Peter pan: syndrome vs. reality

[motherengine]

the idea that people “grow up” is a fallacy based on the premise that personas age with bodies. a mind, however influenced and affected by external stimuli, is born and dies with the same individual persona. i do not simply remember being a three year old child. i am still that entity, albeit with slight variants of aspects such as awareness and physical ability. My external behavior has been modified to better suite its environment, though this modification has not significantly altered the primal self (or born identity). Therefore, I am the child within and I am not, as kuato said, “what I do”.

 

just a thought, pointless or not.

[ronthepon]

Get it better understood by getting it clear just what you call your mind.

 

Thinking thingy?

 

Consience?

 

Observer?

 

Brain?

[motherengine]

"mind" as the aspect of the brain that is perceived by others as a persona. the "you" or "i" in a biological structure.

[ronthepon]

Physical matter-wise, your entire body is give a new set of atoms in ten years.

 

Mentally, your charecter changes as your body gets older(3 years, 4, 7, 12, 15, 20, 28. after that just how much it changes I don't know)

 

Your observation continuity is based on all the memory stored in your brain.

 

Now be explicit and well defined and word well to describe your definition of the 'self'.

[motherengine]

Physical matter-wise, your entire body is give a new set of atoms in ten years.

 

Mentally, your charecter changes as your body gets older(3 years, 4, 7, 12, 15, 20, 28. after that just how much it changes I don't know)

 

Your observation continuity is based on all the memory stored in your brain.

 

Now be explicit and well defined and word well to describe your definition of the 'self'.

 

one can only go on what one perceives as far as "character" is concerned. if a new set of atoms is "given" in ten years, this may merely mean that a transference or exact reconstitution of self [the combined elements of chemistry in the brain that constitute the essence concidered to be a biological organism's personage by similar sentient beings] occurs, not necessarily a change in the base structure. a new set of blocks make up the same basic form. i relate to the world just as i did when i was concidered a child. i do not seperate myself into categories or stages of being emotionally ("when i was a child..."). but hey, that's just me.

[Panjandrum]

Perfect replication is impossible, even in theory. That we do not notice our minds changing as we age is no surprise, since the process is not only slow, but too close for us to observe. If you do not believe that this process occurs, I suggest you undertake a thorough psychological analysis of yourself, and repeat it in ten years time. You will, I expect, be quite amased by the extent to which your 'self' has mutated.

 

I have perhaps a clearer view of this process of change, unencumbered as I am by an emotionaly loaded sense of 'self'. I have noted with dispassionate interest the various changes that my mind and thought processes have undergone over the course of my life. I am quite certain that I do not resemble my younger self in any but a superficial manner.