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The idea of "ownership of a body" made me think about a quote I heard a long time ago, while talking amongst musicians while waiting to get up and perform. It f

The idea of "ownership of a body" made me think about a quote I heard a long time ago, while talking amongst musicians while waiting to get up and perform. It felt like some secret knowledge that I gained privilege to, while somewhat inebriated and it hasn't left me since. > I _have_ a body, I _am_ a soul. Maybe what they're identifying is the first half of that statement, how we interpret the former, through the presence of the latter.

roenxi 9mo ago
You can do that with mental phenomenon too - eg, having memories, feelings, consciousness, thoughts. All aspects of "I" that might be present or not - so they can't really be said to be you as much as possessed by you for a moment. Insofar as a soul exists for you to be ... it is quite small.
- zozbot234 9mo ago
  > You can do that with mental phenomenon too - eg, having memories, feelings, consciousness, thoughts. But once you carry that reasoning to its full conclusion, the original argument for a "soul" or "self" that can even be meaningfully called "I" vanishes entirely. There still is some sort of underlying "true" subjective awareness that's felt to be ontologically basic in some sense (just like the "soul") but now it's entirely impersonal (the traditional term is "spirit", or "the absolute") since anything that's still personal is no longer comprised in it: an ongoing phenomenon and perhaps an inherent feature of existence itself, not a "thing".
  - ajuc 9mo ago
    Yes. That's the point? Your personality might change and you're still you.
    - pixl97 9mo ago
      From an evolutionary viewpoint this makes perfect sense. You better always feel like you otherwise you may not help this non-you survive, hence the non-you's went extinct quickly.
Tarq0n 9mo ago
Dualism is almost always unhelpful as a model. Your soul is a process your body runs, they are indistinguishable.
- kilpikaarna 9mo ago
  Nah.
- phito 9mo ago
  Maybe.
- krzat 9mo ago
  You introduced dualism yourself by making distinction between body / process. I heard Michal Levin talk about dualism recently. He has an interesting point: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Qp0rCU49lMs&t=6210 https://youtube.com/watch?v=Qp0rCU49lMs&t=6210
- hackinthebochs 9mo ago
  It doesn't have to be a reference to dualism. We can draw a distinction between specific patterns of brain activity and the body that realizes it. "I" exist only when the characteristic property of neural activity that realizes the self is present. I am the realization of this second-order property. Here the "soul" is this specific pattern of dynamics realized by my body's neurons.
- ajuc 9mo ago
  It's useful to have a word for cumulonimbus and models based on that even if you know it's just a particular configuration of the wave function. Whether personality is entirely based on laws of physics or not - is a separate question.
- arnoooooo 9mo ago
  You make it sound like we are flesh robots : sensors and motors, with a central "CPU" that channels between the two. But a robot has no first-person experience, it's just smart electron flows. That we have first-person experiences shows the soul is definitely not "a process your body runs" : it's where your whole experience "registers". That we are not flesh robots is also why we have free will. You could coherently argue that free-will is an illusion, but you can't argue that first-person experience is an illusion, as you need something to perceive the illusion.
ajuc 9mo ago
I think of it this way: Person me = new Person { body: { ... }, personality/soul: { ... }, emotionalState: { ... }, memories: { ... } } The "me" is very small - it's just the structure that holds the pointers to everything else.

roenxi 9mo ago

You can do that with mental phenomenon too - eg, having memories, feelings, consciousness, thoughts. All aspects of "I" that might be present or not - so they can't really be said to be you as much as possessed by you for a moment. Insofar as a soul exists for you to be ... it is quite small.

zozbot234 9mo ago
> You can do that with mental phenomenon too - eg, having memories, feelings, consciousness, thoughts. But once you carry that reasoning to its full conclusion, the original argument for a "soul" or "self" that can even be meaningfully called "I" vanishes entirely. There still is some sort of underlying "true" subjective awareness that's felt to be ontologically basic in some sense (just like the "soul") but now it's entirely impersonal (the traditional term is "spirit", or "the absolute") since anything that's still personal is no longer comprised in it: an ongoing phenomenon and perhaps an inherent feature of existence itself, not a "thing".
- ajuc 9mo ago
  Yes. That's the point? Your personality might change and you're still you.
  - pixl97 9mo ago
    From an evolutionary viewpoint this makes perfect sense. You better always feel like you otherwise you may not help this non-you survive, hence the non-you's went extinct quickly.

Tarq0n 9mo ago

Dualism is almost always unhelpful as a model. Your soul is a process your body runs, they are indistinguishable.

kilpikaarna 9mo ago
Nah.
phito 9mo ago
Maybe.
krzat 9mo ago
You introduced dualism yourself by making distinction between body / process. I heard Michal Levin talk about dualism recently. He has an interesting point: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Qp0rCU49lMs&t=6210 https://youtube.com/watch?v=Qp0rCU49lMs&t=6210
hackinthebochs 9mo ago
It doesn't have to be a reference to dualism. We can draw a distinction between specific patterns of brain activity and the body that realizes it. "I" exist only when the characteristic property of neural activity that realizes the self is present. I am the realization of this second-order property. Here the "soul" is this specific pattern of dynamics realized by my body's neurons.
ajuc 9mo ago
It's useful to have a word for cumulonimbus and models based on that even if you know it's just a particular configuration of the wave function. Whether personality is entirely based on laws of physics or not - is a separate question.
arnoooooo 9mo ago
You make it sound like we are flesh robots : sensors and motors, with a central "CPU" that channels between the two. But a robot has no first-person experience, it's just smart electron flows. That we have first-person experiences shows the soul is definitely not "a process your body runs" : it's where your whole experience "registers". That we are not flesh robots is also why we have free will. You could coherently argue that free-will is an illusion, but you can't argue that first-person experience is an illusion, as you need something to perceive the illusion.

ajuc 9mo ago

I think of it this way: Person me = new Person { body: { ... }, personality/soul: { ... }, emotionalState: { ... }, memories: { ... } } The "me" is very small - it's just the structure that holds the pointers to everything else.