" etc...
  • MondoR
    335
    The conscious mind was always been there and created everything. There is no linear time. Just time that we psychologically experience as change within ourselves.
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    At what point did that which I call “me” appear?Present awareness

    It was 3.43 am on February 27th 1990.
  • Bartricks
    6k
    If “ NOW” has always been, then we must have always been, as well.Present awareness

    I do not see how that follows. To be clear: I think we have always existed. But I do not see how this follows from the fact that now is the time at which all things exist.

    I take it that things in the past 'did' exist, but no longer do; and that things in the future 'will' exist, but do not yet. So, that I exist means that I exist in the present, for that is where things that exist, exist. But how does it follow from this that I always exist? For it seems consistent with me existing now, that I did not exist in the past, and that I will not exist in the future.

    And your question also seems inconsistent with your claim always to have existed. For if you have always existed - and, like I say, I think that is the case though for reasons different from yours - then there was no point at which you came into being.
  • counterpunch
    1.6k
    Is this a really clever joke about Roman numerals? I don't get it!
  • Present awareness
    128
    But how does it follow from this that I always exist? For it seems consistent with me existing now, that I did not exist in the past, and that I will not exist in the future.Bartricks

    All physical forms are temporary, even the Sun was born and will die in so many billions of years. Although we did not always exist in our present form, we must have been here in potential, because we are here now. If we identify with our physical form, then we have not always existed, but if we identify with the present moment, then we have always been here, in the now.

    If it is true that energy may not be created or destroyed, but simply changes forms, then all that is here now, must have always been here now, only in different forms.
  • baker
    5.6k
    At what point did that which I call “me” appear?Present awareness
    When someone else considered you such.
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    It all goes back to the hard problem of consciousness. If we say that you were you with your first experience at then begs the question as to what makes that first experience.
  • Present awareness
    128
    It all goes back to the hard problem of consciousness. If we say that you were you with your first experience at then begs the question as to what makes that first experience.schopenhauer1

    I agree. So far, the hard problem of consciousness has not been solved and perhaps it never will be. I suppose it is similar to getting into your car, to go look for your car.
  • Pop
    1.5k
    If it is true that energy may not be created or destroyed, but simply changes forms, then all that is here now, must have always been here now, only in different forms.Present awareness

    I think you have answered your own question. You are a pattern of energy / matter at any given moment ( now ) . It is not a fixed pattern, it evolves over time - something like a tornado, or a whirlpool in a fast flowing stream - a self composed of non self.
  • Present awareness
    128
    You are a pattern of energy / matter at any given moment ( now ) . It is not a fixed pattern, it evolves over time - something like a tornado, or a whirlpool in a fast flowing stream - a self composed of non self.Pop

    You sum it up very nicely here!
  • Pop
    1.5k
    You sum it up very nicely here!Present awareness

    I'm glad that you agree. :smile:
  • Bartricks
    6k
    If we identify with our physical form, then we have not always existed, but if we identify with the present moment, then we have always been here, in the now.Present awareness

    That's surely confused. I am not the present moment. I exist in the present moment, but that doesn't mean that myself and the present moment are the same. That's a category error. I am a thing. The present moment is not a thing, but a temporal property. I have now-ness, but I am not now.
  • Present awareness
    128
    I exist in the present moment, but that doesn't mean that myself and the present moment are the same. That's a category error. I am a thing. The present moment is not a thing, but a temporal property. I have now-ness, but I am not now.Bartricks

    You make a very good point. This physical body which we all refer to as “me” is here now and yet it was not always here now in this current form. Go back 150 years and not a single person alive today, was here. Go forward 150 years and the billions of people that are here now, will be gone. Although we identify with our bodies, emotions, memories and thoughts, that bubble of identity will be easily popped by this simple act of dying. So are we really our physical bodies, or perhaps there’s something more to it?

    The present moment is the one and only thing in the universe which is permanent, because it doesn’t come and go, it is always here and now. Everything else is temporary and flows through the eternal present.
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    At what point did that which I call “me” appear?Present awareness

    Around 18 months.
  • Deleted User
    0
    I think in contemporary Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) that point is set after the Big Bang, between the first supernovas, before the formation of the first galaxies. Not that I'm an expert on any of these matters. But I think they see the formation of the elements of the periodic table, which happened during the supernovas as the birth of consciousness. Feel free to correct me if any of the information above is false.
  • Present awareness
    128

    TaySan, what you are saying may very well be true, for theories may not be proven as true or false. The current theory of the Big Bang makes sense to me, but I don’t feel it goes far enough.

    I personally feel that the Big Bang was a local event in an infinite universe. The light from the next closest Big Bang, may not even reach earth for another 10 billion years because there are not limits to how far away something may be in the endless expansion of space.
  • Deleted User
    0
    it remains interesting and fascinating. How much we don't know.
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