Meditations
How strange.
I've just been lying in bed trying to catch up on some reading that I've put off for a few days, Descartes incidentally which is probably the reason why I am currently feeling so...involved with myself?
"I think therefore I am" and, as I was reading his meditations on just such a concept I noticed my own finger; it was pressed against the page, quite firmly, so firmly in fact that the blood at the tip of my finger had been all but forced out and it was simply a pale flesh colour, not pink, peach or any other...mostly just white. And then a strange surge, tingle almost. It was funny but as I watched my finger I could feel the blood in it pulsing, and with each heartbeat I could see that bloody rising, pink, to the tip of my finger and then falling back down again. It was warm, and a strange sensation indeed.
I fear I'm beginning to talk like a dead french man now, I can see his style creeping into this post but I'll carry on regardless.
It was a strange thought to think that I take that little pink wave stretching to the tip of my finger and back again, or that tingly warm feeling, or even the fact that I can feel either as reason for my own existence, when really, what evidence do I truly have that any of that is so?
Looks like Descartes is actually sinking in...how shocking.
But my real reason for making this little post was the realisation that, that warm, pink, tingly pulsing is all that tethers us to this perception of existence...and I just wanted to make a note of that before it slips away again. Whether or not our perceptions are real the fact that we percieve them makes them so, at least for us, questions of "mind" aside any such thoughts that we have are intimately connected to the body. It has been pointed out that we can concieve of our bodies not existing, yet we cannot concieve of our own minds not existing, yet can we concieve of our own bodies existing without those minds since our mind is not our own without our bodies to give it context, and the thought that we may simply belong - owe as much as we can see of what we are, our minds and our bodies - to just that tingly feeling...
...scares the hell out of me.
I've just been lying in bed trying to catch up on some reading that I've put off for a few days, Descartes incidentally which is probably the reason why I am currently feeling so...involved with myself?
"I think therefore I am" and, as I was reading his meditations on just such a concept I noticed my own finger; it was pressed against the page, quite firmly, so firmly in fact that the blood at the tip of my finger had been all but forced out and it was simply a pale flesh colour, not pink, peach or any other...mostly just white. And then a strange surge, tingle almost. It was funny but as I watched my finger I could feel the blood in it pulsing, and with each heartbeat I could see that bloody rising, pink, to the tip of my finger and then falling back down again. It was warm, and a strange sensation indeed.
I fear I'm beginning to talk like a dead french man now, I can see his style creeping into this post but I'll carry on regardless.
It was a strange thought to think that I take that little pink wave stretching to the tip of my finger and back again, or that tingly warm feeling, or even the fact that I can feel either as reason for my own existence, when really, what evidence do I truly have that any of that is so?
Looks like Descartes is actually sinking in...how shocking.
But my real reason for making this little post was the realisation that, that warm, pink, tingly pulsing is all that tethers us to this perception of existence...and I just wanted to make a note of that before it slips away again. Whether or not our perceptions are real the fact that we percieve them makes them so, at least for us, questions of "mind" aside any such thoughts that we have are intimately connected to the body. It has been pointed out that we can concieve of our bodies not existing, yet we cannot concieve of our own minds not existing, yet can we concieve of our own bodies existing without those minds since our mind is not our own without our bodies to give it context, and the thought that we may simply belong - owe as much as we can see of what we are, our minds and our bodies - to just that tingly feeling...
...scares the hell out of me.