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"Pain reminds you that your body is an entity of its own, that your body isn’t you. Rather, it’s the machine that the mind utilizes to bring your thoughts and d

"Pain reminds you that your body is an entity of its own, that your body isn’t you. Rather, it’s the machine that the mind utilizes to bring your thoughts and desires into manifestation." I'd encourage people to avoid thinking about things this way. It matches subjective experience quite well, but it encourages you to think of psychological problems/pains as part of "you" and therefore unchangeable. Internalize this mind/body duality too much and if you encounter a psychological problem in your life you will have a very hard time dealing with it. It also encourages you to ignore the very real impact your body's state has on your thoughts, feelings and mental abilities (see: all those really interesting studies around "embodied cognition"). It's also provably false but I leave that for the second point because basically any day to day metaphor you use to think about these kinds of things will be similarly "off". Learning the facts and then picking the metaphors and level of abstraction used to think about these subjects that are most helpful has been very useful in my experience. "[Would I] be less forgiving with my mind and more with my body? ... Why not live like that anyway?" Even better in my experience to take it even further. See that the distinction isn't particularly valid and be more or less forgiving of the whole. aside: Looks like I entered dangerous territory voting-wise by wanting to talk about the main point of this post rather than alternative typing solutions. Fuck that, because this subject is way more interesting.

wcummings 13y ago
One of the things you'll hear frequently in mental heath treatment is the importance of externalizing the illness, i.e. you aren't the illness its an imbalance you can work to correct, like physical therapy for your brain
- freshhawk 13y ago
  Yes, exactly the kind of thing I think would be made more difficult if you think this way. Thanks for the clear example I didn't manage to find.
Houshalter 13y ago
No one is saying that psychological problems are unchangeable. But it is a useful abstraction to separate mind and body. This will become more relevant in the future when get mind uploading. But even in the present it's a useful concept. You can get a serious crippling disability and still be alive with only limited ability to interact with the world. You can get your body almost completely destroyed and it will still be the same you. This is the point the author was getting at (though to a lesser degree.)
- freshhawk 13y ago
  "You can get your body almost completely destroyed and it will still be the same you" Actually, it won't be the same "you". Your feelings and likely actions can provably be affected by whether you are standing or sitting, or holding a pencil in your teeth or balancing it on your upper lip. Obviously your self is more sensitive to brain changes (at least in some parts of your brain) than body changes, but that's just a matter of degree rather than some kind of imaginary hard line between mind and body or between "me" and "my meat suit". Looking at it a different way I'm saying that there are more useful concepts than this distinction, that lead to more successful outcomes.

wcummings 13y ago

One of the things you'll hear frequently in mental heath treatment is the importance of externalizing the illness, i.e. you aren't the illness its an imbalance you can work to correct, like physical therapy for your brain

freshhawk 13y ago
Yes, exactly the kind of thing I think would be made more difficult if you think this way. Thanks for the clear example I didn't manage to find.

Houshalter 13y ago

No one is saying that psychological problems are unchangeable. But it is a useful abstraction to separate mind and body. This will become more relevant in the future when get mind uploading. But even in the present it's a useful concept. You can get a serious crippling disability and still be alive with only limited ability to interact with the world. You can get your body almost completely destroyed and it will still be the same you. This is the point the author was getting at (though to a lesser degree.)

freshhawk 13y ago
"You can get your body almost completely destroyed and it will still be the same you" Actually, it won't be the same "you". Your feelings and likely actions can provably be affected by whether you are standing or sitting, or holding a pencil in your teeth or balancing it on your upper lip. Obviously your self is more sensitive to brain changes (at least in some parts of your brain) than body changes, but that's just a matter of degree rather than some kind of imaginary hard line between mind and body or between "me" and "my meat suit". Looking at it a different way I'm saying that there are more useful concepts than this distinction, that lead to more successful outcomes.