Possibly a better way of asking (although harder to understand) would be the reverse. The jury is still out on this subject with me, i'll have a smoke later and try to post then
Dig deeper. What are your parts made of? Cells, and hormones, and many other things I'm too sleep-deprived to name, and what are those made of? Atoms. And what are atoms made of? Quarks and the four forces. And what is anything but quarks and the four forces? So what is the difference between you, a sum of parts, and everything around you?
Strange question. I would say I end and the world begins wherever/whenever I perceive something outside of my physical body (any time I respond to physical stimulation of some type). What gets me is whether or not you would include everything in your conscious mind to be a part of you, because it is formed in your brain. If thats the case then the world separate from me begins where I cannot perceive it.
I would guess that yes, the difference to me is perceptual, but we all interact in this tangibly physical world that cannot be manipulated for everyone by one's manipulation of perception.
There are no divisions between self and other. Divisions are relative. All is unity. Our reality is a flow of movement that never crystalizes into being any one thing. Nothing is, or ever can be, independent of this flow. Here the movements of reality seem like GC blades and computer screens, over there planets, stars, and the Universe itself - but all that's here is 'reality', moving and changing in response to the things that happen within it. There are no discrete objects that are separate from the whole, the flow is one, appearing to manifest as many. Our Universe and everything in it is dependent for its existence on the causes and conditions that led to their creation. 'Objects' in our reality - and reality itself - has: equality in neither existing nor not existing, nor both; equality in being momentary; equality in that they have no independent nature; equality in that they are impermanent; equality in being a fluctuation of 'basic space'. Where is 'you'? MelT
Hm? Now where did I suggest any such thing? But is it not interesting that the line demarcating me from the world from you is pretty much made-up, no matter how deeply that line is furrowed into our consciousness? The line is useful on one level; as living organisms in an evolutionary system this temporary assemblage of chemicals is the product of a 3-billion year old process geared toward replication of genes. But to replicate one must first survive long enough to do so. For an organism as complex as a human (not that we are anywhere near the top of the complexity chain of life, but shit damn the human body is complex) it really really helps to have a working internal model of what exactly it is that one wants to preserve. But looking at it holistically... the line is still made-up. I am still a temporary assemblage of quarks in a frothing sea of quarks, and very little really distinguishes me from those other quarks, especially since I'm constantly in the process of exchanging quarks with the rest of the world. Every breath I take is an assault on the meaningful distinction between me and the world.
hehe i did hence the +a little bit. This is essentially the ‘mind body question' which I first encountered years ago when a good friend came home from his first year in university, he'd taken a philosophy/history degree (about 15-16 years ago.) Since then it's been one of the things I use to get to sleep, when I can't get to sleep. The mind or consciousness is in my opinion not held within the body or fixed to a certain particle. Instead it is a by-product of the higher brain functions possibly (and I really don't want to know if this is true because I enjoy the problem for itself) held in the complex electrical field emitted by the nervous system. Of course that's just what I think but it explains a lot of the otherworldliness some people experience (if it's not just psycosis.)
A good point but perhaps a little esoteric to be used in discussion about the human condition, most humans see themselves as discrete units. Also how does society fit into the universe you paint or does it not in reality exist?
What makes the electrical field surrounding the brain fundamentally different from the one surrounding the Earth?
nothing whatsoever, i fully accept that the world could have a mind, or for that matter anything with a complex enough electric field (don't ask me how cos i don't know) is capable of awareness. Just because i can't comprehend them doesn't mean they don't exist sort of thing. I haven't arrived at this by spiritual relavation but more by consindering the alternatives as carefuly as 'i' can and selecting the path that sat most comfortably with me.
Hmm, I'm sorry, I deviated from what I wanted to get at. That's what 48 hours of straight wakefulness fueled primarily by caffeine will get you sometimes. If consciousness resides in an electrical field which is dependent on the brain, then could it not be said that the electrical field is itself a part of the body, and that it is in fact a constituent part of you? So is it a sum of parts + a little bit, or is a sum of parts, one of which is an electrical field?
All this talk of atoms,quarks, society, earth's consciousness, universal unity. It looks like the different answers/musings towards the original question are based on what level you are looking at. Perspective? Quarks and such, seems like when looking at that level there is very little if nothing to distinguish between us and the world. But we live in a world where those atoms have created boundaries for us, so looking at it from an everyday perspective you would imagine the difference being defined in one way or another by where your body/mind stops. In a cosmic view, things do seem to continuously flow and I have no idea what we would contribute, if anything at all. Not trying to get at any specific answer, just letting ya know how I've interpreted what I've seen thusfar.
one can't begin where the other ends, since we're all the same anyhow. Besides, there's no beginning or end, regardless.
hehe makes me ill staying awake that long, i always get a headache a couple of days later Anyway no I think the + a little bit what I call mind is, and this is the best I can describe it, like a resonance field created by our wild biochemistry. I'll try and find some references to materiel that explain what I mean and post later. I have tried looking but have had a somke now and reading tech papers is getting even more difficult