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Any proof of the existence of a self?

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 the light is not plugged in.
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A functioning brain?
 
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.

Paul

:) :) :)
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Well, yours might be restricted to the brain. My brain creates a sense of selfhood for the whole body, including the brain. I say "my body" and "my brain."

Selfhood just means there are feedback loops in processing.

Nick
 
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Nick227 said:
Well, yours might be restricted to the brain. My brain creates a sense of selfhood for the whole body, including the brain. I say "my body" and "my brain."

Selfhood just means there are feedback loops in processing.

Nick
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So, where is this selfhood you talk of, without nerves throughout the body going to and from the brain, what you speak of wouldn't be.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Paulhoff said:
So, where is this selfhood you talk of, without nerves throughout the body going to and from the brain, what you speak of wouldn't be.

Paul

:) :) :)
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It's not anywhere specifically. Selfhood is an emergent phenomenon. The brain is merely concentrated processing.

Nick
 
Nick227 said:
It's not anywhere specifically. Selfhood is an emergent phenomenon. The brain is merely concentrated processing.

Nick
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No, it is where the processing is, there is no concentration of it.

Emergent doesn't mean separation.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Paulhoff said:
No, it is where the processing is, there is no concentration of it.
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You're saying no processing takes place in the body?

This regardless, my sense of self applies to my whole body. You are saying yours is restricted to the brain. Would you thus regard someone trying to, say, cut your finger off, as a mere sideshow?

Paulhoff said:
Emergent doesn't mean separation.
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No, for sure. Yet emergent phenomena can have qualities not present in system substrate. Yes, it is primarily by far the brain which creates a sense of mental selfhood, but this selfhood is not restricted to the brain.

Nick
 
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Nick227 said:
No, for sure. Yet emergent phenomena can have qualities not present in system substrate. Yes, it is primarily by far the brain which creates a sense of mental selfhood, but this selfhood is not restricted to the brain.

Nick
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A school of fish can act as one, an emergent phenomena but it is still fish and still restricted to the fish.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Self is in the brain, but due to the ways our brain processes information and tries to understand it, the illusion is sometimes that the self/brain is somewhere that it is not.

Phantom limbs are a good example of this. An amputee who loses a leg, for example, may experience the leg still being there along with positioning illusions of the missing leg and phantom pains as well. But there is no leg that exists, there is no "self in the leg". The brain is still looking for a part of the body that is no longer there ... giving the illusion the leg still is there. Yet the self is intact.
 


Watch the whole thing, mainly the last couple of minutes.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
I went to Nick227's homepage. It all makes sense now.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Paulhoff said:
Input to the brain, yes, which can make one feel bigger than the brain, but self is still only in the brain.

Paul

:) :) :)
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Unless you define self as the energy which is present in the brain, and not the brain itself... and therefore, after the energy ceases, there is no self (unless that energy goes somewhere else in some kind of organized fashion), even though there is still a brain.

See, it kinda makes sense.

(added) And then, why limit the "self" to the brain? Why not include the whole nervous system?
 
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Manopolus said:
Unless you define self as the energy which is present in the brain, and not the brain itself... and therefore, after the energy ceases, there is no self (unless that energy goes somewhere else in some kind of organized fashion), even though there is still a brain.
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But the energy is certainly not the self. Energy flows through the brain in a massive river, placed there perhaps by a bowl of frosted cereal; gets shuffled into the dugout in your brain, and if it's really lucky, goes out for not even half a play, after which it simply radiates into space at a nice warm constant glow of 37 degrees centigrade.

Lest you think you're a ball of energy stuck in the head, you're not. Oh you certainly need that energy to be, but you're more of a pattern... a demon that hungrily devours the energy and spits it out for your sustenance.
 
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yy2bggggs said:
But the energy is certainly not the self. Energy flows through the brain in a massive river, placed there perhaps by a bowl of frosted cereal; gets shuffled into the dugout in your brain, and if it's really lucky, goes out for not even half a play, after which it simply radiates into space at a nice warm constant glow of 37 degrees centigrade.

Lest you think you're a ball of energy stuck in the head, you're not. Oh you certainly need that energy to be, but you're more of a pattern... a demon that hungrily devours the energy and spits it out for your sustenance.
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I never said the energy was constant. Like the individual atoms of the body change constantly, so, too does the makeup of the energy. The only thing that makes it consistent is the brain, of course, and memory... but by this hypothetical model, the self is not consistent in material (whether physical or energetic material), but is rather a pattern of energy which constantly renews and exchanges itself with outside sources. It is the pattern which is important, and gives the illusion of constancy, not the energy. Please note that this is a mere hypothetical model with no support... giving an alternative explaination.
 
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Manopolus said:
Unless you define self as the energy which is present in the brain, and not the brain itself... and therefore, after the energy ceases, there is no self (unless that energy goes somewhere else in some kind of organized fashion), even though there is still a brain.

See, it kinda makes sense.

(added) And then, why limit the "self" to the brain? Why not include the whole nervous system?
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Energy is used for the chemical reactions in the cells of the brain, but the energy used is not self.

"We are energy" is a woo idea.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
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