[MD] Intellectual activity

[Ham Priday]

Alice --


> Actually I never said anything about the non-existance of a "self" I said
> that one counld be conscious without being self-aware. Maybe a better term
> would be "subconscious", which I think is a part of being conscious. It's
> just not a part that we are always aware of.  So the part of consciousness
> that an infant has access to is a part that is not aware of the separation
> between he and the other. That process takes time, maybe years to fully
> develop.

Let's be clear about what we mean by "self" vs. "self-awareness".   I use
the term "proprietary awareness" for that very purpose.  It implies
"subjectivity" -- the cognizant sensibility of a particular individual.
Proprietary awareness makes the description "being-conscious of
being-conscious" unnecessary and redundant.  Consciousness is one's being
aware as a self.  This is a self-evident truth.  (In fact, some here have
said it's the only empirical truth.)  I don't know about sub-consciousness,
which I believe went out with the psychologies of Freud and Jung.  But I do
know that my thoughts and experience are mine only, i.e., proprietary to Ham
Priday.  I assume that this is also true for your thoughts and experiences.

Now, were you or I to have no object to experience, no ideas to think about,
no sense of "being in this world", what would our awareness consist of?
What is individual consciousness (or sub-consciousness, for that matter)
without content?   Certainly something less than a human being.  I submit
that the 'tubula rasa' is as good an analogy as any other.  It's the primary
nothingness from which "being-aware" or differentiation arises.  We each
come into this world from that primary state; it is the core of "selfness",
and it is applied to every thought, feeling, and experience written onto
that blank slate.  In other words, it's the nothingness by which we divide
Essence into finite beingness.

> But I am an other to others, correct?  But I don't think Blank
> Slate applies here.

Your physical organism and its behavior is an object to others -- once you
are born, of course.  But not your feelings, thoughts, or experience.  Those
are proprietary to your self, which means you can only express them
indirectly, through communication with others.

Do contemplate upon it, Alice.  Most MoQ followers are too ready to dismiss
the subjective self.  They consider it a byproduct of organic evolution,
thereby missing the whole point of existential reality.  As a result, their
objectivist understanding of existence is reduced to the Buddha's sound of
one hand clapping.

I hope this helps to clarify matters.

Essentially yours,
Ham