XPost: alt.philosophy, alt.atheism, talk.atheism   
   From: santimvah_notspam@yahoo.com   
      
   "Brian Fletcher"  wrote in message   
   news:zP4Nf.18291$yK1.16749@news-server.bigpond.net.au...   
   >   
   > "Joseph H"  wrote in message   
   > news:1141155912.450786.117430@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...   
   >> What is this thing called self?   
   >>   
   >> Is it.......   
   >>   
   >> A collection of personality-traits?   
   >> or..   
   >> Some special gift or skill?   
   >> or..   
   >> Some unique personality?   
   >> or..   
   >> A particular compendium of the beliefs and attitudes available locally?   
   >> or..   
   >> An I one pampers and indulges as much as possible?   
   >> or..   
   >> Some metaphysical and/or legal entity?   
   >> or..   
   >> All of the above - i.e. a vague identity to be called upon as and how   
   >> thge occasion demands?   
   >>   
   >> And if it so happens that a person has no unique gifts, or none that he   
   >> knows, and is unable to submit to the conventions of the moment and has   
   >> no interest in pampering himself...does that mean that this person has   
   >> no self?   
   >>   
   >> Or if a person has some physiological or psychological condition -   
   >> autism, say - that prevents him joining in the great swig of the moment   
   >> does that mean this person too is devoid of self?   
   >>   
   >> And might we not say that human history is an ongoing theatre of self,   
   >> a never-ending frieze of error and insistence and assertion and favour?   
   >> And where stands the no-man, the man with no self, in this frieze? Does   
   >> he have any useful role to play? Might he - because of his inability to   
   >> join in the jolly lie -  be driven to find an underlying truth? Might   
   >> not the vast spectaculars of our capacity to sustain self - the ability   
   >> to create, to believe, to submit to form, to beauty - push us along a   
   >> path of error and illusion? And might the no-man, in this scenario,   
   >> have something to offer....?   
   >>   
   >> Ah, shure, I'm only hoping.....   
   >>   
   >> Joseph H   
   >>   
   >> www.humanisation.org   
   >>   
   >   
   > From where did the hope spring?   
   >   
   > BOfL   
   >   
      
   Eternal ... of course! :)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)