THoR

If you cut off your arm, your arm will be over there, but you will still experience your same identity. You will probably still have feeling in a 'phantom arm' which isn't there. Just because your arm was held on by molecular bond didn't make it YOU. A body is something you wear, not something you are. It does; however, seem to be a necessary tool in order for us to function and think in human terms. But thought is an experience and something must "exist" in order to experience it. It isn't possible for something to be more than (or less than) a single existence and any claim that a composite can, by some esoteric power, become a single identity invokes the supernatural. Your body is a plurality, a collection of individual elements each with its own properties and physical boundary. Every element in your corpse acts and reacts individually and differently to similar stimulus. Unfortunately you have been trained since birth to think you are that thing you see in the mirror. Hair, eyes, nose, skin, appendages. By rote and repetition you have developed a false self image - you think your body is YOU. If you are relying on 'emergent properties' to explain how 2 equals 1, I'm afraid that was long ago exposed as lacking in the logic department.

My EX-wife was inert...didn't mean she wasn't dangerous.

Actually, it takes a seat, legs, back and arms (pillow optional but recommended). If you prefer wood, then those parts are made of sets labeled ‘cells’ which are comprised of sets labeled ‘molecules’ which are formed by sets labeled ‘atoms’, whose components have been theoretically superseded as elemental particles by hadron and lepton groups - populated by sub-sets of even smaller particles and anti-particles. Tell me, are Siamese twins ONE person? I mean SERIOUSLY, do they BOTH get to vote?

Ft Myers area??

It takes AN existence to experience A thought. A pair of existences have two separate experiences. Just because cells of wood are held together by molecular bond does not make it a single existence (except as a symbol in the mind). It is certainly not hard to understand why the bias exists to consider a chair as a single thing; however' date=' it is certainly NOT A collection of particles 'thinks'. I see....oh, xcusa...WE see. If you could survive the transfer of your entire body particle by particle from your present position to a distance 20 ft away, at some point the identity you experience would be in the new location. The trick is finding that particle. Just because cells of wood are held together by molecular bond does not make it a single existence (except as a symbol in the mind). It is certainly not hard to understand why the bias exists to consider a chair as a single thing; however, it is certainly NOT ... Sorry - repeated myself again, again.

If 'time' were just change, they'd just call it change. Time is the quantification (measurement) of change. Existence does not depend on time, time depends on existence. There are two basic natural phenomena - 1) existence and 2) change.Their importance seems to be in that order also. Certainly - you start off....

Oh, I see. So multiple independent processes are magicaly transformed into a single consciousness? Bio-chemical processes are certainly a byproduct of thought - but not the thought, themselves. Thought is a form of change that occurs within a single existence, not a collection of independent processes within a composite.

A group having a concurring opinion is NOT quite the same thing as multiple entities being a single identity....(kinda reaching there aren't ya?? )

You can talk about the inherent properties of any composite - up to and including the Universe itself. Every combination and permutation has different resulting properties. That is not the point. They are NOT single existences - they are collections. You can 'unify' them conceptually if you wish and often this is convenient (especially in conversation - saying 'chair' instead of seat, back, legs and arms). But to declare that two existences can magically become a single existence because they are molecularly bonded smacks of voodoo. I perceive. If I had no identity there would be no 'I' in the preceeding sentence. And if I were a composite I would have said 'We'. To challenge your own existence is an excercise in futility. To engage in a discussion in which every commonly held basic axiom is challenged is equally futile...and rather dull. Yeah, the mud I wear conceals me rather well, but I have little doubt I am in there somewhere - a physical reality which can be pointed to. Ridiculous...I tried VERY hard to include ALL my biases and assumptions. Did I miss any?

"Cogito ergo sum". I think, therefore I am. One must exist in order to experience, and the fact that you experience is convincing proof you exist. Each existence in the cosmos has its own unique history particular to itself. Your body; however, isn't a single existence, it is a composite. It is comprised of billions of fundamental particles - a myriad of individual elements each with its own properties and physical boundary. While it is natural that each existence would have its own singular identity, any claim that a composite can, by some esoteric power, also have a single identity rather than multiple identities invokes the supernatural and regardless of the number of letters after the claimant's name the contention is contrary to logic. It is not possible for anything to 'be' more than (or less than) a single existence, so the identity you experience must be that of a single element within the composition of your body. This isn't rocket science. It has nothing to do with religion. It is simple reasoning and elementary deduction.

You have a point. It's NOT guns that kill people - it's the BULLETS. What we need are more bullet control laws.

"If it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for YOU." - Lorena Bobbit Thank GOD I'm an atheist.

GR/SR actually DO condone moral relativism and thanks to Dr. Onebeermug (Ein Stein), in 1945 the US became the first country to technically murder mass to commit mass murder.

and Actually I was being facetious, not sarcastic ... illustrating absurdity with absurdity. Those left-wing environazi pseudo-scientists who would have us sign on to the Kyoto Protocol are using the gradual warming of Earth after an ice age in the same way I was using the gradual lengthening of daylight hours after winter to purposely mislead the 'dumb-masses'.

I can attest to that. I know someone who still breaks down in tears today for a bad choice made 40 years ago.

How can you say that? EVERYONE knows that global warming is FACT, they just don't realize how serious it is and how quickly it will exterminate us all.

Forget 2012. I've been observing the sun for the past few months. Sadly, the hours of daylight are getting longer every day and soon - I predict within 12 months - Earth shall be burnt to a crisp. Every living thing shall die.

Perhaps I have overreacted to the recent airing of Carl Sagan's series. Indeed every time I hear an 'authoritative' icon talk about the 'beginning of time' or the 'creation of the Universe' it has the same effect on my nerves as fingernails on a chalk board. Actually what I am sneaking up on is an expansion of Newton's third law. It is probable that the phenomenon of existence is explained by a principle - a natural law (Newton-III) rather than a process. If such is the case then for so long as the brainpool is focused on a process, the progress of knowledge will be retarded. Indeed, just to consider that a fundamental particle may NOT be structureless - that it could be defined by a symmetrical set of equal and opposite properties - might reveal a much simpler (and yet varied) structure of elemental particles. No, I don't have the credentials or the crunched numbers to prove such a theory. I don't have the time and my ability to encode math has long rusted away to the point that all I can do with the idea is put it out there and see if it strikes a chord anywhere. To completely separate physics from metaphysics would rob science of its imagination and intuition.

Actually your post is appreciated and in consideration I have changed the paragraph accordingly. "The existence of nothing ostensibly requires no justification, so most popular theories of Universal origin begin with a primal void. At the beginning of time a transformation must have occurred which brought forth the material manifestation of the cosmos. Some contemporary astronomers have espoused a Theory of Singularity - or Big Bang - which envisions a Universe cast from the bowels of some spontaneous cosmic eruption. Others do not address the phenomenon of existence at all. Theologists would have us believe an omnipotent deity gave birth to the heavens and the earth."

You give the impression of not having read (or understood) the premise. Unless you can get to the point of infinity, there IS no way to test the model which would include the possibility of 'infinity'. Infinity is undefined and just to try to define it sways the perspective back to the 'finite'. In any case, the premise is that ANY theory of 'creation' is illogical. Change is a function of existence, not the reverse. You can have changeless existence, but not existenceless change.