Yes, precisely. As Doug Hofstadter noted: " 'I' am a strange loop".

Hi, everybody. I just now created this account, and so this is my first post ever on the philosophy forum. I am not a professional/academic philosopher, but have indulged a lifelong interest in philosophical subjects. I have found that I enjoy interacting on fora such as is hereby represented, partially because if helps me in learning and in refining my own belief system, and also through the expression of my deepest thoughts, values and beliefs, for which general living seems not to provide adequate context, it helps to fulfill my needs for intimacy.

In response to Alkis Piskas' original question, I would state that the notion that memory, reason, emotion, and other types of thought occur independently of the body must by needs be predicated upon the consideration that there is some part of the individual which is incorporeal and which is comprised by that which we call "the person". This appears to be a claim about a supernatural phenomenon. It seems to me that the only rational answer to such a proposition is the (Bertrand) Russellian one: the acceptance of supernatural claims demands supernatural proofs. The fact is, that while we have ample evidence of the existence of the human body and brain, we have as yet absolutely no objective evidence (apart from the possibility that the phenomenon of the mind provides evidence therefore) of any incorporeal aspect of the human person. These facts would appear to clarify the matter.

Since apart from the phenomenon of the human mind, no evidence presents itself that there is any part of the human person apart from the physical body, the choice before us seems to be between: (a) holding the fact of the mind as evidence for an incorporeal aspect of the person, or (b) considering that thought and the mind are a result of physiological processes within the human body, particularly (though not exclusively) the brain. Of these two options, the rational choice seems clear: one must assume, in the absence of further evidence, and while not utterly denying the possibility that there is some incorporeal part of the person which is instrumental in producing the phenomenon of cognition, that the human mind is the product of the physiological functioning of the human body.

The fact that we have as yet not been able to discern the mechanisms by which thought might be produced within the brain is irrelevant to this. The field of computer science has been elucidative of the possibilities, though. We now understand that a system can be contrived whereby bits of information are stored, retrieved and manipulated as polarities in order to produce a rather unsophisticated, though highly efficient type of "thought", and indeed, a rather unsophisticated though highly efficient type of "mind". Knowing this one possibility for the production of a type of "thought" provides us with a foundation for imagining all the various possible types of information storage, retrieval and manipulation which might be occurring within a given human brain/body to result in the phenomenon of a human mind.

The preceding, by the way, involves the same line of reasoning which I follow with respect and in response to the proposition that there exists a God or gods of any description.