You know roughly where your body is at all times, but where in it is your “self”?
Your center of mass is around the solar plexus, yet that doesn’t seem to universally be where people feel the center of their self to be. Most people feel they “are” right behind their eyes, probably in the brain.
Sometimes people have out-of-body experiences, completely changing their anchor for a while.
When pointing at themselves, people tend to point a thumb at their chest or face. Do they feel differently about it, or is it just convenience?
Are you a body with a head full of thinking goop and sensors on top, or are you a head sitting on a body?
And wherever you feel you are, have you felt different at any time? Can you change it?
Personally, I can’t separate the feeling of self from my vision, so “I” am directly behind my eyeballs and I can’t change it.
I’m a mind hosted by a brain piloting a bone mecha covered in flesh armor
You win.
I take the Buddhist view that what we call the self is a misconception or misunderstanding. While you do exist, there isn’t a soul or some permanent entity that takes residence and jumps around before or after death.
Thus, you can ask questions like these and get a million different answers because the question is not valid. It’s what the Buddha would call proliferation, or basically hot air. There isn’t an answer, why ask the question?
Don’t mistake this for a cynical view, though. A good Buddhist is very happy because even though the idea of a self is false, freeing yourself from all of these self-based concepts and desires leads to great peace. The obsession with self and self-based craving is what leads to any kind of unhappiness.
Intersting view! As to why I ask, I am not looking to find the definite correct answer. I want to know what people feel and hoe differently they do so, whether what they feel is real or illusory.
I feel you on that. As a Buddhist I’m also curious. 😀
Sitting on the toilet taking a shit. I’d prefer not to.
You can do it 💪
Ahh shifting your center of mass.
Cheering on the guy who does not avoid shitting for 3 days Keep up the good fight, my dude!
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Accurate. We’re bone mech, wearing flesh armour, driven by gut bacteria in our gut cabins.
This post illustrates well why some Buddhists, among others, regard the self to be an illusion. When called to locate it or bring it forth, we ultimately can’t do so.
Hub. Interesting. My sense of self tends to be around my shoulder/back of head/neck area. I don’t get the feeling that I’m right behind my eyeballs, my sense of self is A bit lower and further back than that. Like, if I were centered between my ears, I’d have to move a bit lower and a bit more back.
Such a strange thing to have to focus on.
I live in my head. My body is annoying.
These are questions you should ponder after a nice healthy dose of psilocybin. You can be just about anywhere you want to be and pick what works for you.
In Japan, people point to their face to indicate themselves
There’s a book called Impro by Keith Johnstone.
It’s a book about improvisation, though in there there’s a very interesting part on moving your center around when it comes to character work.
So long as the centre remains in the middle of your chest (pretend it’s a few inches deep), you will feel that you are still yourself and in full command, only more energetically and harmoniously so, with your body approaching an “ideal type”.
As soon as you try to shift the centre to some other place within or outside your body, you will feel that your whole psychological and physical attitude will change, just as it changes when you step into an imaginary body.
You will notice that the centre is able to draw and concentrate your whole being into one spot from which your activity emanates and radiates.
(Johnstone, 1987, p. 179).
You can also imagine a movable centre.
Let it sway slowly before your forehead and circle your head from time to time, and you will sense the psychology of a bewildered person.
Let it circle irregularly around your whole body, in varying tempos, now going up and now sinking down, and the effect will no doubt be one of intoxication.
(Johnstone, 1987, p. 180).
For me it’s probably both, but I feel a lot of shit in my chest, like anger or anxiety. Id like that to fuck off though and just be behind the eyes lol.
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If you’re going to break it down that far, why stop? Your “self” is not your central nervous system, but a portion of it - and not a very large one. It’s your consciousness. Most of what your nervous system does is not conscious.
Your self (and mine) are but a small portion of a single organ in a large network of organs and tissues and cells and bacteria. We developed because it was advantageous for our bodies - which predate our consciousness - to have pilots. We are periphery. We are a single part of an ecosystem. And definitely not the center of it
I am not seeing the rest of your body in that selfie. Can you just hop in and out of your meat-suit when you want? Cool party trick, but I wouldn’t go it any kids birthday parties.
I am guessing you are part Dalek, so that is also cool.
Nice try federal agent I’m not giving my position away
I don’t even know that, I don’t particularly feel like I am either my body, head, or brain. I’ve never felt that I am a part of this body.
Spacetime is a lie.
