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[non-aces only] Do you feel like your body is part of your identity? (poll)


mreid

Do you see your body as part of your identity?   

28 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you feel that your physical body doesn't match how you see yourself psychologically and/or are you non-cis?

    • Yes
      12
    • No
      16
  2. 2. You experience your dreams mostly...

    • In the 3rd person (but my body is the same as my waking one)
      3
    • In the 3rd person (but my body is different from my waking one/ partially different)
      2
    • In the 1st person (but my body is different/ partially different)
      2
    • In the 1st person (but I can't see my body/ don't know if it's different of not)
      12
    • In the 1st person (but my body is the same as my waking one)
      9
  3. 3. Your sexual fantasies are...

    • In the 1st person
      15
    • In the 3rd person and I participate in them
      5
    • In the 3rd person but I don't participate in them
      4
    • I don't have sexual fantasies / N/a
      4
  4. 4. Do you have low self-esteem / body image issues?

    • Yes
      6
    • Moderately so
      14
    • No/ very few
      8
  5. 5. Are you prone to dissociation and/ or depersonalization?

    • Yes to both
      7
    • Yes to dissociation
      3
    • Yes to depersonalization
      4
    • No to both
      14
  6. 6. Do you feel like you inhabit your body rather than see it as part of you? (from @Moon Spirit's thread, see OP)

    • Yes
      8
    • No
      20
  7. 7. Which of the following are accurate?

    • I self-harm
      8
    • My looks changed a lot over the years
      9
    • I was an ugly duckling
      7
    • Have trouble picturing myself/ parts of myself in my mind/ aphantasia-like symptoms
      3
    • None
      10
  8. 8. Do you have depression?

    • Yes
      18
    • No
      10
  9. 9. Do you feel like a part of who you are is being rejected if a partner doesn't feel attracted to your body?

    • Yes
      21
    • No
      7


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48 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

So, no, I don’t believe the mind is a body part or something separate from the body.  I also don’t believe it’s a body function.

...then what is it? An impossibility, like a black hole?

 

24 minutes ago, CBC said:

Well congratulations on writing the one thing that may finally convince me to fuck off from this site.

Good riddance. It was a joke though.

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And how is one supposed to tell that? Seemed like a sincere statement to me, since you didn't say "just kidding", "lol", etc.

 

The "good riddance" makes me wanna stay, though. 8) 

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20 minutes ago, CBC said:

And how is one supposed to tell that?

One can easily tell that when they don't have any reasons to distort what I say to make me look bad.

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1 hour ago, mreid said:

...then what is it? An impossibility, like a black hole?

It’s not a thing.  It’s just how we describe the effect of the brain’s workings.

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3 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

It’s not a thing.  It’s just how we describe the effect of the brain’s workings.

The brain's workings can also be described as electrical impulses. This would make them a thing. Consciousness would be the manifestation of the collection/patterns of those impulses, which would also make it a thing, albeit not a very tangible one but still a thing. Not something quasi-esoteric like a non-thing.

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I explained a while back (another thread) that what we experience as mind is the electrochemical workings of the brain.  That explanation didn’t seem to work for you so I chose different wording.

 

The electrochemical reactions in the body (well, in anything) aren’t things; they’re processes.

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in a sense, we are in part beings of information

 

information is without substance

 

it's not entirely unfair to think of ourselves as more than thing -- this information --

 

but our ability to translate the information away from its prison of fat and ions is sadly limited.

 

🧠💭

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@ryn2 Still doesn't answer the question, has little to do with the original argument, and we are just going in circles. You are just trying to drag me into another meaningless argument.

 

Our discussions can all be summarized this way: I say something, you keep putting out arguments one after another like an hamster that runs round and round endlessly to find reasons why whatever I said is wrong, you contradict yourself, you make another argument, I counter your argument, you make another one, and so on and so forth and I am done wasting time. It doesn't matter what I say or what argument I put forward, you will just get another one and the hamster will keep on running on it's wheel. You try to win arguments through exhaustion.

 

 

So say consciousness is a process.

- if the body is just organs and cells to you, then processes are something separate, which would make consciousness separate from the body (being a process). You said you aren't a dualist, so you are contradicting yourself.

- say you consider bodily processes as part of the body, because they are a reflection of the organs in them. This would make consciousness a reflection of your brain. However, this is mostly irrelevant in sexual attraction, as it concerns both body parts that are not your brain and bodily processes that are not your consciousness whose purpose is to heighten the effect of those body parts. Sexual attraction doesn't concern the non-sexual part of consciousness. It follows that when someone is sexually attracted to you, this doesn't include the non-sexual you. Unless you believe there is nothing more to people than sexuality, when someone loves you for your body they are only loving you partially, not completely.

- regardless of whether you are a dualist or not, consciousness is a part of your body, not your whole body. That just wouldn't make sense, and it's just a bullshit argument.

- consciousness is produced from your body, it is a bodily process, so it is a creation of the body. This means it isn't the same thing as the body.

- you defined your body as your identity because according to you your consciousness is part of your body. you again contradict yourself, see previous points.

- you defined your identity as your body + your mind. So you imply there is a mind/body separation. But then you say you are not a dualist. Another contradiction.

 

Enough of this bullshit. You can't debate, and I can see why Red Pill stuff bothers you so much because your way of "debating" is exactly what those "evil sexists" describe as "typical female behavior". Not exactly proving them wrong here, are you? But anyway, I am done engaging in this nonsense.

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The part of me that is 'me' is an entity separate from this body. The entity dwells in the body (the body is like a biological vessel). If someone is mean about the body I feel offended or hurt in the same way I would if someone was mean about a sister or brother, or another body that is friends with the body, or a stranger, or even someone on AVEN who I've never met physically. It's the fact that people think it's okay to say mean things about someone else that gets me.

 

But yeah, my consiousness is an entity separate from this body that exists within it for the most part.  I have travelled without my body (while remaining fully conscious) many times as many people do all around the world every day. Our consiousness isn't hardwired into our body and can exist without it, like when one is practicing advanced lucid dreaming or astral projection (same happens when our bodies die).

 

Yes I have had many pretty severe issues that have stemmed from my dissociation with this physical body, though I deal with it all a lot better now that I understand it more thoroughly.

 

My 'sexual fantasies' (what I think of when I masturbate) are of other people who I do not know performing taboo acts. I am never involved.

 

Also I'm not interested in 'debating' any of what I've said above as it's merely my overall answer to the questions in the poll (and the title of the thread). I honestly don't mind if people don't believe some of the stuff I've said or have a different opinion, it's just my truth.

 

12 minutes ago, mreid said:

You can't debate, and I can see why Red Pill stuff bothers you so much because your way of "debating" is exactly what those evil sexists describe as "typical female behavior". Not exactly proving them wrong here, are you? But anyway, I am done engaging in this nonsense.

Eh? :blink:

 

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4 minutes ago, mreid said:

But anyway, I am done engaging in this nonsense.

Good, because I wasn’t doing any of what you listed above.  I responded to your survey, you commented on one of my responses, I corrected what appeared to be a misunderstanding.

 

I have no interest in “making you look bad”; just in clarifying when I’m misquoted.

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2 minutes ago, FictoCannibal. said:

I honestly don't mind if people don't believe some of the stuff I've said or have a different opinion, it's just my truth.

This.

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Quote

Enough of this bullshit. You can't debate,

Says the person resorting to ad hominems.  :rolleyes:

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Just now, Philip027 said:

Says the person resorting to ad hominems.  :rolleyes:

...to the person who wasn’t trying to debate to start with.

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Yeah there's that too, but figured I'd let you speak for yourself on that regard

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nanogretchen4

So, a survey is normally an information gathering tool, and a group discussion about personal identity is normally an opportunity to understand the subjective experiences of others. Researchers don't normally debate study participants, as that is not conducive to learning anything from the study. 

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Ahh, but we are not dealing with a researcher; we're dealing with a budding psychoanalyst.  There's a difference!

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nanogretchen4

Ah. Well I don't think psychoanalysts normally insult their clients' debating skills and political opinions and stomp out in the middle of a session, as that is not conducive to getting paid.

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3 minutes ago, nanogretchen4 said:

Ah. Well I don't think psychoanalysts normally insult their clients' debating skills and political opinions and stomp out in the middle of a session, as that is not conducive to getting paid.

Exactly. I am not getting paid.

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Just now, mreid said:

Exactly. I am not getting paid.

Nor am I your client... or debate partner.

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Do budding psychoanalysts take the hypocritical oath?

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1 hour ago, mreid said:

Exactly. I am not getting paid.

Why do you start all these polls though? That's a genuine question because you really seem very uninterested in the individual experiences of the people who respond to your threads (even though you always act in your OP like you're genuinely interested in hearing the answers people have to give you). You usually then misunderstand almost everything they say and begin to hotly debate them based on those misunderstandings, or you don't misunderstand them but still try to start a debate with them anyway if their experience isn't conclusive to your own personal narrative (which almost no one's experience is).

 

If debating is all you're interested you should just start your threads in the Hot Box and make it clear from the beginning that you want to try to debate everyone who responds to you. At least that way you'd be being honest about your intentions here.

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The term for what most of us were describing about the mind's relationship to the brain is 'emergent property'. Ten minutes googling that term should enlighten all but the most wilfully obtuse.

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1 hour ago, Telecaster68 said:

The term for what most of us were describing about the mind's relationship to the brain is 'emergent property'. Ten minutes googling that term should enlighten all but the most wilfully obtuse.

I thought you were making a joke that I wasn't getting lol but I Googled that term and actually that's really interesting. Always good to learn new stuff as a byproduct of wasting time on AVEN hah :)

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Oh, the question of "consciousness" is no joke. Crick threw the rest of his career at it, with little to show for it. Turns out it was harder to unravel than nucleotide chains. It seems unlikely that picking fights on an internet forum is going to yield any new and interesting insights.

 

But for fun and creepy facts: what happens if you cut a brain in half? Do you get... two people?

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain

 

(Basically, yes.) This particular observation in the field of studying "consciousness" always stood out to me as especially disconcerting.

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1 hour ago, anisotropic said:

Oh, the question of "consciousness" is no joke. Crick threw the rest of his career at it, with little to show for it. Turns out it was harder to unravel than nucleotide chains.

*nods*

 

That’s why I consider anything said here, including my own observations, just subjective personal experience/opinion.  It’s fine that we disagree.  Arguing over subjective things is basically arguing over whether dark chocolate or milk chocolate tastes better; people may be passionate about their own preferences but it’s not clear there is a right answer... and if there is, it’s not known.

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7 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

*nods*

 

That’s why I consider anything said here, including my own observations, just subjective personal experience/opinion.  It’s fine that we disagree.  Arguing over subjective things is basically arguing over whether dark chocolate or milk chocolate tastes better; people may be passionate about their own preferences but it’s not clear there is a right answer... and if there is, it’s not known.

It's clearer that some things are almost certainly not the case though. For instance with so many instances of people's characters and abilities changing because of physical changes to their brains, and correlations between brain activity and consciousness measured in fMRI machines, it's pretty clear our minds are physically connected to our brains, to say the least. And yes, I know too much is sometimes made of fMRI research, but it's not nothing, either.

 

I'd say it's very obvious we are not bodies somehow attached to a non physical consciousness, from all that.

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30 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

I'd say it's very obvious we are not bodies somehow attached to a non physical consciousness, from all that.

Agreed, but I’m fine with people feeling otherwise... just like I’m fine with and respectful of others’ religious beliefs even if I don’t share them.  A lot of things remain unproven... that may change in our lifetime, at which point a fair number of people may have to learn to enjoy the taste of their own feet, or it may well not.

 

Evidently not everyone shares my sentiment on or approach to this sort of thing.  :)

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That, and these two questions (and both the responses they’ll garner and the people who will elect to respond voluntarily) are very different;

 

1) do you prefer dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

 

2) As we saw in this week’s assignment, [historically significant scientist] claims that dark chocolate is better than milk chocolate.  Do you agree or disagree with his findings?  Please defend your answer.  Your defense will count for 90% of your score.

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16 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

Agreed, but I’m fine with people feeling otherwise... just like I’m fine with and respectful of others’ religious beliefs even if I don’t share them.  A lot of things remain unproven... that may change in our lifetime, at which point a fair number of people may have to learn to enjoy the taste of their own feet, or it may well not.

 

Evidently not everyone shares my sentiment on or approach to this sort of thing.  :)

On the other hand if they open a debate on whether there's a god in which they're clearly willing to give the heathens both barrels, they can't complain when they get both barrels right back at them.

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16 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

That, and these two questions (and both the responses they’ll garner and the people who will elect to respond voluntarily) are very different;

 

1) do you prefer dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

 

2) As we saw in this week’s assignment, [historically significant scientist] claims that dark chocolate is better than milk chocolate.  Do you agree or disagree with his findings?  Please defend your answer.  Your defense will count for 90% of your score.

True. 

 

Though, I bet both would turn into a debate if asked here. 

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