A

As I sit here and write this, a hand moves and words are appearing on the page. I have the definite sense that “I” am writing them. And yet, in truth, they are simply being written and being watched in the same way that, as I look out my window, cars are passing by. The words get written through the complex machinery of an immensely complicated psychophysical computer, and in fact that same machinery could also stand up and go across the room and move the chair. Why, therefore, is the chair any less me than this arm that moved it?”

Robert Powell points out, this notion only comes in after the thought: Most of us think there is a thinker who produces his thoughts; that is the conventional wisdom. But if you examine it more closely, you will find it is the other way around. There is the thought and immediately thereafter another phenomenon takes place. A “thinker” comes in who reacts with the original thought. Now the interesting thing is that that “thinker” is only another thought, or, more accurately, is made up of thoughts and memories and is therefore not truly “personal.” In other words, the thinker as such does not actually exist but is a concept that has been accepted through lack of examination; it is the image one has of oneself.