I have a theory about the self. Assume that you are under
two years old, which is to say that “you” do not exist as a distinct,
self-conscious entity because the body that will become you has not
distinguished itself from the natural world it perceives. Imagine also that
your body exists in a world where every desire it has is fulfilled prior to
that desire even entering into consciousness. So seamless would this process be
that the brain that might become you never becomes aware of ever having had the
desire in the first place. Would you ever come into existence?
Two is the age most experiments indicate that the self becomes separate, distinct from the natural world it perceives. It seems that this separation occurs because desires are not fulfilled and because desires are unfulfilled, negative sensations arise that distinguish the thing feeling pain, the new you, from the pain. If desires are fulfilled before the brain becomes aware that there was a desire, the separation would never occur and self-consciousness would never come about, in other words, desire unfulfilled rises above mere sense perception and presents something new, the self that perceives. Only man can strike this discordant note because only man is conscious of being separated from his environment. This separation is called suffering, and the more man is separated the greater the suffering.
If this theory is correct, the fruit of that suffering
is self-knowledge. This explains why the existence of a distinct self is always
burdened by suffering. This doesn’t mean that God (I don’t have in mind any
particular God, but rather the entity one can logically deduce as the necessary
first cause and designer of the universe.) is bad or thoughtless, or that the
universe is somehow inherently cruel; it is that without suffering there is no
distinctive subjective experience of the world.
Assume that there is a God as described above. If the self
can only arise from suffering, which is the
absence or separation from something, a being without absence or separation such
as God does not suffer and, therefore, would have no distinct self. For God to
experience a distinct self, God must suffer, and God can do so only willingly.
Therefore, God creates the universe to separate Itself from something,
creation, which causes suffering, which creates God’s experience of self.
Blog No. 90, Suffering creates self-consciousness
I have a theory about the self. Assume that you are under two years old, which is to say that “you” do not exist as a distinct, self-conscious entity because the body that will become you has not distinguished itself from the natural world it perceives. Imagine also that your body exists in a world where every desire it has is fulfilled prior to that desire even entering into consciousness. So seamless would this process be that the brain that might become you never becomes aware of ever having had the desire in the first place. Would you ever come into existence?
Two is the age most experiments indicate that the self becomes separate, distinct from the natural world it perceives. It seems that this separation occurs because desires are not fulfilled and because desires are unfulfilled, negative sensations arise that distinguish the thing feeling pain, the new you, from the pain. If desires are fulfilled before the brain becomes aware that there was a desire, the separation would never occur and self-consciousness would never come about, in other words, desire unfulfilled rises above mere sense perception and presents something new, the self that perceives. Only man can strike this discordant note because only man is conscious of being separated from his environment. This separation is called suffering, and the more man is separated the greater the suffering.
If this theory is correct, the fruit of that suffering is self-knowledge. This explains why the existence of a distinct self is always burdened by suffering. This doesn’t mean that God (I don’t have in mind any particular God, but rather the entity one can logically deduce as the necessary first cause and designer of the universe.) is bad or thoughtless, or that the universe is somehow inherently cruel; it is that without suffering there is no distinctive subjective experience of the world.
Assume that there is a God as described above. If the self can only arise from suffering, which is the absence or separation from something, a being without absence or separation such as God does not suffer and, therefore, would have no distinct self. For God to experience a distinct self, God must suffer, and God can do so only willingly. Therefore, God creates the universe to separate Itself from something, creation, which causes suffering, which creates God’s experience of self.