Who Are You? What Are You?

Quote from lundy:

So you don't think you are just one part of the body, you think you are the whole body. You think you are the total collection of molecules, instead of just a certain molecule.
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Interesting point. I think you see my point, yes. When you clip your toenails, while they were attached to your body, it was part of your body. However, when you clip them off, I look at it as particles from your body. It's not really a part of "you" (the whole body, including the brain) any more.
If you think you are the whole body then tell me what the difference is between a dead body and a living body? Every single molecule that was there while the body was alive, is still there 1 second later when the body is dead?
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A living body (life) is the PRODUCT of your body's parts FUNCTIONING. Say we have someone who is brain dead, but they're on life support. You could say part of the body is still alive, but the person's mind/personality is no longer there. I believe who we are completely resides in the brain. So when your brain is not functioning, "you" are dead, but your body could still technically be alive.

So to answer your question, if a complete body was functioning (brain included) and one second later you were decapitated, the difference would be that your brain can not function any more, therefore, "you" are dead. The body parts which are not "you" (although they belong to "you") will eventually decompose.
You are not defending science because our ever evolving science has not determined that the self is made up of matter. They simply don't know who or what the self is.
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My point is, I only believe something if it can be proven/observed. If there is no explanation, I just accept that I don't know. I may also make an educated guess based on what is currently known, yet still accept that I do not know for sure. I would say I do defend science because the stance I take is grounded in reality. If you are decapitated, you won't be able to think too long. Everything I say makes sense, given with what we currently understand. Could I be wrong? Maybe.
Alot of people have personal evidence that the body is not the self. They are out of body experiences, people returning into their body's after a doctor has declared them dead.
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If you're going to use the word "evidence" at least be able to provide it. I don't think you can give me some evidence here, can you? As far as what you experience around the moment of death, you must consider what is happening to your body. When the power plug to your brain is being unplugged, you might experience strange things. If your heart is stopped, then your brain is not functioning 100%. If a doctor is able to restart your heart and bring your brain back to 100%, you might be able to live and talk about what you experienced. It would be no surprise to me what-so-ever if you saw or thought weird things. This is the logical explanation. Those of "faith" will read more into this than is actually there and say that they saw some tunnel of light leading to heaven or something. :-/
 
Quote from lundy:

The reason why is because we aren't the body, and the body is just a temporary vehicle, just like a truck, that we use until it's unusable anymore.
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I do agree that the body is basically a vehicle for your mind. However, I ALSO believe that the body CREATES your mind. You can't have one without the other. When our truck dies, we die.

Please show me the observable mechanism by which we are separate from our bodies and can get into other vehicles. I'm very interested to see what it is. :p

If you adopt my reasoning that the brain is who you are, to get into another vehicle, the physical particles of your brain would have to be somehow transferred collectively and intact to another vehicle. I see no means by which this is possible, besides a brain transplant. I guess that's why religious people say your soul is invisible and after you die, you can't see it go anywhere. HEHE, nice cop-out. :-/
 
"However, I ALSO believe that the body CREATES your mind. You can't have one without the other. When our truck dies, we die."

You have just TOTALLY contradicted yourself ! First you say that the "self" is really the body, then you say the "self" is really just in the Brain, then you say that the body and the brain create the self , however the body and the brain together are just the total of the physical body. You are one confused dude.
 
there is some "extra ingredient" that makes us, us. You can call it whatever you want, or simply ignore the question, but to deny the existence of this "extra ingredient" is to deny reality and your own senses and thoughts, and if you are really honest, your own inner beliefs about what you are.
 
Quote from MondoTrader:

"However, I ALSO believe that the body CREATES your mind. You can't have one without the other. When our truck dies, we die."

You have just TOTALLY contradicted yourself ! First you say that the "self" is really the body, then you say the "self" is really just in the Brain, then you say that the body and the brain create the self , however the body and the brain together are just the total of the physical body. You are one confused dude.
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I have not contradicted myself and I am not "one confused dude." If anything, I have the most clarity that a human being can have at this point in our evolution. I pity you, actually, for being the real "confused dude." I will explain my beliefs again, so that you see that I'm not contradicting myself.

My personality (what some call a soul) is the PRODUCT of my brain functioning. My brain can not function without a working BODY. A body with a NON-functioning brain would just be a body.

I think of life as like light from a lightbulb. Our body is the bulb, but light is not emitted unless it has power going to it. I equate power going to a lightbulb to a body that is functioning (brain included).
 
Quote from MondoTrader:

there is some "extra ingredient" that makes us, us. You can call it whatever you want, or simply ignore the question, but to deny the existence of this "extra ingredient" is to deny reality and your own senses and thoughts, and if you are really honest, your own inner beliefs about what you are.
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You are the epitome of a hypocrite. On one hand you speak of REALITY, then you insist that there are "extra ingredients" somewhere that you can not prove. I really do not need to proceed any further here.

To say that if I don't agree with you, that I'm not being honest with my inner beliefs is nothing short of complete bullshit. My beliefs are totally honest. :mad:
 
Quote from Gordon Gekko:




The idea of the body being the person makes total sense to me and I do not see at all how you can rule it out. Don't rule out the truth. :mad:

Defender of Science :-)
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For the sake of clarity -- what exactly are you defending here? Are you defending classical mechanistic worldview and Descartes? Are you stating that Cartesian Dualism - 'cogito ergo sum' is 'TRUTH'?

 
Quote from Fluidity:

For the sake of clarity -- what exactly are you defending here? Are you defending classical mechanistic worldview and Descartes? Are you stating that Cartesian Dualism - 'cogito ergo sum' is 'TRUTH'?
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Dumb down your question for me, please. :)
 
Quote from Gordon Gekko:


Dumb down your question for me, please. :)
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I'm confused - are you implying that you do not know what you are defending? You said that you are a 'defender of science' and I was just trying to understand exactly what it was that you were defending.

It seems as though you are defending Cartesian division - 'I think, therefore I exist' and trying to pass it off as absolute scientific fact -- am I right in this assumption?
 
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