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Does "I" Exist? Or, Just a Concept?

As I write, a speaker is presenting research which demonstrates that "awareness" is not a global brain property, but rather the result of very specific brain pathways. Completely and utterly non-intuitive, but easy to demonstrate.
In case you didn't know, the ghost in the machine occupies the whole body, not just the brain. And if I were to guess, I would say it's comparable to our nervous energy. By the way, I clicked on one of the links, but nothing happened?
 
In case you didn't know, the ghost in the machine occupies the whole body, not just the brain. And if I were to guess, I would say it's comparable to our nervous energy.

The evidence completely contradicts you. If I were to be suddenly decapitated, and don't anyone get any ideas, "I" would be dead. The "ghost in the machine" which "occupies the whole body" doesn't exist. Losing a finger wouldn't make me any less me. Losing my head would make me mulch.
 
The evidence completely contradicts you. If I were to be suddenly decapitated, and don't anyone get any ideas, "I" would be dead. The "ghost in the machine" which "occupies the whole body" doesn't exist. Losing a finger wouldn't make me any less me. Losing my head would make me mulch.
And when you're dead, all your nervous energy departs or, whatever it was that made you conscious. Also, people who have lost an arm or a leg, are known to have "phantom limbs," suggesting that perhaps the soul, so long as it remains attached to the body, exists in one piece.
 
Your response is just a non sequitor, trying to dismiss a pointed question.
I can't help it if you can't correlate everything that I say. It's more important that I understand what I say anyway -- or, at least why I say it -- otherwise this whole exercise would be pointless.
 
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And when you're dead, all your nervous energy departs or, whatever it was that made you conscious. Also, people who have lost an arm or a leg, are known to have "phantom limbs," suggesting that perhaps the soul, so long as it remains attached to the body, exists in one piece.

No, people have phantom limbs because the brain acts funny sometimes when bits get cut off. If a neurologist opened up my skull, and poked the right region of my brain, I'd feel some sensation in a limb, or on my lips, or my toe. You are demonstrating willful ignorance of the basic principles of neurology.

Edit: Note to self, stop confusing homophones.
 
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In case you didn't know, the ghost in the machine occupies the whole body, not just the brain. And if I were to guess, I would say it's comparable to our nervous energy.
Only in that you know nothing about either. Other than that, there can be no real similarity between something that is wholly fictional and something as well-understood as nerve signals.

You are quite simply wrong.

Oh...if you would care to offer up the slightest bit of evidence for the animistic claim of your first sentence, you could have the honor of making me eat my words. You will not, because you cannot. That evidence simply does not exist.
 
And when you're dead, all your nervous energy departs or, whatever it was that made you conscious. Also, people who have lost an arm or a leg, are known to have "phantom limbs," suggesting that perhaps the soul, so long as it remains attached to the body, exists in one piece.
You are quite simply wrong.

I have phantom pains myself, so I have had the impetus to actually read up on them. That is what people who are genuinely curious about a topic do.

You do not advance your knowledge by making stuff up. And it does not make your fiction any more real when you repeat it again and again.
 
I can't help it if you can't correlate everything that I say. It's more important that I understand what I say anyway -- or, at least why I say it -- otherwise this whole exercise would be pointless.
Oh, yeah, we wouldn't want this exercise to be pointless, would we?

Your contradictions with yourself demonstrate that you do not know what you say. Why you say it? Some things will forever remain mysteries.
 
I can't help it if you can't correlate everything that I say.

People can't correlate what you say because it's nonsense.

It's more important that I understand what I say anyway -- or, at least why I say it -- otherwise this whole exercise would be pointless.

In other words, you're more interested in talking to yourself, and the exercise is pointless.
 
In case you didn't know, the ghost in the machine occupies the whole body, not just the brain. And if I were to guess, I would say it's comparable to our nervous energy. By the way, I clicked on one of the links, but nothing happened?

This is a very specific assertion. Do you have any evidence to back it up, or is this another thing that you just "know" (quotation marks placed for both attribution and irony)?
 
Only in that you know nothing about either. Other than that, there can be no real similarity between something that is wholly fictional and something as well-understood as nerve signals.

You are quite simply wrong.

Oh...if you would care to offer up the slightest bit of evidence for the animistic claim of your first sentence, you could have the honor of making me eat my words. You will not, because you cannot. That evidence simply does not exist.
Well, I tried kicking a coyote in a dream once, and wound up kicking the wall!
 
Speak for yourself, Iacchus.

People can't correlate what you say because it's nonsense.

In other words, you're more interested in talking to yourself, and the exercise is pointless.
Whatever floats your boat. ;)
 
This is a very specific assertion. Do you have any evidence to back it up, or is this another thing that you just "know" (quotation marks placed for both attribution and irony)?
Heck, what would be the point to knowing anything, if "I" didn't exist? You see, it's very important to understand this first, otherwise there would be no witness.
 
Heck, what would be the point to knowing anything, if "I" didn't exist? You see, it's very important to understand this first, otherwise there would be no witness.
Seriously, Iacchus, follow the link to the mind-brain-consciousness seminar, click on the second session, and look at about the second half, Susan Blackmore's presentation.

Do it.
 
Well, I tried kicking a coyote in a dream once, and wound up kicking the wall!
Well, there you go. You know how you're always talking about how dreams are a different reality? There's your evidence on how wrong that is. Dreams are simply undirected imagination, not reality. The wall you kicked shows that you were existing in the same old reality you always exist in. C'est domage.
 
Heck, what would be the point to knowing anything, if "I" didn't exist? You see, it's very important to understand this first, otherwise there would be no witness.

You are, as usual, missing the question. I do not dispute your existence. I want to know on what grounds you assert that the so-called ghost in the machine, by which you presumably mean identity or consciousness, occupies the whole body. That is a very specific assertion, and I am asking whether this is something for which you have some kind of evidence or authority, or just another idea you've decided on.
 

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