5. "I am," is a vain thought...
"Modern biology also shifts the concept of selfhood from the category
of substance to that of process. If a neuron alters in the brain
every time we experience anything, then the self is a constantly
changing thing like John Locke's sock (which acquired one patch after
another till no fiber of it was the same: Did it become another sock?
When?). Structuralism and semiology have brought about an apotheosis
of language into a kind of transpersonal mind that renders the
individual self trivial. Barthes, for example, insisted on "the
necessity to substitute language itself for the person...It is
language which speaks, not the author..."(10)...The traditional
Western idea of the self as an unchanging essence is threatened in
the face of all theses critiques....The self remains relative, and
cannot escape into the absolute. Modern scientific thought , finnaly,
has evolved a composite view of the self as a shifting ripple in the
Heraclitean river, a view that has much in common with that of
Buddhist psychology."(11)
«why guo ren?»
Structuralism and semiology have brought about an apotheosis of language
into a kind of transpersonal mind that renders the individual self
trivial. Barthes, for example, insisted on "the necessity to substitute
language itself for the person...It is language which speaks, not the
author..."(10)...The traditional Western idea of the self as an
unchanging essence is threatened in the face of all theses
critiques....The self remains relative, and cannot escape into the
absolute. Modern scientific thought , finnaly, has evolved a composite
view of the self as a shifting ripple in the Heraclitean river, a view
that has much in common with that of Buddhist psychology."(11)
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