TPF : Brevity of Self

[Gnomon]

The beginning and ending of self
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/817787

I would argue that a non-linguistic animal lives in the interface of past, present and future just as humans do. Watch a squirrel be interrupted in its pursuit of an acorn by a stray sound, and then return to its goal. — Joshs
Yes, they have memories, I said that. but the interface of past and future is the present. I'm not clear what you are saying different? I think I have made the time difference fairly clear. A cat sits by the mouse hole waiting for a mouse; there is anticipation but it is now. there is memory, but it is now. Now there is the acorn, now there is a sound, now there is the acorn. Never do you get the story of the pursuit of the acorn, an interruption and the return to the acorn - that is the human narrative, and resides nowhere in the squirrel. — unenlightened

I suppose the title of this thread is referring to the brief existence of the self-conscious Self : non-being . . . being . . . non-being. Which is a core theme of Religion and Philosophy, but not of Materialistic Philosophy, which knows only non-self : selfless matter. The squirrel is an earnest scientist in pursuit of substantial sustenance, not of essential story. Live for today, because tomorrow does not exist. By contrast, the Myth-makers and Wisdom-seekers find permanent Past and fabricated Future more interesting/important than the fleeting Present : "it is what it is, deal with it!"

As far as we know, humans are the only animals who construct a narrative as they do what the physical body mandates. That self-narrative, as recorded in memory, and in story & song, is the Self. Perhaps the selfish Self motivates the Body to take serial "selfies", to serve as an objective record of the Self-story. We know about the brevity of Self, only because so many of us have left behind objective narratives of a story interrupted. Most of us don't mourn the ending of a squirrel's self, perhaps because we don't know its story. But we do mourn the ellipsis of a loved-one, including a non-human pet, because we are emotionally invested in their story.

Ironically, emotional investment (cathexis) in one's own story may cause us to fear (pre-mourn) the end of the narrative & narrator. That painful bummer in the middle of the story has been evaded by ancient sages in various ways : acceptance, denial, sequel in heaven, etc. Yet some would have us imitate the innocence of animals by living in the moment, and ceasing to explain & judge ourselves as protagonists in the Self-story. But for humans, that would mean losing the most important thing in the world, Me.

↪Joshs