If I change my mind, does that change WHO I AM?

If so, the who I am sometimes changes every day. Maybe several times a day.

I am a new person right this minute.

wow.

awesome.

JB wrote...



I did not say that you were confused.

It has nothing to do with being at the mercy of influences, upbringing, experience, knowledge, etc. None of those things can even exhibit 'mercy'. They are not capable of considering how one feels to even be able to do so. One can only think that they are 'at the mercy' of those things should that be a part of who they are. That would be a perfect example of how they think about those things.



People are not just their brains or their thoughts, I agree. There are all kinds of physiological and psychological elements which constitute the totality of a human being. That is beside the point here.



Spoken as a belief which frames how you think and clearly shows a part of who you are, a person who believes in the existence of spirit.

Unless you can prove the existence of spirit, I will not delve into that portion of your argument. It is yours, and you are entitled to it, but it has no basis in demonstrable fact, therefore cannot be used to offer any logical support to the topic at hand. That entire response is a good example of what you believe influencing how you think and thereby determining who you are. You are a person who believes that how one thinks reflects where they are spiritually. That is a part of who you have become, according to how you think about these things.



This makes no sense to me whatsoever, could you clarify it? Decide to react without thinking? Do all reactions involve thought?

Hmmmmm....

I see your claim, but I do not follow it. I understand those terms, but do not understand them in the order in which you have used them. Are you claiming that the will is completely devoid of emotional influence, or comprised completely of it? Are you suggesting that how one feels determines who they are, devoid of belief, knowledge, and thought?

Does the will even exist without those things? What does the will base it's decisions on, if not how one thinks and what one feels?



One who chooses based upon feelings alone will be disappointed more times than not should those feelings have an illogical basis. I do not discount emotions as being useless. An emotional decision can, in fact, be a valid one. It all depends upon how logical the subject's thinking is. I believe it completely depends on the individual in question and how they think about these things, regardless of whether or not that thinking is consciously chosen. That may or may not involve warm fuzzy feelings.



Usually they are.



Some do both.



If you believe that how you feel and how you think does not determine who you are, but instead that you determine who you are in spite of these things, then I have nothing further to add except one question.

If feelings and thoughts do not determine who you are, then why change them, because they would not affect who you are either way?



The claim does not make any sense to me, and seems to directly contradict the claims in the beginning of the same post.

I know.

I know. You said I was confusing "things." Things do not get confused. So, unless you are the one who is confused, then its a mote point, because I am not confused.



So? Your totally logical and mental approach to the subject of 'who you are' is based on your 'belief' that there is no such thing as 'spirit.' (Which according to my personal logic and experience is illogical.)

I should not be expected to come down to your "mental" level in order to state my point of view and belief; or to argue with you about the existence of spirit just because you don't share that view.

So your whole argument is based on the premise that there is no such thing as spirit. So your argument is a great example of how what you write reveals how you think and what you believe, hence reveals who you are, according to your own argument.

It always boils down to your beliefs and mine concerning 'spirit.'

To you, its only the body and the mind.

To me, it is the body , mind and spirit.

I think you are lacking something.

As I have said in additional posts:

I am not what I believe, or what I think, or what I do. Those are simply reflections of who I am. Those things can all change.

I do not change. I am always who I am. I know who I am.

Do you know who you are?

No.

My approach takes into consideration all belief and how one thinks resulting from that. When contemplating who a person is, it is not necessary to consider whether or not I agree with any given single belief. The point is that beliefs and knowledge determine how one thinks and that constitutes who one is. I have given examples which support this. Your reponses also fit within the framework.

This is not about my personal opinion of you, as in what value I place in you personally.



My argument has nothing to do with any specific belief. It simply holds to the fact that belief affects thought, and how one thinks exactly corresponds to who they are. This is further supported by demonstrable fact that who one is changes along with changes in belief.

So what you write does reflect who you are, how you think and apparently even what you believe.

You now know that I believe I have a soul.

And I now know that you do not believe you have a soul and you do not believe in spirit simply because no one has proven to you that there is such a thing. (Of course I have known this for a long time about you. It is not really news to me.)

Also, you confuse "feeling" with "emotion." These are NOT the same thing at all, but it is a very common mistake that many people make.

If you don't know the difference between 'feeling' and 'emotions' I am not sure if I know how to explain it to you.

I guess you will have to figure it out on your own.

It may, however, it does not necessarily follow that it does.

Edited to add:



Don't be shy, show me where I confused feeling with emotion. I would bet that it is you who confuse the two.

If you cannot demonstrate the difference between emotion and feeling, what grounds do I have to think that you would be able to accurately determine whether or I have confused the two?



I am much more interested in finding out exactly what grounds an opinion rather than just an opinion.

I can best describe my point of view as this:

I can FEEL who I am. And I feel that who I am is not what I believe or what I think, because my entire belief system has completely changed several times in my life and my way of thinking has completely changed A LOT throughout my life --and yet I still feel and have an awareness of "self" and of "who I am" that is has not EVER changed.

AND THAT, MY FRIEND, IS THE SPIRITUAL PART OF ME. I DON'T AND WON'T DENY IT.

The reason I know you confused the two is because I referred to 'feeling' and you changed that term to the word 'emotion.'

Off of the top of my head, emotions are "Fear, worry, anxiety, happiness, sadness, grief, anger, frustration, depression, elation, anticipation, excitement, pleasure, delight, etc etc etc.

"Feeling" is sensory input, instinct, intuition, knowing, divine unconditional love.

I will trust my 'feeling' over my thinking. I will trust my 'feelings' over my emotions.

JB...



I am only saying that that is a foundational element of your belief system that has been held an important aspect and is displayed through the direct influence that it still has upon how you think about things, regardless of the other changes within your individual thoughts and beliefs.

I am not saying that it is not possibly true or that it is necessarily 'wrong'.

My thoughts in this thread have nothing at all to do with the dismissal of one's personal belief system as being 'illogical' or 'wrong'. I am simply making connections between belief, knowledge, and thought, and how those things directly constitute not only how one thinks, but are an exact reflection of who one is, regardless of the specific nature of individual belief.

It would only follow that how one writes, if and only iff it is an exact reflection of how one thinks, would be a reliable measure of who one is and what one believes.

That is always case specific.

Edited to add:



Maybe once...

I also asked several questions in that same post which used the term feeling. None were answered. Are you claiming that 'feeling' and 'emotions' are unrelated?

Is fear not a feeling? Panic? Love? Sadness?

If you yourself are fearful or "in fear," that is an emotion.

If you 'feel' or sense the fear in others (sensory input) that is a 'feeling.'

If you sense danger, that is a feeling, not necessarily a fear.

"I felt I was in danger and that he wanted to shoot me even though he was smiling and seemed very calm."

Pure unconditional Love, I believe is a feeling, not an emotion.

Panic can be a physical reaction to stress that is a programed response. (Fight or flight response initiated for some reason which could actually be subconscious.)

The primary difference I see is that emotions can be controlled via thoughts and reasoning. Feeling, is a sensory perception of some kind.

Feeling is sensory input? I doubt that. Feeling may be derived or invoked through sensory input, but it is not sensory input in and of itself.

If one has their 'feelings' hurt, does that not mean that they have become emotionally upset through the words/actions of another, through sensory input?

Feeling is instinct? Perhaps but that would equate feeling and emotions. Emotions are innate and therefore need not be thought about in order to be invoked or felt.

Feeling is intuition? Intuition itself is always involuntary. Intuition can cause a feeling, such as one of cautiousness, dread, or any number of other emotions and those in turn can invoke an involuntary emotional response as well.

Feeling is knowing? Knowing is having certainty in a belief that one cannot be wrong about that belief. How is that to be shown? If one knows, then one is certain that they cannot be mistaken. If one claims to believe rather than know, then they also consider the possibility for being mistaken in that.

Feeling is divine unconditional love? Who determines divinity in our less than divine state? Who could?

Unconditional love? Nice thought, but does not exist, for no one would love another whose attributes included what they despise most. One's own idea of what love is is always self-serving. One does - out of love - whatever it is that they think constitutes being 'out of love'.




That is called recognition and is a product of prior knowledge concerning how to detect such things through visual clues and the sensory perception required to experience those things. It also requires thought.

This is not the impression I got. You certainly did 'dismiss' my belief in spirit, and even suggested that this premise required proof.




"Logical support" according to your premise that there is no such thing, which is your personal opinion. Had I been talking to James or Sky, it would make perfect logical sense to them.

I can see by this response that you have just never experienced divine unconditional love or a feeling as "sensory input." (Called sometimes a "sixth sense")

In another thread ("Does this reality make sense?") http://mingle2.com/topic/show/250367

I introduced the idea that we may not be able to "see" something that we can'r or just don't believe. Perhaps if we haven't experienced something, we can't see or feel it. Maybe this is the case.

To state that "unconditional love" does not exist is a telling statement that you don't understand what love actually is.

No, I dismissed your belief in spirit being used as a means for refuting my claims. Here it is again...





You were attempting to use your belief in spirit as grounds to warrant the conclusion that what I had written was incorrect. You believe differently, and that is fine, but your beliefs do not constitute enough reason to logically disprove my claims in this thread, in fact, they support it.



You were attempting to tell me that I was wrong, specifically stating that how one thinks does not equate to who they are. You invoked spirit in an attempt to support what was an argument against my claims in this thread, while simultaneously not addressing the arguments given by me which do logically support my claims.

It drew the response I gave. You cannot expect to make an attempt to refute my claim without logical grounds. There are no logical grounds for the claim that spirit exists. That idea constitutes the substance within your claim. Your claim requires that one believes in spirit. This thread is not about whether or not spirit exists. That is but one small aspect of a much bigger picture.

Yours is not the only belief system being covered here. The beliefs themselves represent a portion in my line of thinking that any and all beliefs directly influence how one thinks and who one is.

I could care less about whether or not an indivuals beliefs correspond with the world as we know it. I care much more about the fact that whatever those beliefs consist of have a direct affect on how one thinks and who they are.

Your assertion which completely depends upon your belief in spirit, does not - in any way - logically refute my claims in this thread.

That is all I was saying.

I think there is some confusion going on as to the difference between "what" and "who" we are. (Not to mention "how we think" and "where we are (spiritually)".

Maybe if these terms were clarified the conversation would go more smoothly. Or maybe the differences of opinion are really only a result of different definitions?

From past experience, it is fairly apparent that Creative and Jeannie have different opinions as to "what" we are (Matter/Energy on one side and Spritual Entities on the other.)

And I think "the way we think and act" is a fair definition for "who" we are and would fit well with both views of "what" we are.

And I also think that "the current point in our evolution/growth/development" would also fit well with both views.

I can see by this response and others that you choose to make unfounded conclusions about me personally rather than to address the topic.

It is against the rules, and is a sign in and of itself.

Sky wrote...



I would agree. I have given earlier examples, should one choose to address those. They supported the idea that what one believes and knows determines how one thinks and that how one thinks is who one is.

What we are and who we are are not the same thing.