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In self inquiry meditation one asks himself "who am I?"

Or Instead of “Who am I?” you may prefer asking, “Who is thinking this thought? Who is seeing through these eyes right now?” These questions direct your awareness inward, away from the external world and toward the source from which all experiences arise.

But this whole process seems to be framing questions in terms of absolutes. Who (absolute 1) is thinking this thought (absolute 2)? Who (absolute 1) is seeing through these eyes (absolute 2) right now?

But personally I believe in a relational universe. Where one can formulate everything in terms of interactions and space and time are also relational (close to a Leibniz sense).

Question

Is there any reformulation of the question "who am I?" in a relational sense? (without invoking absolutes)

More Anonymous
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    Indeed it's extremely hard to ask the question in a relational manner as most people's logic are classic, you'd better speak the more nihilistic language of predicate functor (PFL) or combinatorial logic (CL), or the likes easily becoming incomplete perhaps... – Double Knot Jun 14 '22 at 18:46
  • Within classic language perhaps you won't see many such pure relationalism in the literature, perhaps you can try Spinoza's *Ethics* and Whitehead's *Process Philosophy* in Western ones. As for Eastern, you may refer *Anatta* and *Confucianism* which claims that social harmony results in part from every individual knowing his or her place in the natural order, and playing his or her part *well*. Reciprocity or responsibility extends beyond filial piety and involves the entire network of social relation. Particular duties arise from one's particular situation in relation to others... – Double Knot Jun 15 '22 at 03:15
  • Neither of your absolute terms is absolute. "Who" is a variable; it doesn't make any commitments to absolute/relative, and "this thought" is introduced by an indexical, which is inherently relational. – David Gudeman Jun 15 '22 at 13:59
  • Or you can study Heidegger's Da-Sein existentialism in-depth, ie, the Being of a being who is concerned about its Being or Husserl's transcendental phenomenology. In a sense, the famous maxim *existence is prior to essence* of existentialism is a relational attempt to answer your question "Who am I"... – Double Knot Jun 17 '22 at 02:43

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Yes. Indra's Net, and the framing of intersubjectivity or dependent origination. You might look at Liberating Intimacy: Enlightenment and Social Virtuosity in Ch'an Buddhism.

You might ask instead 'What is arising?' I'd look to the self as a strange-loop manifesting itself dynamically, as discussed here & the linked discussion "Why ask why" and its scions

The origin of conceptualising linguistic abstract thought in intersubjectivity is discussed here: According to the major theories of concepts, where do meanings come from?

CriglCragl
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  • So I haven't read the book you linked but wouldn't the answer to 'What is arising?' be (naively) absolute in some sense and thus less fundamental than the question posed? (since relations are more fundamental than the postulated absolutes)? – More Anonymous Jun 15 '22 at 06:37
  • The answer would be, go look – CriglCragl Jun 15 '22 at 11:08