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0 pointsTeMPOraL2y ago0 comments

> 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.

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antonfire2y ago

> 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.

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