You don't have a skeleton inside you. You're a brain. You're inside a skeleton. You're piloting a meat powered bone mech.
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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Showerthoughts
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There is no mind/body split imo.
Eg you separated the bones from the brain in your example. If you didn't have bones, you wouldn't have blood. Bones make your blood. If you didn't have blood, your brain wouldn't get oxygen. You can't separate these systems, they are all beautifully connected.
You can lose a lot of body parts and still maintain your sense of self (in fact, you’re constantly losing hair and skin cells without even noticing it), but taking drugs that change your brain chemistry the right way predictably leads to ego death.
I don’t know that I’m convinced, but that feels like a strong argument to me. I’m having trouble putting into words what I actually believe about the residence of the self, but I hope this is clear.
I think the self is a quorum of mind and body. It’s not specifically in a bodily location, but it exists as long as enough of the brain and body are functioning and together. If some parts are missing, it’s slightly different, but it’s still legitimately the self. When there isn’t a quorum, there’s still the potential for a sense of self, but it will be different.
If I lose a finger (due to infection or something non-traumatizing in itself), it would probably suck immensely, but not change my personality to the degree that people who know me would think of me as a different person before and after. If I lost part of my tongue, it might (I’m a passionate linguist; for an equally passionate violinist, it might be a different story). If I lost both legs and a hand, I think I would go through some immense personality changes that would make those who know me think I was a different person before.
This isn't true. We have multiple cases of people with very low brain volume who acted pretty much normal. We have cases of people losing limbs and other body parts who have parts of their brain die and/or reconfigure (including conditions where soldiers get their arm blown off and feel like their arm is still there gripping the grenade etc). Hell, even people who lose weight or get surgery lose/change their sense of self, or even a bad haircut. Someone like Stephen Hawking definitely felt like a different person before versus after their illness. If you don't think a physical disability gives you ego death in a longer route, idk what to tell you. Spend some time at a hospice, go to a paralympics.
Your brain IS your body. Everything your body does affects your brain. They are not separate systems. That you've been propagandized to believe otherwise is so you'll fight in a war and not mind dismemberment. Also the existence of a soul or self outside of a physical body is so you don't mind dying. We have no proof things things are separate or that there's a soul.
Your finger has corresponding neurons in your brain that will die if it goes missing. It's not so laissez faire. Yes, brains are neuroplastic and will heal over time, but what happens to your body very much happens to your brain. Including stuff you see, which is why seizures can be triggered by lights and why people can develop PTSD from videos they see online.
Is there a scientific consensus on the location of the sense of self? I ask because I’m approaching this as a philosophical perspective problem, and as I alluded, am not convinced by either side, but you don’t seem to be approaching it like that.
I think philosophy is nonsense if it is not based in real world examples. Hence why philosophy and math pair so well together- small exceptions prove the rationale is wrong, or might show how consistent it is. I wish more scientists and engineers learned philosophy for this reason.
Brains don't work exactly like how they taught in middle school. Your sense of self involves certain structures in the brain, but it's a system or network of electricity running through several parts that makes it. That system of parts is affected by your body and external stimuli. So yes your very sense of self is affected by your body including your vagus nerve and microorganisms in your gut. Even something like anaphylaxis from an allergen touching your skin can cause your brain to go haywire.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7959111/
It also depends what you mean by sense of self. Eg people can look in a mirror and not recognize themselves, but still have a very stable internal set of responses we'd call a "personality."
You’re just coming on a little strong with saying I’m wrong and brainwashed for being open to multiple perspectives on something for which there are multiple perspectives. I’m talking about what parts of a person give a person their personality, in their own and in the eyes of others.
I agree that some parts of a brain are unnecessary for this: Alzheimer’s isn’t suspected the second it starts affecting the brain. I believe this is also certainly true of some parts of the body (hairs and skin cells). Therefore, I believe there’s a critical mass of body and brain that is required in varying compositions for different people.
In a violinist, the finger might affect how they are able to express themselves in a way that changes their personality. It might also make any given non-violinist more withdrawn, insecure, or wary, but it might not. It would absolutely affect anyone’s brain, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to affecting their personality.
Where do you think your beliefs come from?
The difference between saying “you’ve been brainwashed” and “we’re all constantly subject to propaganda which affects all of our perceptions and none of us is immune” is very large. In the former, we eventually get to a conversation where I aggressively overshare and you reveal nothing, as below. In the latter, we could have kept it impersonal and talked about the nature of the propaganda affecting us.
My perceptions come from a combination of my experiences and beliefs, not more subject to brainwashing than anyone else.
The experiences that led to this belief were probably the multiple body parts my mother lost during my childhood (a decade of aggressive cancer and more aggressive treatment). A certain kind of pragmatism was instilled in me about what you actually need to keep going, and why that’s important (also we’re all autistic, which almost certainly has something to do with our attitudes about this).
So yes, some people have an altered sense of self after a bad haircut, but I do not. My head has been shaved and worn every type of mullet (I grow it out and then buzz it to donate every couple of years).
I once had a broken orbital, which made it painful to smile. I am a smiley person, so it was an adjustment (which means brain changes), but I started flaring my nostrils to my friends instead as an inside joke, and retained all of my smiliness after the orbital healed(not personality changes). I have had a pact with my sisters that we’ll get a mastectomy the second we have a tumor since before I had breasts, and I will keep it without hesitation. Hell, if my sisters both got breast cancer, that might be enough without my own symptoms (they’re older than I am, so I tend to get their health issues on a delay).
Perhaps a finger would make me a more withdrawn person, there’s no way to know until it happens. I don’t think I’d suffer significant long term personality changes though.
I never said "you've been brainwashed." That was your strawman. Quote where I used "brainwashed." I literally said "propagandized." Idk why you acted like I said otherwise.
Have you ever worn a costume or played a part in a play? It absolutely affects your ""self"" to wear different haircuts etc. Wearing a George Washington wig feels different than Morticia Addams.
If you had cancer, did you go to those support meetings? Do you remember the type of speech that happens around getting better? A lot of that is to instill a survivor sense of self - the cancer diagnosis itself causes people to feel like they are dying as part of their identity often (not trying to mansplain cancer here, sorry) so these support groups help with countering that identity with a different one.
Yes, souls and something being separate from our physical shells feels comforting because it means we can conquer death.
The post I remembered it in has been edited, but I could have remembered it wrong. If that’s the case, my bad. My point was that you dismissed an opinion about something that’s a matter of opinion instead of diving into the foundation of those opinions. “That you've been propagandized to believe otherwise is so you'll fight in a war and not mind dismemberment,” doesn’t sound like you want a reciprocal discussion, but like you’re explaining a known fact, which is why I asked whether there’s an empirical metric for the physical location of the personality.
Have you ever worn a costume or played a part in a play? It absolutely affects your ""self"" to wear different haircuts etc. Wearing a George Washington wig feels different than Morticia Addams
Absolutely it does, temporarily. Most people wouldn’t be forever changed after having worn that wig, which is what I would find more interesting. Temporary changes in personality can be caused by all sorts of things, like temperature, weather, location. No arguments there.
If you had cancer, did you go to those support meetings? Do you remember the type of speech that happens around getting better? A lot of that is to instill a survivor sense of self - the cancer diagnosis itself causes people to feel like they are dying as part of their identity often (not trying to mansplain cancer here, sorry) so these support groups help with countering that identity with a different one.
I didn’t have cancer, my mother did. I also would consider the effect of the cancer diagnosis to be psychological, not physical, as it’s an emotional reaction to information, not a belief caused directly by the tumor.
Yes, souls and something being separate from our physical shells feels comforting because it means we can conquer death.
I don’t know what this is in response to exactly, but I don’t believe in a soul that exists beyond death. I think people use the word “soul” to mean a lot of things though, and I wouldn’t object to using that term for vitality or life essence or whatever you want to call the state of living. In that sense, the soul is extinguished upon death, but that’s not exactly a comforting thought.
Yet if a hairstyle doesn't change people, why is gender affirming care so important? Why does balding affect people so much? Why do actors and actresses become distressed playing certain parts?
I didn't edit that part of the post. I don't use terms like "brainwashing."
Religion has been used for a long time to get people to endure harm. Buddhist monks are able to self immolate for example.
What do you think the self is, then, if it is neither a soul nor strictly physical?
There are aspects of personality in the entire brain. There's no single area of the brain that's only "personality." That's not how it works. The brain has SYSTEMS that connect together and light up when you do anything. Including when you use your body and limbs. These neurochemical and electrical systems go off in general patterns and perhaps that is a person's "personality," but then that means dismemberment, visual cues, trauma, all affect this neurochemical system and thus "personality." It's not separated like I said. Mind/body split doesn't exist.
You aren't just your brain. The brain is just the central hub for generating conscious thought. Gathering input from all over your body, but not all.
The body has a lot of other generators doing different things. Such as the lower tract of the spinal chord having a gait generator. Or different reflexes for different purposes.
It isn't just your consciousness that uses your vision. As much as the brain is a collector, it is also a sharer of information. Heck. There are different circuits that control your eyes too. One is just you choosing to move your eyes. A rigid movement. The other is to track an object witb smooth precision. If you focus on one spot, and move your eyes slightly to the side, you can make these two tracks fight over your eyes. Causing your eyes to tremble very quickly!
I have a question. Why do you assume that humans are identical to their mind, but not to their body?
It’s always strange to me how the body prefers 72 to 75 degrees F on the outside but 98 F on the inside. Anything approaching equalizing of interior with exterior temperature results in heat-related illness.
We basically run on tiny combustion engines. Exothermic reactions.
We aren't a passive 98 degrees, we would be hotter if it wasn't cool enough outside. Higher heat would cause different cellular structures to become misshapen, leading to system breakdown. I'd be like trying to run a cpu cooling loop with boiling water.
And I'd add to that that if our thermal dissipation is overwhelmed, our internal heat build up. To do that heat dissipation, we need to have an environment that suck out more heat out of us than what we produce. If the environment is too hot, the heat build up and as Deadrek says, our internal inner workings beak down.
That why we sweat. Water suck out a lot more heat than air, because it wants to saturate the ambiante air, and to do that it suck up our body heat to become steam. Rince and repeat (literally).
But once the air is to humid, it gets more and more difficult for our sweat to evaporate, which makes it ineffective. That why we can kinda survive in a 90°C + sauna (albeit not for long, but for a different reason), but not in a 37°C (98°F) 100% humidity place like some tropical rainforest. At least, not without specialized acclimatation and survival techniques.
There's actually theoretically an endothermic reaction we do. E coli can undergo an endothermic reaction if it has enough zinc. It's entirely possible this is why we have an appendix. I'll link studies if anyone is interested
Link it, I'm always up for some
Sure. Please note that an official metastudy proving this has not come out, so you'll have to do some dot connecting yourself.
"Thermodynamic Studies of the Mechanism of Metal Binding to the Escherichia coli Zinc Transporter YiiP" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021925819755392
As shown in Fig. 2A, Zn2+ titrations began with an exothermic heat reaction, which was followed by a late endothermic reaction. This characteristic exothermic-to-endothermic transition suggests the presence of at least two sets of independent Zn2+ binding sites, accounting for the exothermic and endothermic heat reactions, respectively.
"Association of Appendicitis Incidence With Warmer Weather Independent of Season" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9530968/
Findings of this study suggest that the incidence of appendicitis increases when the temperature increases, independent of season.
"Association of the Bacteria of the Vermiform Appendix and the Peritoneal Cavity with Complicated Acute Appendicitis in Children" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10252422/#:~:text=Bacteria%20identified%20in%20the%20lumen,in%20uncomplicated%20and%20complicated%20appendicitis.&text=Escherichia%20coli%20%2B%20Streptococcus%20spp.&text=Escherichia%20coli%20%2B%20Streptococcus%20spp
Escherichia coli was the most commonly identified microorganism in the appendiceal lumen (83.4%; 34.7% as a single entity)
E. coli was found in 76.2% of the cultures of the appendiceal lumen in patients with uncomplicated appendicitis (35.7% as the only pathogen) followed by P. aeruginosa (21.5%) and K. pneumoniae (14.3%) (Table 3).
E. coli was also the predominant microorganism in complicated appendicitis (96.4%; 63.1% of them in combination with other bacteria).
"Metabolic analysis of acute appendicitis by using system biology approach" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6347980/
As it is appeared in the table 2, concentration alteration of other metal ions such as sodium, zinc, and potassium are related to appendicitis
"Zinc intake ameliorates intestinal morphology and oxidative stress of broiler chickens under heat stress" https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2023.1308907/full
Our findings indicated that dietary Zn supplementation significantly increased the feed-to-weight ratio of broilers during the experimental period under heat stress.
Basically, not only should we all be supplementing with zinc during hotter months, but also this has indications for the purpose of the appendix and possibly a way to make air conditioning out of our feces.
(that's 23 and 37 degrees, for the rest of the world)
Anything approaching equalizing of interior with exterior temperature results in heat-related illness.
Giggles in sauna
Giggles in heatstroke if you stay too long in a sauna
Which is why you visit an avanto, a hole in the ice. To take a dip. Or roll in the snow. Cold shower will do in a pinch.
Then rinse and repeat. Literally.
Good for the circulation, our built in cooling system.
Sort-of. Could also be considered air cooled because its our lungs getting rid of most of our heat.
A watercooled computer still uses air-cooling in the end. The difference is how the heat is collected and where it is dissipated.
I don't know that much how the human body cooling system work, but the lungs could be considered as the radiator (as would the skin be).
Yeah, but my point was that its a fundamentally different kind of heat transfer.
Its the difference between how an oven cools itself and how a power plant cools its self. With an oven, you vent the hot gas that is created through elsewhere, moving the gas and the heat away from its source. That gas (fluid) isn't re-used. In a radiator, the fluid is re-used in the cooling loop.
A car or a power plant or the human ears are that second example. We're heating a fluid (blood, radiator fluid, water, etc), to transfer heat to secondary fluid (air, more water, etc..). With a power plant, you have fluids in a circuit, transferring heat from one to the other. The primary cooling fluid doesn't leave the circuit.
In the first example, we're ejecting the hot gasses directly, and not re-using them as a fluid. This is more like a car exaust, or an oven, or human breathing.
Its in-out cooling versus around-and-around cooling. Humans (afaik) are primarily cooled through in-out cooling. We do radiative heat transfer and have organs adapted for that specifically, but its a very small amount of heat transfer compared to what we get from in-out cooling.
A car also has both radiative and in-out cooling. But it gets far more of its cooling from its radiator than it does through ejecting hot gasses.
Human cooling is mostly us throwing away hot gas, and we don't reuse it. We get some cooling through our blood, but less than what we get through breathing.
I mean, it's both, like a car, but we call that water cooled
I mean, thats kind of like arguing that the exhaust is the cooling system for the car, which, undoubtedly much heat is lost through the exhaust. But that isn't the princpal way it loses heat; the radiator is, and the radiator is much more akin to say, our ears, which are external, and the fluid moves through (rather than being ejected).
Really? I thought it was skin.
*Edit
Radiation (similar to heat leaving a wood stove). This normal process of heat moving away from the body usually occurs in air temperatures lower than 20 °C (68 °F). The body loses 65% of its heat through radiation.
https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/health-topics/cold-exposure-ways-body-loses-heat
We are more like huge societies of microorganisms that somehow work together and sometimes make mistakes like microorganisms do and confuse us.
When you're super high on shrooms and attain this realization, things get a little bit close.
That everything is just a bunch of microorganisms. That the cell REALLY is the building block of life.
Ore wa Gundam da.
Yes, it's pretty cool. Side notes:
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plants produce a literally electrical voltage across cell membrane when collecting sunlight. The solar panel is very much a technological copy of plant leaves.
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biology can be incredibly efficient sometimes. storing information in DNA takes just about 40-50 atoms per bit, and DNA is about 2.5 nm in diameter. For comparison, the finest structures in modern computers are 3-5 nm in size.
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since powering the whole thing is incredibly important, animals have one specialized cell (mitochondria) inside every normal cell, simply for the purpose to convert the energy from sugar into a usable form. Plants have two of these specialized cells, with the other one's job being simply to collect sunlight and turn it into usable energy. That, in my opinion, makes them more advanced than animals. ;-)
Water fueled also
We sure use water, but I don't think it is used in the energy production mechanism.
Bioelectrical machine but yes.