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Angel Desai's picture

Self versus self

As discussed in class on Thursday, I felt that the choice Dickinson makes with the capitalized "You" is reminiscent of the distinction the Vedic texts make between the self and the Self. While the self is the temporary, material body, the Self represents the source of individual souls or the eternal element of each individual. Poets choose their words and punctuation with intense care, so the utilization of the capitalized "You" makes me believe that perhaps the mind and the brain are seperate entities.

There is also an internal bias because supporting Descartes represents a more romantic and wistful belief as opposed to understanding the mind to be the product of neurons and electrical impulses. There is also the question of what the term "the mind" really means-does it refer to what is popularly known as the soul? If not, then the Vedic principles discussed in the previous paragraph suggest that the mind and the brain are actually the same thing and that both are temporary, material elements.

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