Week begins with another idea. What if thought exist independently of the thinker. I know, sound like the same thing I’ve been saying, but there’s a twist. What if ideas, thoughts and even emotions are not really mine or created by me, but instead exist kind of free floating, and this body/mind/soul that I call I “channels” them and then appropriates them as mine? An analogy may help.
Television. The TV set does not have a real personality. It is just a carcass which happens to have the ability to catch signals that are free floating around us and traduce them into images and sound that then we see in the screen. The waves exist, independent of a television set being on or not, but when the tv is turned on, it appears like it is producing them when in fact it is only reproducing them. More than one tv at the time may reproduce the same waves hence many tvs “experience” the same program. What if thought and ideas are just like waves, and we are like receivers. I think I’ve heard poets and writers talking about how an ideas just “grabbing” them and they just being like a conduit to express them (like the tv set). Could inspiration just be the ability to tune in to certain length-wave in order to receive the ideas that are floating around us? Could we say the same thing about thoughts and emotions? This sounds plausible. Just like it would not make much sense for the tv to feel proud or guilty for the type of programs it shows (the whole message-messenger idea) if I am just a receiver and channel of ideas in the air, why would I feel proud about the type of ideas I am able to channel (is more like an old radio being able to reproduce FM or AM waves). This could explain the idea of who is thinking the thoughts, the answer would be nobody, thoughts are just being reproduced by me. I believe is pretty clear that I am not my thoughts since they change all the time, neither my feelings. Although I can imagine a tv set becoming so use to be turned on for the 8pm news that eventually it could begin thinking that part of its personality includes the 8pm news. Nonsense.
Now, if we assume (and I just started thinking that I might be too invested in trying to prove that I don’t exist, which is not a great approach since I don’t want to be attached to any particular position) that thoughts exist, free floating like waves, the next question would be who creates them, which of course is the same question about who created everything. A though question that I don’t know I am clever enough to answer. I believe Jung said that God existence cannot be proven or disproved. I know (from the little I remember about syllogisms) that we cannot prove it that way since to include it as a premise you would need to accept its existence. I remember the Augustine’s argument about the unmovable mover, but again it seems to be as easy to belive it than imagine that the chain of mover-moved extends to infinity.
I believe in god. Better yet, I know god exists. How? Out of personal experience. I’ve had the luck (or blessing if one cares for that language) of have had experience the mysterium tremendum et fascinans that I call god (or the void, Kosmos, etc.). I have to think more about it. As some said, about god, for the believer no proof is required, for the skeptic not proof is enough.
