it is the how part of how we behave which is indeterminate. as i said in my original post, we have many attributes in common, but there is no program, how we react to stimuli and what we do is infinitely variable. which is not the same thing as saying that we can do anything we want. obviously we can't do that. no matter how hard we try we cannot turn ourselves into rocks or eat 1000 times our own weight in 1 hour.

Depends on what we are...

If you are but the vessel you are simply a biomechanical device.

If you are what the vessel was created to contain then what does it matter the construction of the vessel... It is there merely to contain that part of you which exists in this realm.

!

yes, we are made up of protons and electrons and nutronws and atoms , we are 90 something precent water and electronic in nature.

As a joke, my attempt seems to have fallen flat. Sorry Jeannie.

My point though is that, in my opinion, the concept of a “physical self” is a fallacious one. There is no “physical” to self. There is physical that the self inhabits or controls or operates – or even thinks it is. And that’s the fallacious part – thinking that one is a physical entity.

But even if you accept the “higher self”/”physical self” duality, it seems to me that if the higher self is not in control of the genetics of it’s physical self, then the higher self is just as much at the mercy of the physical universe as is the physical self.

To me, it’s like thinking we have an “automobile self” because we drive an automobile. But we’re not the automobile we’re the driver. Studying the automobile can never result in discovering why we’re driving it, or make us better able to read road signs or find a gas station or leave for work on time or remember to use our blinker.

very good drivers make themselves become a "part" of the automobile.

http://media.photobucket.com/image/natural%20gas/earnit815/naturalgas.jpg?o=11



i'm sorry. i'm really really really really sorry.

I have recently seen and learned how much a person inherits from the genes of their ancestors to include some diseases and personality traits and flaws and tendencies.

A flaw or trait can cause a person to be an addict or a at the mercy of tendencies towards anger, even murder. Do we inherit personality traits? Insanity? Disease?

It is certainly seen in generations of dogs, why not humans?

If this is so, then how much control of who we are do we really have?

Are we just programed organisms at the mercy of our genes and DNA?

Are we just biological thinking machines running on programs?

we are organic robotd built and run by viruses and bacteria of native and extraterrestrial origins

it was a typo - should have read "robots"

I have recently seen and learned how much a person inherits from the genes of their ancestors to include some diseases and personality traits and flaws and tendencies.

A flaw or trait can cause a person to be an addict or a at the mercy of tendencies towards anger, even murder. Do we inherit personality traits? Insanity? Disease?

It is certainly seen in generations of dogs, why not humans?

If this is so, then how much control of who we are do we really have?

Are we just programed organisms at the mercy of our genes and DNA?

Are we just biological thinking machines running on programs?

Jesus has spoken!

(Or at least the guy who looks like Jesus has spoken)

I'm going to proceed under the assumption you're legitimately curious about this. If you're really interested in following this line of thought, do some reading before forming an opinion. Go get a copy of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins and Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennet. The Selfish Gene should give you an understanding of the workings of genes and is a good introduction to memetics. If you'd like to know more about memes I hear that The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore is pretty good. A great deal of Dawkins work--talks, programs, and other snippits-- can be quickly found on Google Video. Here's an audio clip of his on this very subject you're discussing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXO_T5osi4A.

Basically, we're physically determined by our genes, the unit of natural selection which is often used to describe prevalence of certain traits in individuals. Mentally we're determined by our culture and our decisions within it, and if there is such a thing as a unit of culture then it is a meme. It is important to understand that there is no one gene for being strong or weak or yellow or on fire. Genes just synthesize proteins which are akin to instructions, a body can't be made or operate with the instructions of only a single gene. To refer to genes as being "for" a trait we define genes as enough of an extent of genetic material to determine a basic trait. For more complicated things, like genes for being a mammal, we talk about gene-complexes, a collection of genes determining related traits. You can regard all of our traits as inherited, but not all of them are inherited from our genes. Many are environmental and thus memetic.

We are perfectly capable of defying our genes, we do it every time we brave our fears or have protected sex. Don't be afraid of genetic engineering, we've been doing it since we first developed farming; our food is a lot more domesticated than it once was. We have no need of our genes any longer, and everywhere they apply is vestigial. Your fixation on this programming metaphor might be somewhat wandering, but it's leading you to some fair conclusions. Can we be the program and do the programming? Depending on the extent of you metaphor there is no reason we cannot. We have programs today that can alter themselves. The means and ends are different, but the statement is approximately true. The program in this case is the genes we inherit and the memes we encounter along the way

There is no evidence for higher consciousness and it implies nothing useful about life anyway. Just because something doesn't make you feel good doesn't mean it's not true. Spiritualism can fit in every gap left by science, but remember that every gap it has ever filled in the past has been displaced by a more reasonable and testable explanation. What makes you think the gaps of today are too small to be filled by anything other than spiritualism? I don't see your belief in a higher self as helping you any more than accepting what is evident to be true would be.

What does having free will imply? What is the difference between having free will and conviently behaving as though you do? Determinism accounts for free will, just not in the way that makes you feel fuzzy inside. Basically, remember that you likely don't have free will, and for the good of all of us behave as though you do.

"I" is just a word, you can phrase the question "What is the self?" but you are begging the question in doing so.

What does life mean is a non-question. It's like asking where the center on the line forming a circle is. We ask "What does it mean?" all the time and here we've run into a point where it doesn't apply. What it be so bad if the universe really wasn't "for" anything? What would change?

I'm going to leave that as a general response to the idea of the thread, though I could go into specifics with individual posters. I don't want to seem uninvited, so I'll just say that all this waxing spiritual about science is only clouding your view of it. Still, I'm tempted to discuss the apparent origins of life if that's where this thread is heading (which it apparently has been).