Do you have a body, or are you a body?

[Masha]

At first I believed I was a body, then that I had a body, then that I was a body (organism) again, and now I'm not sure either way. I of course don't believe in a soul, but if the social is wholly distinct from the biological, doesn't that reinstate a type of Cartesian dualism? Or is the point to simply emphasize that, while yes, we ourselves are organisms, our awareness isn't just a matter of physical organs within a closed system, but that the organism can now only be articulated within the contours of a larger social paradigm? Also, do biological reflexes (as distinct from instincts) still fundamentally delineate the space of expression of human awareness and behavior, even though we are so heavily dependent on social learning? In other words, isn't social learning a compounded way of adapting to the material conditions of our society and the relationships encapsulated in the modes of production, which I think reasonably can be called our "environment"?

Is the metaphor of a human as an individual's biology being the planet and their social expression being the growth on the planet's surface deeply problematic and in need of inversion?

[Blake's Baby]

If you 'have' a body, you can 'not-have' a body. Do you think you can 'not-have' a body?

I think you are a body.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

If you 'have' a body, you can 'not-have' a body. Do you think you can 'not-have' a body?

I think you are a body.

If we were merely our body, then we would say vegetables are still people. I think a better argument is that we are consciousnesses, and a part of being conscious is to be embodied.

[Redistribute the Rep]

If you 'have' a body, you can 'not-have' a body. Do you think you can 'not-have' a body?

I think you are a body.

Maybe if we take body to mean one's "locus." But if we mean body as distinct from the head/brain then I guess one could theoretically exist without a body. I heard about head transplants being possible soon (or already? Idk)

Wait what if somebody had 2 bodies? Children can survive after removal of an entire brain hemisphere; their brains are plastic enough to have one hemisphere take on the roles of both if needed. What if a surgeon separated the hemispheres into 2 bodies?

[LionofTepelenë]

I'm no Plato, but this is just my 2 cents on the issue.

I'll go at it like this, all your body is a vessel for your mind. And your mind is basically a circuit of electro-chemical signals, and those signals are what make up your consciousness. It could be said that your brain is you, and that you have a body that your consciousness is in.

[Rafiq]

but if the social is wholly distinct from the biological, doesn't that reinstate a type of Cartesian dualism?

It is not a matter of the social being 'distinct', it's the fact that the social subsumes the biological, and reproduces the biological in the same way that the biological reproduces the chemical, then atomic, and so on. The highest 'order of being' is the social, because the very basis of you asking this question, in your consciousness, is a social one. Your 'biology' isn't responsible for that.

There is no soul, there is no supernatural basis of consciousnesses. The point, which if you're interested I've extensively elaborated upon here and here, is that even though only physical processes facilitate consciousnesses, consciousness is irreducible to the physical processes which give it a basis of existence.

That is because consciousness has its basis of existence in the active social being that subsumes the persons physicality. There is no supernatural factor here - it's just that the social relations, the social totality, and what Lacan calls the symbolic order, constitutes itself a very real reality, the highest order of any kind of reality (Marx and Engels would say this by speaking of how the 'thinking of thought' was the highest form of thinking).

The social nature of humans is conditioned by their physical exsitence, but that doesn't mean their physical existence is responsible for their social being. Put it this way: the only human nature is that there is no human nature, human nature at it most raw is the indeterminate, chaotic, wailing scream of an infant baby, searching for a symbolic order to latch upon so as to constitute oneself. After this, the physiological is totally facilitated by the social - every single physiological aspect of men and women, is subsumed by their social being, so much to the point where our physicality is a contingency - we can, theoretically speaking, exist without our bodies, artificially recreate the basis for human existence physically. We have already artificial limbs, for example.

This is where things get 'weird': "Uploading" one's consciousnesses. It forces us to ask questions like, would this not just kill you? My argument first was that somehow, the experience of 'uploading it' would have to be there for the subject, so that the transition would still be 'you' - but that asks another question, like, when you black out or go into surgery, is it really the same you that wakes up? Or let's do a thought experiment. Let's say that one totally clones themselves and replicates themselves, and then dies. Is the clone actually 'you'? No, because 'you' never existed in the first place, and while you were both alive, the fact that you occupied different spaces alone made each of you different social beings, with their own subjectivity, and therefore their own consciousnesses. Quite simply, think of it this way: If you were to make a complete, 100% replication of you, with all the memories you have, and so on, and then die immediately after, you would no more be 'dead' then waking up in the morning. This is the contingency of death itself: You are effectively constantly dying, over and over again, all that bridges you to your former self, say, 30 seconds ago, is your memory of that person, the assumption of this person as constituting your own identity, and so on. 'You' are only your social being, your outwardly social being, and all that makes you 'you' is the fact that you occupy a distinct place in space than another person. If you were to clone yourself with all your memories and then die, 'you' wouldn't die, in the same way that falling into a coma wouldn't kill you. The 'waking up' is only 'you', because you have memories of a person, and relate to those memories in a specific way, that existed before the coma. It would be no different if you were totally, 100% cloned. Your experience doesn't exist, it's a falsity, because it is purely social. If you cloned yourself and stayed alive, your clone would be a different person - in the same way that you can be a different person and change without a clone, merely by taking different courses of action. And it's this context which makes the 'you' or the 'I' as traditionally understood an illusion.

It seems pure nonsense what I am saying. It literally just doesn't make sense - but there is a factor which is also missing for the inclination to think so. A clone that assumes you after you die (let's pretend this is going to happen in 2 weeks), is just as much 'you' as you would be presumed to exist in 2 weeks. This has just as much of an impact as it relates to your very existence in the here and now, as being dead and having a clone assume your identity in that same future does. So in experiencing death, and having a clone assume your identity with your exact memories, this wouldn't be the same 'you' so to speak, because you would be a person who remembers having died. If you were cloned before the death, then this wouldn't be the same person either, because this person did not experience death itself. This is very important in understanding the materialist epistemology against bourgeois positivism regarding the future and our practical relationship to it in the here and now. And the bourgeois formalists attempt to dig themselves out of this conundrum in the field of quantum mechanics, with silly theories like the many worlds theory, i.e. notions that the future and past all exist simultaneously in some physical plane already determined, and so on. It's pure superstition and nonsense.

Not only is your physical existence actively reproduced, through processes, so too is your consciousness. It has no static basis of existence, it's constituted by active processes. The only reason we say 'you are masha', is for all intensive purposes becasue of the practical irrelevancy of the fact that masha has no static basis of existence. Even though you are not a static entity, the fact that masha is being reproduced regularly the same way, uninterrupted, means we relate to you and identify you in a constant way.

So when I say that you are regularly dying over and over again, I don't mean to sound mystical - and I'm phrasing it bad too. You aren't dying, it's just that you have no static basis of existence to begin with. What you are is social. The particular you, that is, the you of your experiences, your feelings, and so on, this 'you' is regularly reborn every second, every day you wake up, this 'you' is not the 'same' one anyway (all that remains is how you actively relate to the past, your memories, and this identity). We truly are purely social beings, our consciousnesses truly is constituted purely on social lines.

So this is the point that one's being is irreducible to their physical existence - the physical facilitates ones social being, but the social dimension, the active inter relations between men and women, their constitution into a social/symbolic order, which itself is comparable to a kind of 'super-organism', is irreducible to this physicality - it subsumes it, because the social reality is its own, self-sufficient reality, it is not dependent or determined by anything else.

Or is the point to simply emphasize that, while yes, we ourselves are organisms, our awareness isn't just a matter of physical organs within a closed system, but that the organism can now only be articulated within the contours of a larger social paradigm?

The question that you want to be asking is: What is the 'gap' here, between our physicality and the entering into the symbolic order, or as Zizek puts it, how does language at the onset colonize the human body? Zizek deals with this question by consulting neuroscience (something he is among the first to do in his field), his conclusion is that it is death drive, a space of existence which is 'in between' nature and culture, which is responsible for the distinct nature of humans. He says that neurologists say that some kind of short-circuit, absolutely 'irrational' process gave rise to human consciousness, with an insistence on repetition, and so on.

But as it concerns humans as organisms to social beings, this is a question of humans from birth into social beings. And again - an infant is at the onset not a subject at all, but an indeterminate creature, not an individaul, but a 'soulless' thing, whose wailing and crying (which only human infants do) represents its naked dependency upon some kind of symbolic order, a social order. Through more complex processes, ones that are psychological, in accordance with each social totality this gives rise to subjectivity, to consciousness, a sense of identity, which is purely social. This processes is literally like the colonization of the human body by language. Outside of this, there is nothing - there is no sense of self, there is no consciousness, there is no asking any questions, you do not even exist insofar as you don't have a sense of 'self-awareness', you just are.

But even so you're never one with your sense of self. You abstract a notion of your own individuality and you fulfill it, but never achieve it. The process of you chasing your own sense of self is what makes you an individual proper, the sum-total of this process. Keep in mind i'm giving a very simplistic generalization of something infinitely more complex, just as an introduction to the idea.

Also, do biological reflexes (as distinct from instincts) still fundamentally delineate the space of expression of human awareness and behavior

There are none as it concerns what can be called 'human awareness and behavior'. There are no biological reflexes that are responsible for the variations of human awareness and behavior. The fact that we are talking about them is the only proof we need of that. Or put it this way: Humans, if they are animals, are incomplete animals. If they can be called organisms, then what gave rise to a human was a catastrophe, a freakish accident. The biological is subsumed by the social, because biological processes are totally contingent and meaningless - there is no difference, meaningfully, between a rock and an insect. These are completely contingent processes that have no meaning. The transition from the biological to the social - true - relates to processes of the biological. But this transition does not tell us anything about the nature of the social itself, merely the fact that humans are not animals (but are social beings). This fact is unaltered throughout the course of human history - it means nothing in the same way that we have two hands means nothing, it's just a given. But when it comes to explaining 'human behavior' within the context of human societies, for example, the biological is totally irrelevant, and tells us nothing.

The biological reflexes we do have, are ones that are subsumed by our consciousness, something we conceive as external from our consciousnesses in the same way that a rock is external from you. So all of the biological reflexes, for example, that underlie your digestive system - that's just as much something 'outside' of you, and I mean you, as a rock is. Your consciousnesses is irreducible to it, it's an empirically observable reality, but the process of observing it is not reducible to any physical process - even if physical processes necessarily allow for you to make the observation, that's a contingency in relation to your ability to do it. Your active constitution as a social being is responsible for it, and this occupies an order, space of being that subsumes all others.

In other words, isn't social learning a compounded way of adapting to the material conditions of our society and the relationships encapsulated in the modes of production, which I think reasonably can be called our "environment"

No it can't be "our environment", because this is only constituted by men and women. The mode of production is compromised by nothing more than men and women. If there was any pre-existing structures that make us 'adapt' for it, first - it couldn't exist, second, you wouldn't have any consciousness, you'd just in a totally mechanical way do things reflexively in relation to how your brain processes, for example, light, sound, touch, etc. in relation to others of your species - thirdly, and most importantly, there would be no history, our mode of production would be indefinitely fixed, and like animals we'd have an ecology that never changes. There would be no mastery of nature (technology), and so on. Morons call this the 'sapient paradox', when in fact it's not a paradox at all - it's just that their philistine stupidity makes them incapable of recognizing that their assumptions about human existence were erroneous to begin with.

[blake 3:17]

I was pretty naturally Spinozist for many years but have gotten interested in the question of dualism after a long time. Descartes is actually quite a lot of fun to read. I see interesting parallels between him and Swift but that could be my own nonsense.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I was pretty naturally Spinozist for many years but have gotten interested in the question of dualism after a long time. Descartes is actually quite a lot of fun to read. I see interesting parallels between him and Swift but that could be my own nonsense.

Descartes is pretty rad, but I think Spinoza's take on metaphysics is more logically consistent. How do two substances interact if they are essentially different? The pineal gland seems like a weak solution. That said, I think some proto-Spinozism can be read between the lines in Descartes.

[cyu]

You are a consciousness. Your body is an illusion, a hallucination, a shell you dreamed up to encase your consciousness in this, the longest and most realistic dream you've ever had. There is no spoon. There is no body.

Or not.

[Tim Cornelis]

Ayn Rand explains the dialectical view on this:

"And, to go to the roots of the whole vicious error, blast the separation of man into “body” and “soul,” the opposition of “matter” and “spirit.” Man is an indivisible entity, possessing both elements—but not to be split into them, since they can be considered separately only for purposes of discussion, not in actual fact. In actual fact, man is an indivisible, integrated entity..."

[Blake's Baby]

Fucking hell, I agree with Ayn Rand.

I need to go and have a shower, or drink a lot of gin or something.

[Blake's Baby]

If we were merely our body, then we would say vegetables are still people. I think a better argument is that we are consciousnesses, and a part of being conscious is to be embodied.

It's taken a little while to parse this. It's only now that I've realised that 'vegetables' here is intended to imply 'people in a permanent vegetative state'. I'm a bit surprised that you have used that term to be honest.

Can you remove your consciousness from where it is embodied? If you can't, there is no separation between consciousness and the embodiment of that consciusness.

[Rafiq]

Theoretically there is no reason why you cannot - replace artificially your brain, and so on. This is the tricky part with "uploading your consciousness" that I went over.

[Decolonize The Left]

If we were merely our body, then we would say vegetables are still people. I think a better argument is that we are consciousnesses, and a part of being conscious is to be embodied.

But there is no such thing as "consciousness" to be.

Unaddressed thus far--and something worthy of discussion prior to a dialogue on whether or not we are our bodies--is what, exactly, is the self. I would argue that the "self" is a narrative that has taken on the social form of an entity, thus leading us to believe that there's a thing/substance called "consciousness" that can be uploaded into another body, etc.

In short, the whole discussion revolves around a faulty premise: the self as a thing.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Fucking hell, I agree with Ayn Rand.

I need to go and have a shower, or drink a lot of gin or something.

Well don't worry, other (less dreadful) people said similar things before she said that. Even the idea of Atman appeals to a similar logic of a unified self which we describe in mental and physical terms.

It's taken a little while to parse this. It's only now that I've realised that 'vegetables' here is intended to imply 'people in a permanent vegetative state'. I'm a bit surprised that you have used that term to be honest.

I guess I'm just familiar with 'people in a persistent vegetative state' being referred to as 'vegetables'.

Can you remove your consciousness from where it is embodied? If you can't, there is no separation between consciousness and the embodiment of that consciusness.

I think for the scientist to be able to "upload consciousness", they might need to design technology capable of replicating the human sense of spatiality and temporality, or create something compatible with it.

But there is no such thing as "consciousness" to be.

In short, the whole discussion revolves around a faulty premise: the self as a thing.

Well that raises an ontological can of worms - what do you mean by "thing", and what would qualify as a "thing" in the first place?

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I have a body. In theory, my consciousness can exist separate from it.

[Thirsty Crow]

If we were merely our body, then we would say vegetables are still people. I think a better argument is that we are consciousnesses, and a part of being conscious is to be embodied.

This doesn't make any sense.

Vegetables don't exhibit the kind of power and capacities human beings do; this is the basis for the notion of person-hood in the legal and moral sense. Different bodies differ in their capacities and powers. The nature of the powers is biological through and through (i.e. no social change can eradicate the human distinctive powers - acting for reasons, imagination, use of language unless it brings on a fundamental biological change as result).

If we are consciousness, what's that actually (this second part different from "being embodied")?

EDIT: apparently "vegetables" denotes humans in a permanent vegetative state. Still, the point holds (and that's why the decisions relating to those bodies is legally recognized as other people's domain).

As for deep questions. When I drop dead, I'm gone. No more me since the body will have stopped working. I hope though I would "live on" in some people's memory as that guy who might have had some things right and who's worth remembering now and then. This means I'm not embodied consciousness; it means "consciousness" refers to some distinctive powers I exert as a human being.

[Hit The North]

But there is no such thing as "consciousness" to be.

Unaddressed thus far--and something worthy of discussion prior to a dialogue on whether or not we are our bodies--is what, exactly, is the self. I would argue that the "self" is a narrative that has taken on the social form of an entity, thus leading us to believe that there's a thing/substance called "consciousness" that can be uploaded into another body, etc.

How does a narrative do that? They seem pretty clever in how they attach to human bodies and produce this (presumably false) consciousness in the host!

To the OP: It would be unmaterialistic to suggest that we are not our bodies or that consciousness is not immutably embodied and therefore impossible to separate from its physical root.

I guess the real illusion is caused by self-consciousness itself in the vain illusion that it stands distinct from the body in which it is manifest. This is an illusion which requires a sophisticated level of material and mental organisation perhaps only found in humans. My dog has consciousness but I doubt he is troubled by the question of whether it is distinct from his body or could exist beyond it.

Btw, the only way we have found of leaving our consciousness behind after our deaths is in art and culture. The idea that we could one day upload a fully-functioning human personality into a computer or the cloud is science fiction.



...

[Thirsty Crow]

The idea that we could one day upload a fully-functioning human personality into a computer or the cloud is science fiction.



...

Some science fiction is based on careful extrapolation from existing science - and dancing around, or evading issues which hugely complicate the new science as found in SF (for instance, the issue of energy levels necessary for warp effect and travel).

This is pure nonsense (which I'd like to distinguish from SF since I like the latter).

[Art Vandelay]

But there is no such thing as "consciousness" to be.

Unaddressed thus far--and something worthy of discussion prior to a dialogue on whether or not we are our bodies--is what, exactly, is the self. I would argue that the "self" is a narrative that has taken on the social form of an entity, thus leading us to believe that there's a thing/substance called "consciousness" that can be uploaded into another body, etc.

In short, the whole discussion revolves around a faulty premise: the self as a thing.

That the 'self' is fundamentally a narrative - one which takes the social form of an entity and results in the premise of 'the self as a thing' - is testament to the conceptualization of the 'self' as principally being an act of an alienating identification. Through the tendency to take on the character or colouring of our environments, we sucumb to an imaginary capture in an external image - the 'self' identifies with a 'self' that is othered. The result of this alienating identification, which is an ongoing process and development rather than a single moment or event, is the construct of an apparent completeness or whole, ie: 'self.'