the issue is not so much how we feel about the issue but what the evidence is — Tom Storm

Thank you for your response.
Of course, we can't expect physical evidence for something that is not physical. Otherwise, if we had such en evidence, the issue would have been resolved a long time agao ans we wouldn't have to discuss it! :smile:
So, what can replace physical evidence? Logic (reasoning) and experience. And from them realization, cognition, (own, personal) reality. These would be more than enough, I think. And knowing that one is not a body makes a huge difference with believing that one is.

I don't think of the idea of self as solid but more as an insubstantial — Tom Storm

Does this mean you don't believe that YOU exist and that YOU are reading this message? Are these not solid thoughts? Is believing that YOU are an illusion a more solid thought for you?

You are nothing but your body. — Laguercina

Thank you for your response.
I respect your position, of course. But I would prefer that you responded to my position and bring pro or con arguments about it against my own arguments. Actually, I feel that you have totally ignored my position. You don't discuss a position by ignoring its arguments and presenting your own position.

This topic is about a specific position: "You are not a body". It does not ask "Are you a body?"

This topic is about a specific position: "You are not a body". It does not ask "Are you a body?" — Alkis Piskas

You are not your body. You are more than that. Your body is connected to your brain. The brain is formed out of food eaten. This means matter is more tha, eeehh, matter. Matter has something in it to give light or fire to the brains inside of us. It makes us see thoughts and feel feelings. The body is more than empty matter. I agree with this completely. There is no I that is thinking.

Is the theory yours? I'm not sure why you state we are not our body. We are, but not in the pure matter sense. That's just an abstraction, just as saying that we are our brains.

I doubt the majority believes your mind is your body although it's commonly depicted that way. What the majority on this site seem to me to believe is a monism. They reject the idea that there is a thing called a mind that is separate from a body, one you can remove and add. Rather, your mind is a certain configuration of your body. That seems to get past all the problems you cite without proposing a dualism. For instance: "He stormed out because he was angry".

A dualist would struggle to explain how this non material mind made him storm out.
A reductive materialist would struggle to explain what "anger" is, since it's not something that has mass.

But if you consider anger as a specific configuration of physical stuff, "He stormed out because he was angry" makes sense. In this scheme, the mind is to a body what a program is to a computer. Minds are what bodies do, just like how programs are what computers run.

That seems to me to be the majority position here, but since it doesn't accept a dualism, it often gets mistranslated. Someone says "Your mind doesn't exist as a separate entity" and people take that to mean "Your mind is your body".

Rather, your mind is a certain configuration of your body. That seems to get past all the problems you cite without proposing a dualism. For instance: "He stormed out because he was angry". — khaled

:up:

Though the mind is not us. It just shows us things. We are not in control of it. We don't do the thinking and feeling.

So you don't accept that dualism? — Ciceronianus

Thank you for your response.
Of course I accept it! Why else should I have brought it up? I only said that "this [discussing it] is not in my plan." Besides that, my whole description was about showing that the body is something separate from YOU. Even the statement of this topic itself indicates that.
(I didn't want to involve the term "mind" in all this, for not complicating things. Of course, the mind is non-physical and thus separate from the body.)

Are you neither your body or your mind, but something which is neither? — Ciceronianus

I have said what I am, using the second person (Re: "What is this YOU?")
I have a body and I have a mind.

Besides that, my whole description was about showing that the body is something separate from YOU. — Alkis Piskas

Why do you wanna show that? You think there is more to matter than meets the eye?

Why can't it be that YOU are your body?

"If you are a body, then why do you say 'my body', 'I have a body', and so on?" — Alkis Piskas

We also say, "he's lost his mind!" and "her keen mind cracked the case.". By your reasoning, we're not our minds either. We're neither our bodies nor our minds! What are we then?

There's something there to which both a particular mind and body belong to, that thing we refer to with the word "I". What is it? Could it simply be a mental construct, simply a collection of thoughts, experiences, memories, etc. lumped together under one heading, I. If yes, the self is just a concept like God or infinity, lacking the ontological status of a body or a mind, both things that do exist (I am thinking and my back sometimes itches).

Do most people here on TPF agree that thoughts, ideas etc (mind in general) is non psychical? Or the majority believes it belongs to psychical world(material) — dimosthenis9

Thank you for your response, dimosthenes9.
I didn't say that they "agree that thoughts, ideas etc (mind in general) is non psychical." Actually, the opposite. The believe that they are physical. Although I expressed that in a different way: I said that they "believe that all mental activity is happening in the brain." And, of course, brain is physical. OK?

From the responses you got from all the 3 threads you opened about that issue what you got? — dimosthenis9

1) The poll I launched ("Does thinking take place in the human brain?") showed that 82% believe that thinking takes place in the brain.
As we have already had some good exchanges in the past, allow me to comment that I find this outrageous for philosophically thinking people. I can accept materialism as something followed by a lot of such people, but here we are talking about the overwhelming majority! But this would not be so upsetting as the lack of critical thinking that whould characterize such people, only it doesn't!
I will tell you only this. This fact alone, makes me think that I do not belong here! However, I can ignore this because I am here to express my views and exchange views with other thinkers. This pleases me a lot.
2) From my other topic "If the brain can't think, what does?" the great majority of the responses I recieved were characterized by lack of thinking and reasoning: they were just reactions that didn't mean actually anything. Fortunately, I had about 5 responses that either contained just a philosophical; questioning on the subect or a view of a non-physical nature. And I had one that it was an analysis why thinking takes place in the brain. It was welcome as well. See, I totally respect different and even opposite to mine views. What I don't respect is evident lack of thinking/reasoning and, even worse, impertinence and vulgar language.

I counted 90 TPF active members in the last week (don't ask me how, I am a programmer! :smile:). 22 only of them answered the poll. (It's not even a representative sample!) I wonder why? Don't they have a viewpoint on the subject? Have they found the subject too unimportant to respond? They are not certain about what to vote? I hope the last case prevails, because it shows at least that they cannot say for certain that thinking takes place in the brain! This is good for me! :smile:

of course I am not merely, or identical with, "my" body. "I am", in fact, the emergent, recursively continuous, output of this body's interactions with its environment. — 180 Proof

Thank you for your response.
Quite interesting view! (On some other occasion, I would like to know more about it!)

Someone who has a body. — Bitter Crank

Thank you for your response.
OK. Then who or what is that "someone"?

Complex animals with complex central nervous systems. Muscles, blood, skin, bones, brains, minds. — Bitter Crank

But all this is "body" (except "mind", but this is not the issue). Where is that "someone" involved in all this?

Thank you for your response.
Wow! This is quite long and I have to "study" it before I reply to it. So, let me come back soon, after I reply to other members who have also responded to the topic. Thanks.

Just point to yourself and see whether your finger lands on mind or body. — NOS4A2

Thank you for your response.
Do you mean, point to my body! :smile:
But my whole point and its description showing that YOU are not your body and that "yourself" is something else! Have you read anything of all that? Or you just reacted to the title of the topic? (Very bad if you did that ...)

Ownership is an illusion. — Present awareness

Thank you for your response.
Well, I wouldn't go that far. It is out of the point. When one says "my body" it is crystal clear to everyone what does that mean.

If you are not your brain, then why do you disappear when you go into a coma? — Present awareness

Disappear? Even doctors know that poeple in coma can hear and perceive other things.

Consciousness is aware of thoughts, emotions, memories, input from the five sense organs and constructs a hologram of what it considers to be YOU at this moment. Who you were and who you might be, exists within this hologram as well, but nowhere else. — Present awareness

Nice description. :up:

The million dollar question is where and how does this consciousness arise in the first place? — Present awareness

Good point. I will let you know when I a hear something about that. I personally don't try to find this out, because I wonder who is going to pay me this million dollars?! :grin:

A "self" as you are describing ( We ), is an emergent phenomena. — Pop

Thank you for your response.
I didn't use the word "self" in my description except only to give an example of people who believe that what they call the "I", the "self" is an illusion. This may happen if one considers the word "self" as a concept, as you do.
However, I am talking about "youself" and "himself" , which are totally different things. What I am talking about is YOU. Just YOU. The person I am replying to at the moment I am writing these lines. YOU is the person himself, his identity, the human being, a living unit. It is very concrete, as far as the language is concerned as well as a reality. There's no "emergent phenomena" involved!
If this is not clear for someone, I am sorry, I can't do anything more.

a living unit — Alkis Piskas

And if we he were not living? What sort of interaction could you have with his YOU?

typo!

The believe that they are physical — Alkis Piskas

That seems so weird to me and I wanted to check that it is the case. How they believe they are physical? Material? Can they "touch" them or what? I could never understand how someone sees thoughts as something material. Especially thoughts. But anyway.

This fact alone, makes me think that I do not belong here! However, I can ignore this because I am here to express my views and exchange views with other thinkers. This pleases me a lot. — Alkis Piskas

Don't worry about it. You aren't the only one who believes thoughts and mind aren't material. I support the same too. And of course we just exchange views here.That majority thinks different says nothing.

even worse, impertinence and vulgar language. — Alkis Piskas

Yeah there are many here who think they own the privilege of the "Absolute Truth" . Even in cases like this, which you can never be sure since science hasn't reached there yet. But they speak as if they have all the answers already. Don't give a fuck about them.

Your body is connected to your brain. — Gobuddygo

Thank you for your response.
But isn't the brain part of the body? Actually, is it inside the body? How can it be also connected to it? Is your heart connected to your body are does it reside in it?

give light or fire to the brains inside of us — Gobuddygo

By "us" you mean the body, right? So, we are our bodes, right?
But this is the whole topic about!

Is the theory yours? I'm not sure why you state we are not our body. — Gobuddygo

Certainly not. There are billions (not millions) of people in this planet who believe this, mostly in the East, of course.

The self and its world as a unified modelling relation don't exist at some single scale. They exist - in modern humans - at levels that are meta- to each other. We can't make the questions of selfhood simpler than they in fact are. — apokrisis

Agreed. Metaphysical reductionism taken too far, is always illusory. Hence, psychology aside, the theoretical limits of speculative pure reason.
———-

Oh. Wait. I mis-read. You said a self and its world, modeling, where I took it as a self and the world, being modeled. With this new understanding, I disagree, insofar as the self and its world as a unified modeling relation does exist. Otherwise, what would suffice as causality for any model at all?

By your reasoning, we're not our minds either — TheMadFool

Thank you for your response.
Of course we are not our minds. We have a mind (which is non-physical). As we say "I have a thought, an idea, etc." (I suspect that this is just a reaction to the title of the topic since "mind" is irrelevant to my description,)

What are we then? — TheMadFool

Well, the answer is in my description of the topic. (Now I am sure you have not read the topic. Not OK!)

And if he were not living? What sort of interaction could you have with his YOU? — Srap Tasmaner

Who is "he"? Well, wataver.
"In a what way he was not living?" Dead? Well, wataver.
What is "his YOU"? You mean either his body or his spirit.. Well, I personally couldn't have any interaction.
I'm not sure though if all this is a very rational discussion! :grin:

But I also want to say that recognizing yourself as part of the world is not such a bad thing to do. — Srap Tasmaner

Nope, not bad at all. Actually, conventionally necessary, but oddly enough, at the same time, philosophically impossible.

Humans. The only known species with the innate capacity to confuse itself.
—————

Is your son modeling, or merely characterizing? Even if he is representing both of you in a drawing, he himself is still outside the drawing itself, yet is undeniably the cause of it. But what is he really doing, if not objectively recreating a subjective appearance? Being young, his recreation may contain the extensive manifold of representations possible only with imagination, which could be false, but not the representations given from experiential maturity, which will be true.

I rather think a model, as such, should be a definitive representation of something, composed of a multiplicity of conceptions, as opposed to a mere caricature, which will always have the fewer. Helps alleviate the aforementioned confusion. A caricature is a model, but a model is not a caricature, kinda thing.

The idea is just that there are expressions in everyday language that are not true. Thinking them true, then, and trying to reason on that basis is just plain a mistake. An example that comes to mind is that if someone says they see a tree, you know what they mean. But that never actually happens, and thus any understanding of seeing based on that is wrong. Hence the misused, misunderstood tool, and what you suppose prove, unproved. And your whole OP seemed built on that error.

The idea is just that there are expressions in everyday language that are not true. — tim wood

Can you give an example of such an expressuon?

It seemed to me that the most important word in this:

Just YOU. The person I am replying to at the moment I am writing these lines. YOU is the person himself, his identity, the human being, a living unit. It is very concrete, as far as the language is concerned as well as a reality. There's no "emergent phenomena" involved! — Alkis Piskas

is the word "living". You can only talk to whoever you're talking to while they're living.

Of course you are not your body, because your body could also be the inanimate thing lying on the floor once you're dead. We who remember you will still call it "Alkis's body", even though there's no Alkis anymore, just the body. There's only an Alkis while Alkis is alive, and that means while Alkis's body is a living thing. This is generally what people have in mind when they say, however clumsily it has to be said in our language, that Alkis is an emergent phenomenon.

I rather think a model, as such, should be a definitive representation of something, composed of a multiplicity of conceptions, as opposed to a mere caricature, which will always have the fewer. — Mww

This I don't understand. All models are wrong, and by design not definitive. They're all caricatures.

This morning it seems obvious that my little model of modeling is inherently static -- which I caught but ignored when I said it can't be kept up-to-date -- but that means it's literally a picture not a model; we could pretend it's a snapshot, a momentary state of a running model, and maybe that's better than nothing. A picture is worth a thousand words; it's maybe even worth a thousand lines of code.

The first, and very obvious question is, "If you are a body, then why do you say 'my body', 'I have a body', and so on?" You can't be a body and have a body at the same time, can you? — Alkis Piskas

Okay, I’m not a body. The second, and very obvious question is, "If you are a mind or a soul, then why do you say 'my mind or my soul', 'I have a mind or I have a soul', and so on?" You can't be a mind or a soul and have a mind or a soul at the same time, can you?

I’ve said this a number of times, but there can’t be a mind/body problem. Why? Because we don’t have any sense of what “body” means. Or material, or physical.

There used to be a conception of “body,” within the mechanical philosophy of Galileo and others in the early scientific revolution, with the principle of contact action. That was abandoned, since Newton in fact, and there hasn’t been a technical notion of it since. If we want to use it as an honorific term, fine. But what it amounts to is something like “the mind/ectoplasm problem”.

Of course I accept it! Why else should I have brought it up? I only said that "this [discussing it] is not in my plan." Besides that, my whole description was about showing that the body is something separate from YOU. Even the statement of this topic itself indicates that.
(I didn't want to involve the term "mind" in all this, for not complicating things. Of course, the mind is non-physical and thus separate from the body.) — Alkis Piskas

And of course I knew you accepted it--and necessarily so. I don't think you can escape the dualism by merely asserting that you're not "discussing" it. You're bound to it, I'm afraid.