Which bit of you is you?

[Lobsang]

If you take the short snappy title literally the answer is 'all of it'. So what I mean is, which bit of the common definition of 'you' (your whole body) is the sentient bit?

More specific than 'the brain'. Is there a part of the whole brain that is still 'you' if you take the rest away? If you don't count life support how much of the loose definition of you could you take away before what's left stops being you/sentient?

Or to put it another way, how small a bit of you could you take out and put in another body (to sustain it as an organic thing) and it still be you?

Would you still be you if you suddenly lost all your past memories?

[ITR champion]

It seems to me that there is no answer, and that our society agrees on this, and I'm not aware of any society that doesn't. If I get my pancreas removed, I am still the same human being. If I have a leg amputated, I am still the same human being. Some epileptics have half their brain removed, but they remain the same human being. Alzheimers patients may lose nearly all of their memories, but they are still the same human being. There is no situation where a living human being ceases to be a human being due to the loss of a physical part of a mental ability.

Remember the Terry Schiavo case? Everybody referred to her as "Terry Schiavo" no matter where they stood on the legal issues. Her brain had rotted away to almost nothing, she had no mental functions, but everyone still agreed that the person called Terry Schiavo was still there.

In short, the self must be something that is not grounded in any physical structure or mental function.

[Whack-a-Mole]

Well, it definitely has to reside in the brain. The rest is just life support apparatus and data input bits.

How much of your brain do you need to still be you? That is wide open to question. You have the likes of Terry Schiavo who while physically alive would be argued that "she" was no longer there. Her brain, the higher functioning bits, were mush.

On the other hand there have been people with hemispherectomies (sp?) who had half their brain removed (literally) and live rather normal lives (when it is done to them as a child...their brains seem still able to rework themselves enough).

If you lost all your past memories I would argue that you are no longer "you". Essentially we are nothing but the sum of our past. That said what are memories? Even people who have lost their abilities to recall the past still seem to retain their personality (or at least they have a personality). While they may not remember the past they obviously function, retain language and other skills so seems a lot of "them" is still in there somewhere. This one is a lot harder to call I think.

[toadspittle]

I think we have to say the brain is the seat of identity. That's not to say it can't be damaged, but it's still us. If you remove any other portion, it's still the same person. If you remove the brain, it's not.

The wrinkle in this is that it's impossible at the moment to sustain a human brain outside the body, so when the brain is removed, the person is dead, and we keep referring to the body as the person, and the brain as just an organ that was removed. If we get to the point where a brain can be removed and either put into another body or into some variety of robot, then I think we'd say that the brain's location is now the person, and the old body is not ... though the body would still, presumably, be the property of the person (the brain).

Of course, what happens if you could split the brain down the middle, keep it alive, and put it into two separate bodies? Who the heck knows.

Ugh. Now my brain hurts.

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by Whack-a-Mole

Well, it definitely has to reside in the brain. The rest is just life support apparatus and data input bits....

Don't forget the naughty bits. Sometimes they're what makes life worth living.

[Whack-a-Mole]

Originally Posted by ITR champion

Remember the Terry Schiavo case? Everybody referred to her as "Terry Schiavo" no matter where they stood on the legal issues. Her brain had rotted away to almost nothing, she had no mental functions, but everyone still agreed that the person called Terry Schiavo was still there.

I disagree that Schiavo was still "there". I think that was the whole point of the case. She was not there and allowing this rather soulless shell, almost zombie if you want, was not a good thing. Schiavo as a distinct entity was no longer there. Sure people still used her name but what else would you do? There was no higher brain function at all left in the poor woman. Just enough was left to keep the life support package functioning. Nothing else.

[toadspittle]

Originally Posted by Whack-a-Mole

If you lost all your past memories I would argue that you are no longer "you". Essentially we are nothing but the sum of our past. That said what are memories? Even people who have lost their abilities to recall the past still seem to retain their personality (or at least they have a personality). While they may not remember the past they obviously function, retain language and other skills so seems a lot of "them" is still in there somewhere. This one is a lot harder to call I think.

Good point. And there is, I think, a difference between the philosophical definition of a person and the legal definition of a person. If you lost all of your memories, or your brain was turned to mush, you, philosophically, would cease to exist. But, legally, your body is still there, and owns various possessions and is bound by contracts, etc.

[smiling bandit]

I have to disagree here, at least a little. If I lose a finger, Yes, I am still me in the sense I am not someone else. But I have also lost part of me. That part of me has died. I won't be whole again until I die, too, making me one complete dead guy. Have your brain removed? Well, yeah, you are still you. Just the part without a brain. Which granted, isn't very useful and pretty pointless, but still the rest of you.

In Purgatory, you're probably sitting there going "Crap! I'm just a brain floating in the afterlife!" (Probably not.)

[hotflungwok]

Originally Posted by ITR champion

Alzheimers patients may lose nearly all of their memories, but they are still the same human being.

Are they? One of the most common things you hear about humans suffering from Alzheimer's is that they're not themselves.

There is no situation where a living human being ceases to be a human being due to the loss of a physical part of a mental ability.

That's not really what he asked. He didn't ask what makes you a human being, he asked what makes you 'you'. There are several things I can think of that might make you not be you anymore, and a nice massive loss of memory is one of them.

Remember the Terry Schiavo case? Everybody referred to her as "Terry Schiavo" no matter where they stood on the legal issues. Her brain had rotted away to almost nothing, she had no mental functions, but everyone still agreed that the person called Terry Schiavo was still there.

Well, no, that was the entire problem. Her brain was gone, she couldn't function, so although she was technically a human being, she really wasn't Terry Schiavo anymore. That's why her husband wanted her to be allowed to die. People called her Terry Schiavo because that was the easiest way to refer to her.

In short, the self must be something that is not grounded in any physical structure or mental function.

Again, no, we have no evidence that the self is anything but physical. We have found lots of things that can alter basic traits against a person's will, implying that these things are encompassed in something physical. If you have evidence that there is something that makes up or interacts with a human mind that is not at all physical, please present it.

[Lobsang]

Originally Posted by ITR champion

In short, the self must be something that is not grounded in any physical structure or mental function.

If this were true, how or why is it 'tied' to the physical self?

[ITR champion]

The point I was making is that there's a consensus on acting as if a person in a case like that still exists alive, even though some people hold in an intellectual case that she's not. Legally, a person is a person until death. In some cases we may declare them incapacitated, meaning that they've lost some of their abilities, but we never declare them to be unpersons. As far as government and business are concerned, a person simply is a person according to that commonly accepted definition. If you're doing a census, or counting people for any other reason, you count all living people as people regardless of their mental state

Originally Posted by toadspittle

I think we have to say the brain is the seat of identity. That's not to say it can't be damaged, but it's still us. If you remove any other portion, it's still the same person. If you remove the brain, it's not.

Interesting theory. I'd have to agree that if we could scoop the entire brain out and put in a new body, we'd have moved the 'person' to the new body. However, that's all science fiction at the moment, and my personal prediction is that it will never be done. If we define 'personhood' by bits of the brain, it does raise certain questions. For example, what do we make of the French dude who lived a normal life with close to no brain tissue?

[ITR champion]

Originally Posted by Lobsang

If this were true, how or why is it 'tied' to the physical self?

That's a tough question for which there really is no short answer. In the course of everyday existence, we encounter various people and don't generally have trouble identifying an individual. Yet can the definition really be based on mental traits? After all, in what sense can a personality really be said to exist? Any one individual seems to exhibit different personalities in different circumstances. A person behaves differently when drunk vs. when sober, or when sexual aroused vs. when cold, or when tired vs. when alert, or when hungry vs. when full, or when calm vs. when emotionally charged, and so forth. Yet there's no disputing that a person who goes through all of those states remains the same person throughout.

[hotflungwok]

Originally Posted by ITR champion

Interesting theory. I'd have to agree that if we could scoop the entire brain out and put in a new body, we'd have moved the 'person' to the new body. However, that's all science fiction at the moment, and my personal prediction is that it will never be done. If we define 'personhood' by bits of the brain, it does raise certain questions. For example, what do we make of the French dude who lived a normal life with close to no brain tissue?

Short answer: we don't know yet. Any other assertions, such as there being non-physical components to the self, require evidence, and are not the default response in case the answer is 'I don't know'.

Besides, I've met plenty of civil servants with tiny itty-bitty little brains.

[DSeid]

The "self" is the thinker thinking about, and constantly redefining, itself. It is within those functional self-referential infinitely recursive loops that "you" reside. A self always and most basically in contrast to all that is non-self.

For humans those patterns mainly exist in the neocortex and in particular primarily in the frontal and prefrontal lobes integrating (and imposing expectations upon) patterns of information processed in various sensory cortices. But it is the functionality, what Doug Hofstadter calls a tangled hierarchy or a strange loop, that gives your self its sense of selfness, not the where it resides.

G.E.B. is still worth the read.

[Lobsang]

Originally Posted by DSeid

G.E.B. is still worth the read.

I have that book. I've had it for years (Like 10 years or something)

I'm about a third into it. Me and thick books don't mix. The thickest book I've ever read (and it was a chore) was the LotR trilogy.

[panache45]

Originally Posted by ITR champion

Alzheimers patients may lose nearly all of their memories, but they are still the same human being.

By the time my father died of Alzheimer's it's debatable whether he was "still the same human being," or whether that human being had died a few years earlier. Legally, of course, he had to be considered the same man with the same name as before. But even being with him prior to his death, I had lost the feeling that he was the person who had been my father . . . or even a "person" at all. He seemed to be merely a body that represented or evoked the man he had been.

It was very poignant, a few years before his death, when he still retained some of his personality . . . and he said, "I'm not the man I used to be."

[TWDuke]

Some of the responses above seem to be concerned with self-awareness, but are you yourself when you're not aware? Do you cease being you if you're asleep? In a coma? Who are you in a hypnagogic state?

I think "you" and "I" are fluid concepts. I'm the same person I was 10 years ago, but I'm not the same. If I lost a leg or my short term memory or my ability to write I would be different, but I would be me.

[InterestedObserver]

Originally Posted by Lobsang

If you take the short snappy title literally the answer is 'all of it'. So what I mean is, which bit of the common definition of 'you' (your whole body) is the sentient bit?

More specific than 'the brain'. Is there a part of the whole brain that is still 'you' if you take the rest away? If you don't count life support how much of the loose definition of you could you take away before what's left stops being you/sentient?

Or to put it another way, how small a bit of you could you take out and put in another body (to sustain it as an organic thing) and it still be you?

Would you still be you if you suddenly lost all your past memories?

I think the idea of the brain as the seat of the soul (or of the self/mind/intelligence, whatever we chose to call IT) is as idiotic as the ancient idea of the heart being the same, or any other physical organ.

Sure, the brain is a more likely suspect, being responsible for processing impulses and thoughts, but it is still just a piece of meat.

If one accepts that all there is is "meat", then yes, is the brain is damaged or gone, "you" are likewise. If one accepts that the mind/soul/self/consciousness exists beyond the physical, then that doesn't hold true.

The examples of those who've functioned more or less fully lacking any brain to speak of(and I don't just mean George Bush) challenge the theory of the brain as the seat of the self.

Would I, personally, want to live in a body with a brain so severely damaged that I was unable to function? Hell no. Nor would I want to live in a body in which any other organ were so damaged as to impair my functioning to such a degree. But that doesn't mean *I* exist solely in any of those organs. *I* exist beyond the physical body. Just my opinion, as requested.

My grandmother, who lived to be 100, told me 15 yrs or so before her death that she felt "the rest of her had already gone, and she was just waiting around to follow." It drove her crazy that she couldn't see or hear well and was less mobile than she'd always been. And yes, that she often forgot things after having a great memory and sharp mind her whole life. "SHE" felt trapped in an aging body, but "she" never identified with that body, in fact she was irritated by it increasingly. She felt strongly that "she" would eventually move on and leave the husk behind, her true self free of all this silly nonsence. I hope she was right.

[MrDibble]

Originally Posted by Whack-a-Mole

Well, it definitely has to reside in the brain. The rest is just life support apparatus and data input bits.

I think you are unfairly discounting the entire hormone system here - adrenal glands, sexual hormones etc play a large part in making us who we are.

[Revenant Threshold]

Originally Posted by ITR champion

Remember the Terry Schiavo case? Everybody referred to her as "Terry Schiavo" no matter where they stood on the legal issues. Her brain had rotted away to almost nothing, she had no mental functions, but everyone still agreed that the person called Terry Schiavo was still there.

I'm afraid I entirely disagree with that one. People using "Terry Schiavo" to refer to her by no means "everyone still agreed" that person was still there. I used that name at the time, too, but I'm convinced that she was no longer there anymore. It's a usage of ease, in my case; using the name is a much quicker thing to do than say "the being with lessenend mental activity who used to be Terry Schiavo" every time you want to refer to her. In other cases, it may well be a sign of politeness, or a wish to avoid offense. You really can't assume universal or even majority agreement that she was still Terry Schiavo just from the use of the name. In short, your conclusion is rather flawed.

As far as the OP goes; i'd say I am composed of many things, which could be taken away to make me a different person. Even if I lost a leg, I would argue that I am no longer the same person, since I imagine that loss would affect me quite considerably. Change my brain's physical makeup around, and I would not be the same person. Rob me of my memories, either totally or partially, and I would not be the same person. Give me alcohol to alter my perceptions and bodily inputs, and I would not be the same person. Taking parts of me away does not necessarily make me any less of a person; if I lost my memory but could continue to form new ones, then I would still be a person, just a different one. OTOH, take away my brain in its entirety and there's no person there at all. To use an example brought up upthread, scoop out my brain and bung it in another person's body and I would, over time, gradually become quite a different person thanks to the differing inputs i'm getting. Even me in my own body for that amount of time would result in a changed me. There are many things that add up to make us who we are, and which, to differing extents, would make us a different person were they changed.

[DSeid]

Originally Posted by TWDuke

Some of the responses above seem to be concerned with self-awareness, but are you yourself when you're not aware? Do you cease being you if you're asleep? In a coma? Who are you in a hypnagogic state?

I think "you" and "I" are fluid concepts. I'm the same person I was 10 years ago, but I'm not the same. If I lost a leg or my short term memory or my ability to write I would be different, but I would be me.

Well the question did specify "the sentient bit". So indeed, while I may still to "me" to you while I am, say, under anesthesia (just as you'd identify any other object as the same thing), I am not me to me because there is no functioning sentient bit to be observing itself. To the POV of my self there is no discontinuity: I instead have a perceived continuity of experience updating a new ever changing definition of self to myself.

Let us make this thought experiment*: you enter into a machine that twins you into two exact copies both derived of current you, both with all of your current memories and thoughts. Those two "you"s go off and have different experiences and meet back a decade later. One has been to war and lost a leg and has PTSD. The other is married with children and a successful newspaper editor although has gotten a bit paunchy with middle class life.

Both of those "you"s would justly claim same-selfness with the past you before the machine (even though each being very different than that you) and neither would look at its twin in exactly the same way. Each twin would be nonself to the other.

InterestedObserver, you argue for the soul as the sentient bit. The soul would be the unchanging essence of self that stays the same even as the body varies. Of course there are the usual materialist objections, but I'd like to ask you how the soul as the seat of the self would deal with my thought experiment. Which twin would possess the soul? Or did my imagined machine make two new souls?

When does the soul inhabit a body? If biological twinning occurs after that which zygote gets the soul and which gets a new one? Or are there two of the same soul floating about? How about in conjoined twins? What parts need to be separate to get two separate souls? Is it the same or different than the parts needed to declare them as having separate senses of self?

[Larry Borgia]

Descartes error is an interesting book on the subject. He discusses how certain brain injuries have profound effects on concepts of personal identity. He comes to the conclusion that our reasoning is profoundly tied to our bodies; Not just our brain but our whole bodies. See Mr. Dibble's post above. I'm really not doing justice to it here.

I think our idea of personal continuity comes from memory. If even the most profoundly brain damaged person has some sense of continuity, they'll think of themselves as one thing existing through time. We project our own sense of continuity on other people, like the brain-dead and even corpses.

Another view is that it's a judgement call. There may be no bright line when you cease to be you. (Well, other than death.) If an organization, a sports team for instance, loses a player, they're still the same team. But if they completely disband, move to a new city and reform with new players and a new name under new mangagement, can they be the same team? What if they keep a couple of players or coaches?

[Influential Panda]

There's two layers to identity--"I" and "me." "I" can be thought of the thinker, the seat of consciousness. "I" is really a function of conciousness. "Me" is the rest of, well, me, and is the part of my body and brain that "I" is conscious of, including consciousness itself. So you can say that "me" is everything "I" is conscious of. If you removed a single hair from my head without my noticing, "I" would not change one bit.

Originally Posted by ITR Champion

Remember the Terry Schiavo case? Everybody referred to her as "Terry Schiavo" no matter where they stood on the legal issues. Her brain had rotted away to almost nothing, she had no mental functions, but everyone still agreed that the person called Terry Schiavo was still there.

Sort of. We still called my dead uncle Randy "Uncle Randy", but no one thought he was still there.

[gonzomax]

How about amnesiacs. If you lose all your memory is that being reborn? Are you suddenly a different person or are are you nobody?
Should you send an amnesiac to jail for a crime committed just before his memory was gone?

[Jettboy]

Just my brain and my weiner...

[pancakes3]

When i read the topic, i thought this was intended to ask "which part of your personality of you is the real you" which i think is a question worth hijacking.

Like say there's a working mom who's all business from 9-5, a doting stepford wife when with her kids, a raging alcoholic when at cocktail parties, and a football junkie on sundays... which part of her is the REAL her? Is she a mix of all parts, or sectored off based on the circumstances, or are some parts more dominant? What dictates the partitioning of certain behaviors? Why are some people more likely to be parceled off while others embrace one philosophy to apply to all aspects of their lives? Is this "well-rounded"ness a good thing? a bad thing?

[lekatt]

Originally Posted by InterestedObserver

I think the idea of the brain as the seat of the soul (or of the self/mind/intelligence, whatever we chose to call IT) is as idiotic as the ancient idea of the heart being the same, or any other physical organ.

Sure, the brain is a more likely suspect, being responsible for processing impulses and thoughts, but it is still just a piece of meat.

If one accepts that all there is is "meat", then yes, is the brain is damaged or gone, "you" are likewise. If one accepts that the mind/soul/self/consciousness exists beyond the physical, then that doesn't hold true.

The examples of those who've functioned more or less fully lacking any brain to speak of(and I don't just mean George Bush) challenge the theory of the brain as the seat of the self.

Would I, personally, want to live in a body with a brain so severely damaged that I was unable to function? Hell no. Nor would I want to live in a body in which any other organ were so damaged as to impair my functioning to such a degree. But that doesn't mean *I* exist solely in any of those organs. *I* exist beyond the physical body. Just my opinion, as requested.

My grandmother, who lived to be 100, told me 15 yrs or so before her death that she felt "the rest of her had already gone, and she was just waiting around to follow." It drove her crazy that she couldn't see or hear well and was less mobile than she'd always been. And yes, that she often forgot things after having a great memory and sharp mind her whole life. "SHE" felt trapped in an aging body, but "she" never identified with that body, in fact she was irritated by it increasingly. She felt strongly that "she" would eventually move on and leave the husk behind, her true self free of all this silly nonsence. I hope she was right.

I believe your grandmother knew what she was talking about. Many people experience being out of their body and seeing it separate from themselves. The body is only a shell, to hold us, our consciousness which is us. That is what I believe is true.

[lekatt]

Originally Posted by pancakes3

When i read the topic, i thought this was intended to ask "which part of your personality of you is the real you" which i think is a question worth hijacking.

Like say there's a working mom who's all business from 9-5, a doting stepford wife when with her kids, a raging alcoholic when at cocktail parties, and a football junkie on sundays... which part of her is the REAL her? Is she a mix of all parts, or sectored off based on the circumstances, or are some parts more dominant? What dictates the partitioning of certain behaviors? Why are some people more likely to be parceled off while others embrace one philosophy to apply to all aspects of their lives? Is this "well-rounded"ness a good thing? a bad thing?

Could it be she was only doing what others expected of her, acting the parts she believed to be appropriate. While in reality she was none of those things, a person no one really knew.

[Sam Stone]

This is like the classic illustration of fuzzy logic:

I have an apple. We all agree it's an apple. Now I take a tiny slice off of it. Is it still an apple? Sure. Now I take another tiny slice. It's still an apple.

If I keep doing this, at some point the apple will cease to be an apple. But there is no one slice you can point to and say, "there! you just sliced off its appleness!"

The transition from apple to non-apple is fuzzy. The human brain doesn't handle fuzziness very well - we want black and white, yes and no answers. But the world often doesn't work that way.

This is the crux of the never-ending abortion debate. Unless you're a fundamentalist who believes that the moment an egg is fertilized a human is created, with all the rights a human should get, then becoming a human is fuzzy. Most of us who aren't fundamentalists would agree that a fertilized egg isn't a 'human'. Most of us would also agree that a newborn baby IS a human. So at what point on the transition from egg to baby did 'humanness' become the defining characteristic? It's impossible to say. The transition is fuzzy. Hence we are destined to argue the question forever.

[Mangetout]

Originally Posted by Sam Stone

This is like the classic illustration of fuzzy logic:

I have an apple. We all agree it's an apple. Now I take a tiny slice off of it. Is it still an apple? Sure. Now I take another tiny slice. It's still an apple.

If I keep doing this, at some point the apple will cease to be an apple. But there is no one slice you can point to and say, "there! you just sliced off its appleness!"

The transition from apple to non-apple is fuzzy. The human brain doesn't handle fuzziness very well - we want black and white, yes and no answers. But the world often doesn't work that way.

I agree - that and our tendency to hastily assign properties that we simply invented - like 'appleness' in your example. An apple doesn't care how apple-y it is or is not. In truth, it has no property of 'appleness', beyond our perception of it.

[DSeid]

Originally Posted by Mangetout

I agree - that and our tendency to hastily assign properties that we simply invented - like 'appleness' in your example. An apple doesn't care how apple-y it is or is not. In truth, it has no property of 'appleness', beyond our perception of it.

True. But in the case of the self we do care about how self-y we are; it is it a "core" belief.




Sorry.

[coffeecat]

When a word or something is right on the tip of my tongue, the part trying to remember it is me.

[Jesse Leigh]

Originally Posted by Lobsang

If you take the short snappy title literally the answer is 'all of it'. So what I mean is, which bit of the common definition of 'you' (your whole body) is the sentient bit?

More specific than 'the brain'. Is there a part of the whole brain that is still 'you' if you take the rest away? If you don't count life support how much of the loose definition of you could you take away before what's left stops being you/sentient?

Or to put it another way, how small a bit of you could you take out and put in another body (to sustain it as an organic thing) and it still be you?

Would you still be you if you suddenly lost all your past memories?

Our spirit is the most enduring part of each of us and it remains after the physical body dies. It contains the core of all that we are in whatever kind of existence we find ourselves.

You'd have to define 'you' to answer whether you'd still be you if you lost all your memories. You'd have a somewhat different personality because your experiences help to shape you, but essentially, I don't think people change all that much, so I'm going with you'd still be you. JMHO. - Jesse.

[Sam Stone]

Since there's no evidence whatsoever for a 'spirit', I think we can discount that for the purpose of this conversation.

A more interesting question is whether or not what makes you 'you' is the sum total of your memories, or whether there's more to it. I'd say there's quite a bit more to it, because the neural pathways we develop are shaped by our experiences, and that controls things like the kind of music that we find intrinsically appealing, how we react to certain stimuli, what triggers our emotions at a low level, and so on. So if all your memories were erased, you might still be scared of spiders (if you are now), and still might like rock music (if you do now), but you wouldn't know why, or how you came to feel that way.

[lekatt]

Originally Posted by Sam Stone

Since there's no evidence whatsoever for a 'spirit', I think we can discount that for the purpose of this conversation.

A more interesting question is whether or not what makes you 'you' is the sum total of your memories, or whether there's more to it. I'd say there's quite a bit more to it, because the neural pathways we develop are shaped by our experiences, and that controls things like the kind of music that we find intrinsically appealing, how we react to certain stimuli, what triggers our emotions at a low level, and so on. So if all your memories were erased, you might still be scared of spiders (if you are now), and still might like rock music (if you do now), but you wouldn't know why, or how you came to feel that way.

There is lots of evidence the consciousness survives the death of the body.

[Jesse Leigh]

Hello Sam!

Are you an atheist?

The reason I ask is because the majority of atheists I've talked to feel there is more to them than 'This crude matter' as Yoda would say. Some call it their soul, some call it their spirit, and most atheists don't believe it continues after death, but few I've talked with don't believe they have one.

Just curious - Jesse.

P.S. As for how the personality is formed and what makes you you, from a strictly medical standpoint - we don't know. We can theorize all we like and most of us do, but ultimately, we simply do not know. That's a fact.

[Marley23]

Originally Posted by Jesse Leigh

The reason I ask is because the majority of atheists I've talked to feel there is more to them than 'This crude matter' as Yoda would say. Some call it their soul, some call it their spirit, and most atheists don't believe it continues after death, but few I've talked with don't believe they have one.

That's generally rhetorical laziness on their part, in that they are borrowing a common term that represents something they don't believe in, and using it in a different sense. When those people talk about a soul, they're generally talking about something within their minds that makes them unique and represents their core. Other people sometimes call this the mind, as a distinct part of the brain.

By the same token, both atheists and theists often talk about what's in their hearts. They mean something that is central and important to them, but they don't share the ancient Egyptian belief that the heart is the center of consciousness. It's a linguistic convention.

From cases like Phineas Gage we do know that an individual's personality can change dramatically because of brain injury. At what point a person changes into some other person is less clear, but that's a philosophical distinction more than a physical or neurological one and it doesn't necessitate ghosts flying out of our noses when we sneeze. The phrase "tits on a bull" comes to mind.

Originally Posted by smiling bandit

If I lose a finger, Yes, I am still me in the sense I am not someone else. But I have also lost part of me. That part of me has died.

A finger is part of a living being, but it isn't alive and can't die. You wouldn't say your fingers are alive now since they don't have any life of their own, so i don't agree you can say it's dead if it gets cut off.

[hotflungwok]

Originally Posted by lekatt

There is lots of evidence the consciousness survives the death of the body.

No there isn't. We've covered this in many threads, you don't need to derail this one. Things that cannot be explained by medical science right now are not evidence. Unverified and/or obviously prejudiced personal experiences are not evidence.

[Sam Stone]

Originally Posted by Jesse Leigh

Hello Sam!

Are you an atheist?

Yes. I won't categorically state that there's no God, because I don't have any evidence one way or the other. But I find the question uninteresting, just as I find the question of whether or not tiny gnomes are responsible for stealing my socks when one goes missing in the dryer. If the question can't be quantified, if there can be no physical evidence one way or the other, it's really a waste of time to talk about, other than as a philosophical exercise. I would put the question of God on about the same plane as I would a question about whether or not we live in a giant simulation, or whether we're all brains in a vat. Fun to talk about, but meaningless as a way to seriously understand the universe and our place in it.

The reason I ask is because the majority of atheists I've talked to feel there is more to them than 'This crude matter' as Yoda would say. Some call it their soul, some call it their spirit, and most atheists don't believe it continues after death, but few I've talked with don't believe they have one.

That doesn't jibe with my experience. Most athiests I know feel the way I do - that we're just biological machines. Evolution has given us brains that have become so complex that we're capable of self-awareness, but after the brain is dead, we're simply gone.

Now, there are some interesting questions to be asked about what it means to be dead - if a giant supercomputer in the future randomly created simulated brains, and it hit on the exact pattern of neural connections that make up my brain today, would I 'wake up' in that future? I have no idea. I don't know that that is qualitatively different than 'waking up' every morning after I go to sleep. So it's possible that there will be something else for me to experience after the death of my body and brain, but that's just raw speculation. I can't think of any physical principles it violates, so I have to consider it possible.

But I don't believe I was created by God, or that there's some 'spirit' living within me that will persist after I die. What constitutes ME is nothing more than a very complicated series of electrical connections and biological switches.

P.S. As for how the personality is formed and what makes you you, from a strictly medical standpoint - we don't know. We can theorize all we like and most of us do, but ultimately, we simply do not know. That's a fact.

This is true, but as Marley23 pointed out, we are collecting evidence that our behaviors, impulses, emotions, and other factors that make us unique do reside in various areas of the brain, as we've seen personalities radically change after brain trauma.

[lekatt]

Originally Posted by hotflungwok

No there isn't. We've covered this in many threads, you don't need to derail this one. Things that cannot be explained by medical science right now are not evidence. Unverified and/or obviously prejudiced personal experiences are not evidence.

Medical science is not the holy grail of evidence, you know. But actually it was medical science that did the research that showed consciousness continues to live after clinical death.

http://www.nderf.org/vonlommel_skeptic_response.htm

[Q.E.D.]

Originally Posted by lekatt

Medical science is not the holy grail of evidence, you know. But actually it was medical science that did the research that showed consciousness continues to live after clinical death.

http://www.nderf.org/vonlommel_skeptic_response.htm

That's the single biggest pile of blue crap I've ever seen.

[Influential Panda]

Everybody, stop. Stop. Stop it.

Do not respond. You know where this is going, stop doing it.

[Q.E.D.]

Yes, sir, Mr. Junior Mod, Sir!

[Influential Panda]

Now line up for spankings

[Jesse Leigh]

Re: consciousness. Have you ever had a conversation, albeit short, with someone while you were asleep and had absolutely no recollection of it upon waking?

My husband tells me I'll answer anything he asks me when I'm deeply asleep, and I'll answer coherently, but have no recollection of it later. I find that decidedly unsettling. I trust my husband implicitly, and he wouldn't lie if you paid him to do it, so one can be in the middle of an irenic dream and still converse in a lucid manner about which checkbook to use for what - apparently. I'm a physician and I can't logically explain this. Of course, I'm not a neurologist.... (Even I think that's a lousy excuse!)

Anyone else experience this? I find it fascinating!

Jesse.

[Influential Panda]

Originally Posted by Jesse Leigh

so one can be in the middle of an irenic dream and still converse in a lucid manner about which checkbook to use for what - apparently. I'm a physician and I can't logically explain this. Of course, I'm not a neurologist....

I strongly, strongly recommend you pick up The Illusion of Conscious Will by Daniel Wegner. It gives an illuminating look at the nature of consciousness and how we experience it. Now, for my ridiculously oversimplified explanation.

You don't have to be conscious to perform actions. You aren't consciously aware, for instance, of the location of your feet in space, yet your brain handles it without difficulty. You can shift your consciousness to become aware of it, certainly, but it's not a necessary requirement for movement.

Much like sleepwalking, which is locomotor activity without consciousness, you can hold a full conversation without being conscious of it.

Also, the memory for this sort of event is classified as episodic memory. To consciously re-experience and retrieve these sorts of memories, you need to have been conscious of them in the first place.

[Clothahump]

Originally Posted by ITR champion

Remember the Terry Schiavo case? Everybody referred to her as "Terry Schiavo" no matter where they stood on the legal issues. Her brain had rotted away to almost nothing, she had no mental functions, but everyone still agreed that the person called Terry Schiavo was still there.

In short, the self must be something that is not grounded in any physical structure or mental function.

I disagree. Schiavo's husband argued all along that his wife was dead and all that remained was a carcass kept "alive" on life support. He was right.

It's the brain that houses the "self". It's the sum of our experiences that makes us what we are. If I could go back to 1975 and meet myself, the now-I would recognize myself, but the then-I would have no clue who this other person is. There would be no "click of the souls", so to speak.

[Jesse Leigh]

I'm not sure we should go down this road. Terry was not brain dead. Brain dead people don't cry when they are told they're going to be starved and dehydrated to death. I could list all the other reasons why I believe TPTB murdered a cognizant human being, but we've beat that horse dead a couple of hundred times already. I don't believe discussing it here will change where any of us stand on that issue. Of course, not being her personal physician, I'm armchair diagnosing, but the above is my opinion and what happened to Terry and is still happening to countless more like her, is... tragic. I'd say evil, but... why not, I believe it was evil. YMMV. I *really* don't think we should open this particular can of worms.

Agape - Jesse.

[Jesse Leigh]

Originally Posted by Influential Panda

I strongly, strongly recommend you pick up The Illusion of Conscious Will by Daniel Wegner. It gives an illuminating look at the nature of consciousness and how we experience it. Now, for my ridiculously oversimplified explanation.

You don't have to be conscious to perform actions. You aren't consciously aware, for instance, of the location of your feet in space, yet your brain handles it without difficulty. You can shift your consciousness to become aware of it, certainly, but it's not a necessary requirement for movement.

Much like sleepwalking, which is locomotor activity without consciousness, you can hold a full conversation without being conscious of it.

Also, the memory for this sort of event is classified as episodic memory. To consciously re-experience and retrieve these sorts of memories, you need to have been conscious of them in the first place.

Thanks, IP. I'll make a note of that book. I can't imagine where I'm going to find the time to read it prior to May, but I'm definitely interested in the subject matter.

Thanks again.

I've been up for 33 hours. I need to get some sleep noe.

G'night, and have a great day! - Jesse.

[Q.E.D.]

Originally Posted by Jesse Leigh

Brain dead people don't cry when they are told they're going to be starved and dehydrated to death.

Cite that this occurred in the Schiavo case?

In any case, even if she was a cognizant person at that point, she was a cognizant person with absolutely zero hope of any decent quality of life. Had I been in her place, I'd have begged for death. She's really better off now, regardless of what you believe about her mental faculties.