[haswell]

A lot of people feel like “they” are somewhere inside their head. They look out at the world through eyes that are windows. The world is out there, “I” am in here. In this undefined black hole of “me”, mysterious, but definitely separate from the world and what’s “out there” past one’s eyes.

They feel like their bodies are just the mechanical thing that carries them around. They don’t think of the systemic impact of things that affect their body and consequently, their brain and mental states. E.g. gut health plays a major role in mental health, but this is not an intuitive concept for many people.

Some have argued this is an outcome of Judeo-Christian thinking, e.g. my soul is not of this world, this body isn’t my best body, my soul passes on when I die, etc. These ideas are deeply ingrained from an early age, during the time in which one is forming their concept of self.

[NovaDudely]

One really cool question for people is, where do you feel 'you' are - where the core of you are physically. For many people 'you' is like a tension point in your head just behind the eyes.

For me it is more in the middle of my chest. This is considered odd in the western world but it is not unheard of. I am not my mind, I am not my ego, I am but a wave in the universe, it comes - it goes it will pass - enjoy it for a while.

[nradov]

That question doesn't even make sense, and I don't understand your reference to the western world. All points in my body are equally part of 'me'.

[bawolff]

> All points in my body are equally part of 'me'.

That's a reasonable belief, but some people do not feel that way.

If I had my foot amputated am i still me? If i had my mind transplanted into a different body am I still me? etc. I doubt there are any good answers that are more logical than "I feel this to be true".

> I don't understand your reference to the western world

Some religions believe that people have a soul that is separate from the body, which contains a person's essence (And say, goes up to heaven when they die or otherwise continues on after death). Even among people who don't buy that, it sets the stage (even perhaps just subconciously) for other dualist beliefs where the body is separate from your "essence" (however you want to define that)

[zztop44]

Try to think of it this way… if we had brain transplant technology and you swapped brains with someone so that your brain ended up in their body and their brain in your body… which one do you think would be you?

I’m not sure there’s any clear answer to this as it touches on so many known and unknown unknowns. But, the assertion is that there most people (especially in western intellectual traditions) would consider wherever their brain is to be them (see also the concept of “brain in a vat” etc). This may or may not be true for you specifically.

[tikk]

There are two of you now. And two of the other. There are tons of brain-like networks of cells in the body, no? In and around the heart and such and I'm certain we'll find more in the next few decades. The fun part begins in how capable either of you and the other will be in establishing a functional union.

What's gonna happen when "your brain" recognizes your old body in with another head? Will "it" get horny? Jealous? Angry? Happy?

Phantom pain and stuff like that comes to mind and the question of how many dimensions (not levels on scale) of consciousness there are in this physical world/reality ...

[WJW]

Neither? "Me" consists of both body and brain, so unless you could find an identical body somehow, neither resulting person would be "me".

[nradov]

I doubt that brain transplants will ever be possible, but in that hypothetical neither one would be me.

[darkerside]

Only an ego would even ask this question

[abdulhaq]

for me it's just above the solar plexus

[joker_minmax]

From my perspective, the belief that the soul and the body are totally separate and that the body is lesser is not actually a Christian belief, but rather a Gnostic one. Unfortunately a lot of the Christianity of America has a twinge of Gnosticism present. The "C.S. Lewis" quote that gets thrown around, "You don't have a soul; you are a soul. You have a body," was never actually said by C.S. Lewis. I actually got a better connection with my body from listening to an Eastern Christian priest talking about how if you think you can separate your body, mind, and soul from each other, you've created a false sense of self.

[luxuryballs]

Yeah agreed, CS Lewis has said a lot about the body and the soul, a few come to mind from first Mere Christianity and then a quote from Screwtape Letters

“And let me make it quite clear that when Christians say the Christ-life is in them, they do not mean simply something mental or moral /…/this new life is spread not only by purely mental acts like belief, /…/ It is not merely the spreading of an idea; it is more like evolution–a biological or super-biological fact. There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.”

(Screwtape gives advice to use a “body doesn’t matter” philosophy as a way of making the human distracted or ineffective) “At the very least, they can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls. It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.”

[User23]

The Catholic Church continues to teach that human beings are body and soul and both are essential to the human person. While Lewis wasn’t Catholic, his theology basically was.

[haswell]

Whatever its origins, it’s what the baptists who raised me believed, and it was a view of self and body that was prevalent in the Christian circles of my childhood.

And to your point, it has permeated Christianity more broadly, and arguably western thinking even broader still. I left the church in my teens. My conception of self didn’t shift until decades later after many years of intentional deconstruction. It’s a powerful illusion.

[porknubbins]

When I was a young distance runner I was in such good shape that, when not tired from a workout, moving around the world was essentially effortless. Its kind of like playing a first person shooter and very easy to feel like your body is just some abstract tool. In contrast having a minor injury causing you to limp or something is very grounding, forcing you to focus on walking carefully and not have to hurry for anyone.

[agumonkey]

wasn't that a side effect of endorphins/runner's high ?

[HumanOstrich]

I believe it is a side effect of being in good shape.

[DangitBobby]

They said when _not_ tired from a workout.

[zdragnar]

Another +1 here for that argument being distinctly not Judeo-Christian. Orthodox Christians in particular are of the belief that you worship with your whole self- mind, body and soul.

[haswell]

As a child of fundamental baptists, all of the circles I grew up in saw their bodies as temporary shells.

They also saw their bodies as created by god, and thoughts/emotions as having metaphysical sources and consequences. Setting aside any specific doctrinal positions, the broader claims and beliefs of the church push one to think of themselves in some rather odd ways.

If certain thoughts and feelings are temptations from the devil, actually believing this explanation short circuits the systemic explanations for those thoughts/feelings, and leaves one to conclude that the body must not have anything to do with it.

I believe the Christian worldview involving a creator god more broadly points people in this direction not necessarily because of specific claims, but as a downstream effect of the broader philosophy.

[zdragnar]

Interesting.

> thoughts/emotions as having metaphysical sources

Maybe this is a Protestant or a reformed thing? Yes, the devil is a temptor, but pretty much every sect agrees that there is no way for man to redeem himself but through faith. It is our nature to sin, and thus we are perfectly capable of it without the devil's help.

[haswell]

As an adult, I can appreciate the nuance of the positions of these various sects (though to be clear, I consider myself an atheist at this stage of life).

But as a young child required to learn about how the world functions according to these ideas during the critical period of self-formation, such nuance was lost, and many foundational/implicit beliefs were formed and ingrained.

More broadly, I think it’s interesting to consider whether some of this is an unintentional side effect of the teachings, even if the texts technically communicate something else.

I know that for me personally, when I first encountered other schools of thought on the mind/body connection and my concept of my own self/body started to shift, all I could think is “holy shit, this is the opposite of what I was taught”.

[birdyrooster]

Ghosts in the shell if you will

[mensetmanusman]

Yeah, the idea that we drive the body around is some official ancient heresy I believe.

[TeMPOraL]

Let's flip this around: once you learn to drive, and then drive enough for it to become something you do unconsciously, is the car now part of "you" too?

If not, then I wouldn't use the embodiment/integration argument to define where "you" is, as the brain can learn to turn just about anything into extra limbs or senses, if you use it frequently enough.

[haswell]

Some would argue that we are deeply and intrinsically interconnected to the world around us in ways we seldom consider, and the idea that a vehicle could become part of “us” is not so farfetched.

If you keep going down the rabbit hole of looking for “you”, the only consistent answer that comes up is that there is no single or stable center, and that the boundaries of “you” are not so easy to find. Going deeper still points to the feeling of “I” being nothing but a useful illusion, and most importantly, just another feeling that you experience alongside other feelings like happiness or anger.

Some would argue that your whole world is you, and that our internal states and experience of the world are inseparable from the environment and people around us.

This is not a metaphysical claim, but a more broad statement about the systemic factors that influence what it’s like to be you.

[TeMPOraL]

> If you keep going down the rabbit hole of looking for “you”, the only consistent answer that comes up is that there is no single or stable center, and that the boundaries of “you” are not so easy to find.

I'm in agreement with that; in a way, it's a superset of the point I was making. What is or isn't "you" feels variable, fluid. An experienced driver might find that, when driving, their sense of self extends to encompass the car. I definitely felt this when getting into "state of flow" while playing some first-person videogames. The ideas of "state of flow", "immersion", "becoming one with something", all seem to point to, or in some cases be a case of, the fluidity of the sense of self.

> Going deeper still points to the feeling of “I” being nothing but a useful illusion, and most importantly, just another feeling that you experience alongside other feelings like happiness or anger.

Useful illusions is all we have. As for "just another feeling", I can entertain that thought, and I find it curious, but I haven't really experienced this frame of mind/perception yet. Or maybe I did, but I didn't realize it, so I don't have the memory associated with the phrases you used?

> This is not a metaphysical claim, but a more broad statement about the systemic factors that influence what it’s like to be you.

I appreciate you going for the more "materialistic"/non-spiritual take. I'm not denying the variety and richness of experiencing the world and one's self in it. I was just taken aback at both broad dismissal of "brain / body separation" and it being justified entirely by spiritual and experiential reasons. My point about driving meshes with my other comments (including this one) like this: we know the "sense of you" can be extended to and beyond the body. But if, instead of extending it, you try to contract it, then without crossing into metaphysics, you'll stop at the brain. This is what I believe makes the brain/body distinction meaningful: not what you can make part of yourself, but that which you can't take away.

[antonfire]

> But if, instead of extending it, you try to contract it, then without crossing into metaphysics, you'll stop at the brain.

Dunno about the other poster, but I can promise you I will not.

I think it's kind of a pointless exercise to try to draw a physical boundary of what's "me" and what isn't, but carrying that exercise a bit further: How much of the spinal cord can I exclude in my "sense of me" before I "cross into metaphysics"? If I drop my eyes from my sense of "me", seems like I could also drop the neurons in the brain that are responsible solely for visual processing of input from them. Or is that a step too far and "into metaphysics"?

Heck, I think the classic nerd brain-in-a-meatsuit position doesn't really stop at the brain here either. E.g. I think it places an accurate simulation of one's brain running on different hardware on about the same level as the meat brain, and "you" wouldn't know the difference. That's just not a thing we can do (yet?). Does that position cross into metaphysics?

In practice, I "contract my sense of self" when it comes to my thoughts too, which (presumably) all happen in the brain. I often find it useful to ask "where did that thought come from?" and give an external account ("ah, I picked it up from X") and let that have some bearing on the next thought. I also have "intrusive thoughts"; the act of labeling a thought an "intrusive thought" is (arguably, partially) an act of contracting one's sense of self to exclude that thought.

I'm pretty sure this conversation had "crossed into metaphysics" by the time discussion about expansion/contraction of one's "sense of you" was happening; not when the contraction reached the brain.