# Which bit of you is you? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 30, 2008, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274 "2008-12-30T20:49:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/41 "2009-01-04T20:01:02Z")
> [@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](http://www.nderf.org/vonlommel_skeptic_response.htm) That’s the single biggest pile of blue crap I’ve ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![Influential\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Influential\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Influential_Panda)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/42 "2009-01-04T20:02:17Z")
Everybody, stop. Stop. Stop it. Do not respond. You know where this is going, _stop doing it._ ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/43 "2009-01-04T20:05:48Z")
Yes, sir, Mr. Junior Mod, Sir! ---
**Author:** ![Influential\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Influential\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Influential_Panda)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/44 "2009-01-04T20:20:14Z")
Now line up for spankings ---
**Author:** ![Jesse\_Leigh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@Jesse\_Leigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesse_Leigh)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/45 "2009-01-04T20:36:08Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Influential\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Influential\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Influential_Panda)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/46 "2009-01-04T20:48:21Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/47 "2009-01-04T20:51:44Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Jesse\_Leigh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@Jesse\_Leigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesse_Leigh)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/48 "2009-01-04T21:02:07Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Jesse\_Leigh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@Jesse\_Leigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesse_Leigh)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/49 "2009-01-04T21:06:23Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/50 "2009-01-04T21:06:32Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Influential\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Influential\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Influential_Panda)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/51 "2009-01-04T21:14:17Z")
> [@Jesse\_Leigh](#): > > 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. If you find a couple of hours, dip into a good bookstore and read the first chapter. He doesn’t mess around and tease around the point until the last few pages: he starts off strong and keeps going. I really do mean it when I say it completely changed my conception of who “I” am. ---
**Author:** ![Jesse\_Leigh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@Jesse\_Leigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesse_Leigh)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/52 "2009-01-04T21:14:29Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > 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. Q.E.D., The entire world had access to it as it was on video, and I fought hard for her until the very end. This isn’t a subject I want to debate - no disrespect to you intended. - Jesse. ---
**Author:** ![Influential\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Influential\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Influential_Panda)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/53 "2009-01-04T21:17:20Z")
**Jesse** , I’m not going to argue with you, but I want to say that if you aren’t completely confident that you know enough about the brain to contradict her expert neurologists, you take the opportunity to do so before you continue to call them evil. Your claims of crying seem to me as emotionally charged as pro-life arguments about “beating hearts” and fetuses that physically resemble fully grown humans. ---
**Author:** ![Jesse\_Leigh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ea924/32.png) [@Jesse\_Leigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesse_Leigh)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/54 "2009-01-04T21:36:24Z")
> [@Influential\_Panda](#): > > **Jesse** , I’m not going to argue with you, but I want to say that if you aren’t completely confident that you know enough about the brain to contradict her expert neurologists, you take the opportunity to do so before you continue to call them evil. Your claims of crying seem to me as emotionally charged as pro-life arguments about “beating hearts” and fetuses that physically resemble fully grown humans. I believe in the sanctity of life, IP, so any issue involving it is emotionally charged for me. However, I did not call her neurologists evil, I said, or I thought I said, that the _act_ of murdering her was and is evil. That one I’ll stand by. I do not believe human beings have the the right to take another’s life. I’ll bet that’s popular on this forum, but I’m sleep-typing here, IP. If you want anything coherent from me it’ll have to wait until tommorrow. Agape - Jesse. P.S. I’m ten hour’s drive from the closest bookstore, but I’ll get it from Amazon - hopefully. Thanks again for the thumbsup. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/55 "2009-01-04T21:39:59Z")
> [@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 was intrigued by the this, so I went and looked it up. It turns out that a lawyer named Barbara Weller made this claim, and also that it was witnessed by Terri’s sister and her sister’s husband. First, I can only seem to find the story in ‘Save Terri’ blogs, and half the time it’s the exact same article word for word. Second, the story often gets lumped in with a lot of other bullplop, like claims that Terri was strangled. Third, sometimes it’s a nurse, Cheryl Ford, who makes the claim, on behalf of the family on behalf of the lawyer. And last, the claim is almost always made along with another claim that she yelled out that she wanted to live, except that what she did was make a noise and people heard what they wanted. I’m not convinced. It sounds like just another of the ‘Look, see, she’s not really brain dead’ things that went around. > [@](#): > > I _really_ don’t think we should open this particular can of worms So you decided to talk about it? ---
**Author:** ![Influential\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Influential\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Influential_Panda)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/56 "2009-01-04T22:02:37Z")
> [@Jesse\_Leigh](#): > > I believe in the sanctity of life, IP, so any issue involving it is emotionally charged for me. However, I did not call her neurologists evil, I said, or I thought I said, that the _act_ of murdering her was and is evil. That one I’ll stand by. I do not believe human beings have the the right to take another’s life. You’re free to hold your own morals, but in stating that the presence of tears contradicts claims of brain death you made a factual claim that you don’t seem qualified to make. If you’d like to clarify and state that regardless of the state of her brain it was wrong to end her life, that would be smart. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/57 "2009-01-04T22:36:07Z")
> [@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? Just wanted to note that having a short conversation with someone and absolutely no recollection of it upon waking is pretty common. But those conversations happen when you’re briefly awake and immediately go back to sleep. The difference in your case is that, according to your husband at least, you’re still fully asleep when you talk with him. Is he really sure of it? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/58 "2009-01-04T22:54:11Z")
> [@Jesse\_Leigh](#): > > 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. [She was brain dead.](http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/06/15/schiavo.autopsy/index.html?iref=newssearch)[Much of brain was basically yogurt.](http://www.amptoons.com/blog/images/schiavo_ct_scan.jpg) I agree that you should refrain from diagnosing people based on edited videos. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/59 "2009-01-04T23:34:46Z")
> [@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. Not only this isn’t true in my experience for most atheists, but I find it quite inconsistent with being an atheist. Not totally inconsistent, but it runs against one of the main reason why one wouldn’t believe in God. If I believed that there was a sentient entity, invisible, undetectable and not tied to the “meat”, I wouldn’t have any obvious reason to assume that it ceases to exist at the moment of death, for instance. So, I should consider an afterlife as plausible. Also, I would have no reason to assume that there can’t be other kinds of similar entities, like, say, spirits or dryads, some possibly very powerful, like a djinn , or even powerful enough to create a whole universe, like a god. So, believing in a “soul” isn’t incompatible with being an atheist, but it puts a dent into an atheist stance. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2009, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274/60 "2009-01-04T23:38:44Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Not only this isn’t true in my experience for most atheists, but I find it quite inconsistent with being an atheist. Agreed. I’ve never known any atheists who felt there existed any kind of “soul” or “spirit” within them. I certainly don’t believe any such thing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-bit-of-you-is-you/479274.md?page=4)