HI!
im new to this forum and trying to get started on a assignment which asks us to question Where the ‘I’ is in the human body?'I would just like some people’s views and opinions to help get me started.
At first they want us to give Dennetts opinions from his reading Where am I? and then they want us to give our own opinions in relation to the question. Like for example Dennets reading implies that the I is a combination of both the brain and the physical body working as one entity. However, although i believe the I is made up of the human body and brain i also believe another dimension is involved which contains ones soul and lives on after we die. Just wanted to hear some other people’s thoughts
“I” is the immediate object in my representation of the world; it’s at - and is - the centre of my subjective universe.
I dare you to hand this one-sentence answer in
Edit: eek - I forgot to answer the actual question! The answer is: nowhere. “I” is a subject, so if it had a location it would in fact be an object, so the question collapses into contradiction.
what chimney sweep said. The “I” as a metaphysical identity shouldnt be reified. The only way i would describe it is as the border of your perception, as in like, the frame of the window through which the world is experienced.
There is no need for a soul. It is just wishful thinking.
the interesting aspects of the self falls under psychology, not philosophy. (Interestingly enough, this isnt entirely brain concentrated, we have tricks of distributed cognition where we manipulate the world as an extension of our thought process. Like when we work out sums on paper rather than just in our head. )
I read once: The molecule in my baby finger thinks it’s a people.
I have a strong feeling the “I” is a hologram, our selves are infused throughout each molecule of our being, and traces of us are left behind wherever we have been, if only in our breath as we passed by - and when we die we scatter, thus carrying “ourselves” throughout eternity. Proof: they can contain all knowledge in one atom now - (ok, I’m not a scientist, I don’t know how -) but I knew they were right. I am thus, everywhere, and everywhen
Not having to much exposure to this I question. I think I will just stick with laymans style.
The I in the human body to me is all through it. If I can feel my toe being cut and it makes me bleed and yell out in pain. To me it is obvious I am in my toe. Nerves attach their little intricate selfs to that squishy thing we call the brain. Nerves are internal fingers telling us that we just did something stupid. I am attached to this bio machine I control it much the way I control a car.
Will I be able to leave this vehicle and survive with out it, Yes in away. I am energy. My energy controls this body. Energy, according to whats his name, does not stop it just changes. believing in that and if you combine that with any sort of religous teachings your energy remains you, just in a different form.
My energy flows through this body. the electric pulse that shoots out from a nerve ending is part of me.
If I lose part of my body do I lose part of me, no, the energy that is me had already stopped flowing to that part. So I am intact. My vehicle on the other hand may need a repair shop.
Can I by direct thought, enhance or change my vehicle? Technically the ability should exist just not the knowledge yet.
So where am I in this body? I swim all through it with the help of nerves and pulses. Can part of me leave this body and still remain me? yes.
According to Schopenhauer, our worlds essentially comprise two parts: the will and the representation. I think “I” belongs to the former, which means it has no physical location. I think your suggestion that your “I” is spread through your body is flawed - here’s a reason why: often, when someone loses a limb, they can still “feel” it. For example, I once read about a man who lost an arm below the elbow, and he used to wake up in the night in agony because he could “feel” his hand being crushed. To take your suggestion to a comical end point, if this man had held his elbow above a rabbit, then - spatially - that would put part of his “I” in the rabbit!
The question was where is the I in the human body. The I is throughout the human body carried by the energy pulses that we feel and know about plus those we may not feel. I am energy, the energy in my body is I
My brain serves as the CPU. the rest serves as the vehicle or housing unit for the I part of my human body.
