Gene Wilder - Atheist

[Warren DeMontague]

40. He wasn't interested in having an actual discussion, clearly.

I mean to my mind, there are some real interesting philosophical questions- what are "we" or certainly what distinguishes one of us from any other, if not the things we say, the things we do, the people we influence, love or touch, etc? And by extension, the words and thoughts we leave behind? Thomas Jefferson is with us, I believe, through the documents he wrote and ideas he put down. Van Gogh still talks to us through his paintings. Etc. etc.

And like I said upthread, we are not even necessarily the same person from moment to moment, year to year. As all things do, we change.

So on the flip side, if one does believe in a self or a soul or a point of awareness that exists beyond the temporal or the ego or the individual, beyond names and selves and all that, one that exists above and beyond the transitory, then at its core is that whatever-it-is any different inside of "me" than it is in "you"? Once we strip away the ego and the name and all the things "we" leave behind?

I don't know. Words are clumsy tools for communicating some concepts. But I appreciate your insight on the question, here.