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Any proof of the existence of a self?

AlBell said:
You'll go with 'random', then.
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Pretty much.
There's no discernible direction to anything in this universe.
Stuff happens, other stuff happens, stuff goes away.
Any "purpose" is hidden well.
 
yy2bggggs said:
Sure, but that's an idiom in English, and it's a metaphor. The suggestion is that your brain is working so hard it hurts, just like if you push yourself too far while running, your legs would hurt. But people who say this aren't saying that they experience a pain in their brains, as you actually recognize here.
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How does that make a difference? The sentence is just an example of using "my brain" to denote an apparent virtual owner. I might equally use "The doctors say my brain is in good condition." It makes no difference.

I don't think people are usually aware of their brains except as a theoretical object, so I think you're making this up. People do indeed generally know that they have brains, but there is no such thing as a sense of having a brain. It's factual knowledge, not experiential.
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It is factual knowledge. We're both materialists. We agree, I imagine, that mind is just brain activity. So I'm just expressing what I think is going on when I make statements using the word "I."

Nick
 
Paulhoff said:
Sell youself, brain, see what happens then.

Not knowing what you are is funny.

Paul

:) :) :)
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For sure, without my brain there would be no "I." Yet this does not mean that "I" is the same as brain.

I experience life. I have a girlfriend. I own a Citroen Xsara. I'm struggling with Baudelaire's Spleen et Ideal. Can't really ascribe all these qualities to "brain." My brain doesn't have a girlfriend.

I is a construct, created by the brain, as a virtual owner, virtual experiencer.

Nick
 
Nick227 said:
In accordance with the thread title, I was more asking if there actually is an "I" which sees the tree, within the brain. Can you find one?

Nick
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I think that if there is an actual location, the effect is caused by several locations of our brain working more or less in unison at once. But to point to the combined effect as being one "thing" ---- is to subjectively point to an idea or concept that exists only as the concept. It's like a magic trick that is "real" for the lack of a better term. Like the concept of infinity or zero. You cannot point to either objectively, yet they exist as concepts. They can be useful in discussing mathematical terms, and factor into objective equations. The "I" is useful in understanding history, and practical, objective day to day living, as well as identifying humans who are alive or dead, for example. Life is another concept that exists but cannot be pointed to unless you are speaking subjectively. In general, we are alive but a computer is not. Point to the thing that makes the difference. You cannot. Objectively, it is an illusion. Subjectively, it is a practical reality we take into account when dealing with computers verses "living things". It is one of those "real illusions" until we are able to point to the objective mechanism, which we cannot do. We can only see and measure the practical, objective marks that life, "I", zero, infinity, etc .... have on existence.

Dude, our society is built upon subjective and objective concepts. Get over it :) (sorry, I felt like being snarky LOL)

AlBell said:
What it's like, just being a (useless) observer of the ride a brain/body is taking?
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Like being on bottom instead of on top.
 
Nick227 said:
I experience life. I have a girlfriend. I own a Citroen Xsara. I'm struggling with Baudelaire's Spleen et Ideal. Can't really ascribe all these qualities to "brain." My brain doesn't have a girlfriend.
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Then what too, a soul?

You, brain, same same.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Paulhoff said:
Then what too, a soul?

You, brain, same same.

Paul

:) :) :)
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The mental self is generated by the brain, but this does not mean it is the brain. That to me is an over-simplification. The brain creates for itself a virtual owner to help maintain its sense of self! In doing so it creates an artificial duality and so certain qualities and concepts ascribable to this self may not be ascribed to the brain. Thus, for example, I experience but my brain merely processes.

To try and claim that "I am the brain" seems to me to step even further into illusion. It find it more accurate to simply accept that "I" am a virtual owner.

Nick
 
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Nick227 said:
How does that make a difference?
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Uhm... how does it not make a difference that when someone says "my brain hurts" that it's an idiom, and they do not literally mean that their brain hurts?
I might equally use "The doctors say my brain is in good condition." It makes no difference.
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A doctor would not say that my brain is in a good condition, ordinarily, unless it was particularly significant--if there was some possibility that my brain was not in a good condition that was being investigated. Suppose that were the case--there was some reason to suspect I may have a brain tumor.

Then the doctor investigates a particular physical object--a brain--that I'm concerned about. Maybe this doctor investigates brains all day. But the particular brain I'm concerned about is in this particular head.

So how does the doctor say that the brain that I am concerned about is in good condition?

The book's pages tell which pages. Your brain says which brain. And though I obtained factual knowledge that my brain is a very important part--even a critical part--of my well being, I nevertheless have never developed a sense of this brain. As such, I've never developed a sense that I own this brain, akin to the sense that I own my legs. As I said, it's not the same kind of thing.

"My brain hurts" suggests otherwise. But it's only an idiom--only a metaphor. Nobody has a sense of their brain. The closest you get is "my head hurts".
 
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Nick227 said:
The mental self is generated by the brain, but this does not mean it is the brain. That to me is an over-simplification.
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The over-simplification is on your end, because you don't understand and/or you want to be more than just a brain only tells me you haven't a clue to all that is you, the brain.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
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Paulhoff said:
The over-simplification is on your end, because you don't understand and/or you want to be more than just a brain only tells me you haven't a clue to all that is you, the brain.
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No, it's on your end. If you were a brain, then if the brain exists, so do you.

But if you die, you no longer exist. But your brain does. So you're not your brain. Your brain has to do particular things for you to be there.

It's not dualism to say that a light bulb doesn't shine when the light is not plugged in.
 
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yy2bggggs said:
No, it's on your end. If you were a brain, then if the brain exists, so do you.

But if you die, you no longer exist. But your brain does. So you're not your brain. Your brain has to do particular things for you to be there.

It's not dualism to say that a light bulb doesn't shine when it's not plugged in.
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The brain is no longer functional when dead, so of course you the brain, aren't anymore. The functions are not outside of the brain, they are all within the brain. I have a gas engine that is running, it makes power, all the functions are within it, I turn off the gas to the engine, it stops, the power stops. You can't separte self from the brain, without the brain there is no self. There is no self first and than the brain.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
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