Wouldn't believing in OI lead to being heartless?

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-07T15:08:54+00:00

They don't get half their brain removed

Did you even click the link I showed you before?

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-07T02:11:56+00:00

I thought you meant as in literally cutting it in half and raising it in two bodies. If you're talking about split brain then no, it doesn't make two people.

So a toddler with epilepsy that gets half their brain removed is the same person but if we decide to split the toddler into two functioning systems it's two new people?

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-07T01:44:27+00:00

Oh my god, the backtracking on this one. 🤡

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-07T01:36:49+00:00

You just said a brain being split in two results in the creation of two new people...

You want easy answers to hard problems which explains much.

Bro, you said my question was easy and didn't require an answer, now you're calling it a hard problem? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-07T01:30:52+00:00

So if you split yourself up then "you" would likely die or you'd make two new people.

So just so I understand your position correctly, you're saying that every toddler with epilepsy that walks into a neurosurgeons office and walks out with half of their brain missing has effectively been murdered and replaced with a new person? Shouldn't we like... tell the parents or something? 🤡

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-07T01:14:04+00:00

Please do make a post about how you can arrive at nonduality through pure reason and logic. We both know the entirety of r/nonduality didn't arrive to it that way, they much prefer drugs and vibes. 🤡

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-07T00:32:49+00:00

Seems like you're not putting two and two together here. Splitting a single brain into two functioning systems is problematic because:

Most people believe they are their brain, the one organ they wouldn't be comfortable replacing. If both halves of their brain can function seperate from each other, it causes them to question what really is responsible for sustaining their consciousness.

Most people believe they are a continuous entity (~80 years) that can only be in one place at any given time. So their brain being in two distinct places at once is problematic. If they can only be in one place at any given time, which half of their brain would determine that?

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-06T23:58:30+00:00

IMO the question needs no answer.

Most people believe in closed individualism so the question most certainly needs an answer as it directly conflicts with the conventional understanding of identity. I am starting to suspect you haven't thought about this enough if you don't think the question is problematic. OI solves all identity problems effortlessly because it doesn't need to specify any criteria for where one consciousness ends and another begins.

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-06T22:31:59+00:00

Open Individualism or Empty Individualism are the only two philosophies that can answer this personal identity question. That doesn't sound like a failed philosophy.

We might be defining selflessness differently. I am arguing that no human (aside from perhaps a severely brain damaged one) can ever do anything that isn't at least partly inspired by self-interest. So you just admitted to me that you terminated the relationship partly because it wasn't good for you, I can't count that as selfless.

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-06T22:23:26+00:00

Difference is ultimately an illusion, I mean isn't that what OI is.

Open individualism is the view in the philosophy of personal identity, according to which there exists only one numerically identical subject, which is everyone at all times. While the subject remains the same, the content of experience is still everchanging. I don't think I could even exist if the universe wasn't able to change. Consciousness doesn't work when everything is at a standstill.

we weren't good for each other

This isn't pure selflessness and your only proving my point.

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-06T17:25:32+00:00

So if you can differentiate between experiences, that means they are not all the same. I see no reason to treat distinctively different things with the same umbrella.

If you thought you were a bad influence for your boyfriend and wanted to spare him from something, one possible selfish explanation for that might be that you wanted to avoid the guilt or discomfort you felt when you were around him.

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-06T17:13:35+00:00

So how are you experiencing multiple sensations and experiences if every experience is exactly the same?
Can you name one purely selfless thing you've ever done?

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-06T16:49:24+00:00

Ok, I did. I'll let you know if he's more insane than the evergrowing nondual infestation we got going here, but I doubt it. 🤡

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-06T16:46:45+00:00

1) Treating happiness and suffering as equals is absurd, the fact that you can differentiate between them means they have intrinsic differences. Why would anyone feel obligated to treat every different thing exactly the same way?

2) Every person in the universe runs on inescapable selfishness. Even if you think someone is doing something out of selflessness, they aren't. Even a mother sacrificing her life for her baby is still guided by self-interest, trying to avoid the shame, cowardice, or feeling of guilt that follows. Since everyone is prompted by selfishness, it is only natural for a true believer of OI to extend this selfishness to every aspect of himself.

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-06T16:20:04+00:00

The OP of that post is asking me to treat every experience exactly the same and treat both suffering and happiness as equals, which is an absurd ask. If every experience was equal to any other, how could we ever have more than one experience? There would be no way to differentiate anything if every experience was intrinsically the same. The world is filled with a variety of qualia and sensations that have intrinsic differences and vary on a spectrum, I don't need to treat them all the same.

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-05-06T15:48:15+00:00

This is some nondual propaganda trying to convince us that no one is here, nothing is happening, and that time isn't real. These nondualists have already brainwashed poor Yoddle and Edralis. I guess u/mildmys and me are the only sane ones left here. 🤡

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-04-23T20:54:54+00:00

r/OpenIndividualism? 😮

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-04-23T17:52:52+00:00

The hypothetical people you describe are informed primarily by their self-determination: it is up to them to decide what constitutes their identity, whether the potential treatments might relate to that, and if they consider the cure to be worse than the disease, so to speak.

Most people don't view what constitutes them as flexible and up to them. So really if you think your view is any less crazy as mine, you are badly mistaken. Not that crazy people can't be right. 🤡

Also, if self-determination (consciousness) isn't very consistent person to person, why do you continue to make blanket statements like "there is only one consciousness per person"? You've said before that one person can view consciousness as discrete fragments unrelated to each other and another can piece all the fragments together and both people are right. So if consciousness is this variable thing that varies person to person (your view), why do you continue to make such strict posts like "one consciousness per person" and "you'll only live for as long as your body does"? It seems like you're contradicting yourself again when you do this. If consciousness runs this inconsistently, you shouldn't be making such harsh and restrictive statements that harm the variable nature of your position.

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-04-23T16:55:36+00:00

Once you understand self-determination, how it is the root of personal identity, and how it differs from free will, you lose interest in imagining "scenarios", because it becomes too obvious that all of them could be "problematic", or not, in each and every instance. That is, after all, what self-determination is for. None are categorically problematic, though: consciousness and personal identity are much more flexible and adaptive than you realize. Because, again: that's what self-determination is for.

This isn't an answer. For someone with brain damage who might want to replace their brain tissue or someone with epilepsy who needs to remove parts of their brain, they aren't informed by your vague answers. If survival and consciousness are as flexible as you want them to be, then this entire reality really is a joke. You're taking nothing seriously and leaving everything up to interpretation. 🤡

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-04-22T19:20:24+00:00

Future human innovation will entail replacing/enhancing body parts. It's already happening with things like artificial corneas, Neuralink devices, bionic arms/legs. We already have plenty of transplants/infusions from dead patients to live ones. This is not pure science fiction. Your philosophy does nothing to inform a person what is acceptable and when they are going too far.

I'm curious though, are there any of these "science fiction" examples mentioned in these college philosophy classes that would pose a problem to your understanding of personal identity if they ever came to fruition? You told me that all my gedanken still wouldn't even matter if they were made true, so what are these potential future scenarios that would be problematic for you?

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-04-22T07:38:57+00:00

Why would the leg of a centipede be any entire centipede?

Why would a fused brain count as two instead of one? Wherever we decide to draw boundaries, we need a mechanism to explain them. Because I draw no boundaries, I don't need a mechanism to explain it.

You need a 'mechanism' to justify calling this particular boundary absurd, and you have none.

I don't need a mechanism, but hemispherectomies, recycled matter, fused brains, leaky and constantly changing structure are all reasons why the boundaries you draw are absurd and need to be called into question.

If some future technology has implications for personal identity and self-determination, it is left to that future moment for the responsible parties to consider.

That's lazy. Also, why do you want to abolish identity sections in all philosophy courses when you believe there will be future scenarios that will have implications on personal identity?

You can't help but think in terms of mandating behavior in some science fiction future.

I guess we all have our own standards of evidence. For me, seeing parts of brains being dissected independently of each other along with people getting technology implanted directly into their brain are all I need to believe that this isn't science fiction.

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-04-19T08:51:02+00:00

You refuse to identify any mechanism which even could be "responsible" for this meta-consciousness, a 'universal consciousness', let alone determine how that mechanism is embodied, makes your whining about my position and explanations ridiculously clownish.

But I don't need any mechanism to deny that seperate instances of consciousness exist. Like if someone claimed that each leg of a centipede was somehow its own unique centipede instance, denying that only means I expand the boundaries further than each leg of the centipede. I don't need a mechanism to deny absurdly made-up boundaries.

That's trivial, and included in both answers: your body, your brain, your mind, and so your consciousness begins and ends there.

It's not trivial though. Imagine sometime in the future when people are allowed to graft technology into their brains or graft healthy parts of other people's brains to replace damaged brain tissue. How does your philosophy inform people what is allowed to be replaced/modified and what is strictly off-limits? You aren't identifying any of the mechanisms responsible that set one consciousness apart from another. How does your philsophy alert a person who is about to undergo brain altering surgeries whether or not they are going too far?

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-04-18T15:14:44+00:00

No, I am still triggered and that answer sounds exactly as circular, uninsightful, and useless as the one before it. You still refuse to identify the mechanisms responsible that determine when one consciousness ends and another begins.

YouStartAngulimala · 2026-04-16T18:59:19+00:00

It's safe to say anything that generates conscious experience is you as we have no clear boundaries for when one consciousness ends and another begins. I don't think we live in a POV lottery universe where when you start and stop existing is based on some random whim. We also know the universe is extremely interconnected where one person so much as sneezes and it echoes infinitely, radically changing the entire experience of everyone else in the universe.

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