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Anyone else experience the feelings that you are constantly dying? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I don't know how to express or articulate my thoughts and my vocabulary and grammar gets messed up the more I write so I will just write simply.

What I'm trying to say is that every day or hour or minute or everytime you think, you feels like your original selves is dying. I know that we are constantly growing but i just can't stop thinking that whenever we grow or learning new things or start to think differently, our past selves is dead. I think back to my past selves in middle school, highschool and from 2022 and think, aren't they dead? No matter what i do or think or whatever happens to me, i can't bring back the personalities or "me"s from the past. They remain dead and continue to being dead. Unless they are exist in another timeline or universe.

What exactly is identity, consciousness or the self which is me? I don't know nor understand but this idea just stuck in my mind and occasionally appears when I'm bored, stressed or relaxed.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

“Is the caterpillar dead because it became a butterfly?”

The caterpillar IS the butterfly. Perhaps not as you know it, but change is the universal constant, my friend, and trying to hold on to the past is a futile attempt.

In my experience it’s best to acknowledge the past enough so we can appreciate the good things, learn from our mistakes or anything we feel we did less-than-great at, then try to do better as we evolve.

No, you’re not the exact same person you were a few years ago, but we live in a changing world and we change with it as time goes on.

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us"

Best of luck, I’m here if you want to talk about anything :)

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I don't think you quite understand what I'm trying to say.

“Is the caterpillar dead because it became a butterfly?”

The caterpillar IS the butterfly. Perhaps not as you know it, but change is the universal constant,

How is this relevant? I'm talking from the first person perspective. Whether the caterpillar is dead or not depends on the person experiencing the consciousness of their own mind. From my perspectives, i think yes, the caterpillar is dead (it's not really important because the caterpillar or butterfly isn't conscious of itself).

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

If you want to draw the line in that way, then break it all the way down and apply the principle evenly. Every single time you change your mind in any way, shape or form, that is an ever-so-slightly different you. The difference is so minor that it's basically no difference at all, but it does exist.

So, when you decide to put stawberry jam instead of grape on your toast, that old you that used grape is dead. And then the next day, when you go back to picking grape, the stawberry you is now dead and the grape you is resurrected.

Obviously I'm exaggerating with such an innocuous example, but the basic principle applies. It's all arbitrary, from a truly objective perspective.

There's a number of deductions one could draw from this, but a big one is that we try to apply identity as if "things" are real, but it's mostly just our choices, which can vary as much as we want them to. This goes against a natural human desire for stability, we kinda wish that once we learn something, it can "stay learned". But that's just like Mr Incredible complaining that his city won't "stay saved" in the beginning of the movie.

Pluto's recategorization away from planetary status triggered this in a lot of people. It's arbitrary though, we made those decisions in the first place. And in the modern world, we really need to be ready to handle new stuff all the time, so flexibility is important.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Whether the caterpillar is dead or not depends on the person experiencing the consciousness of their own mind

Here's where having a conversation about this may be fruitless. You're saying you feel dead, and you're saying the only one who can define that is you. The caterpillar/butterfly comparison is objectively apt, because just like a butterfly cannot exist without having been a caterpillar, you as your current self could not have existed without having first been you in middle school, because you are literally the same organism as that middle schooler. However, you're saying you feel dead, which no one outside of you has any real control of or input over, and if you're stuck on that, it might be something you should discuss with a psychologist