Your brain tricks you into believing... What?!

[DBT]

I didn't say that the "I" is an illusion. I pointed out that the "I'' is a construct of a brain, the activity of a brain used as a means of interacting with the world. Construct is not the same as illusion.

 

[fast]

I'm saying that a person is what a Brain is doing,

I know you’re saying that, and it sounds silly.

every thought and every action is an instance of the brain at work.

One cannot think or act without a brain, so that I have no qualms worth arguing over in those regards.

That without the underlying neuronal production at work, there is no person, only an inanimate/inert body, head, torso, limbs, flesh and bone without the ability to think, feel or act.

I see what you’re saying. That renders the phrase “dead person” oxymoronic but the phrase “dead body” isn’t therefore redundant. Not all bodies are dead. When the underlying neuronal production is at work, the scope of personhood spans both the mind and the body.

An entity without a functioning brain may not be a person, but a body with a functioning brain is apart of the person.

I think it’s odd (but common) to personify the brain and it’s activity. Silly even.

 

[DBT]

I know you’re saying that, and it sounds silly.

However silly it may sound, it is what the evidence supports. With no evidence to the contrary.

One cannot think or act without a brain, so that I have no qualms worth arguing over in those regards.

Just one step more; no need for Dualism. An autonomous or separate entity is not needed to explain thought or motor action. The brain does these things.

I see what you’re saying. That renders the phrase “dead person” oxymoronic but the phrase “dead body” isn’t therefore redundant. Not all bodies are dead. When the underlying neuronal production is at work, the scope of personhood spans both the mind and the body.

The word 'person' does refer to the whole package, body and mind, character, personality, thoughts, hopes, desires, habits, etc, but that doesn't mean that the brain is not responsible for consciousness, without which we have no self awareness or self identity.

An entity without a functioning brain may not be a person, but a body with a functioning brain is apart of the person.

I think it’s odd (but common) to personify the brain and it’s activity. Silly even.

It's not that the brain is being personified, but that it's the activity of a brain that creates the experience of being a person, without which you have no sense of existence or experience.

It is that experience of the world and self that we identify with. We are not aware of the underlying chemistry that is producing our sense of "I'' and our experience.

It's not that we are an illusion, but that the illusion is that we are somehow separate from what the brain is doing to produce us and our experience, that we as self aware entities are executive directors of the brain.



Abstract

''Most of us believe that we have an independent, coherent self-an individual inside our head who thinks, watches, wonders, dreams, and makes plans for the future. This sense of our self may seem incredibly real, but a wealth of recent scientific evidence reveals that it is not what it seems-it is all an illusion. In The Self Illusion, Bruce Hood reveals how the self emerges during childhood and how the architecture of the developing brain enables us to become social animals dependent on each other. Humans spend proportionally the greatest amount of time in childhood compared to any other animal. It's not only to learn from others, Hood notes, but also to learn to become like others. We learn to become our self. Even as adults we are continually developing and elaborating this story, learning to become different selves in different situations-the work self, the home self, the parent self. Moreover, Hood shows that this already fluid process—the construction of self-has dramatically changed in recent years. Social networking activities-such as blogging, Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter-are fast becoming socialization on steroids. The speed and ease at which we can form alliances and relationships are outstripping the same selection processes that shaped our self prior to the internet era. Things will never be the same again in the online social world. Hood offers our first glimpse into this unchartered territory. Who we are is, in short, a story of our self—narrative that our brain creates. Like the science fiction movie, we are living in a matrix that is our mind. But Hood concludes that though the self is an illusion, it is an illusion we must continue to embrace to live happily in human society''

 

[fast]

It sounds like we agree on substance—just not wording.

 

[DBT]

It sounds like we agree on substance—just not wording.

Perhaps so, maybe I am wrong, but I get the impression that your wording implies Substance Duality.

 

[steve_bank]

Free choice and free will are two different things.

Free will infers the ability to make unconditioned choices. We are all conditioned from birth.

When you buy a new car you can make choice between two brands. But the choice is conditioned by mass marketing. Free will is not demonstrable. The conditioning is buried deep in your subconscious.

It is not currently answerable by science.

As the mind and what you perceive as you is a function of the brain, how can the brain trick you?

 

[fromderinside]

As the mind and what you perceive as you is a function of the brain, how can the brain trick you?

An obvious trick by the programing in the brain.

 

[steve_bank]

Listen here brain...fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

It is sinking in what has driven philosophy for thousands of years. Idle occupations.