2年前

Where are you? Can you move?

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.

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I'm a mind hosted by a brain piloting a bone mecha covered in flesh armor
- You win.
- Calcium is a metal. So we're just normal robots

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 just have to say I think you just stumped the Buddha. If I'm understanding, then the reason for proliferation is for the wisdom gained from outside perspective. The analysis of 1000 "wrong" answers can give insight as to the nature of reality or the "right" answer.
  
  I feel you on that. As a Buddhist I'm also curious. 😀

You are mostly your brain, which extends to the rest of your body.
The thing about OOB cases is that the human brain is really good at faking information, or just generating it out of thin air.
In fact it never stops doing that, unless it is allowed to completely die.
If a person is resurrected, the brain generates "filler" information for the duration you were "out".
For some, that is seeing an "afterlife".
There is no universally specified "afterlife", it's based entirely on culture, and what the person has grown to believe in, even if they don't believe it anymore.
- Good Dog
- “If a person is resurrected” then they are Jesus, or proof that there is an after-life, and miracles do happen. On the other hand, people are resuscitated all the time by modern medicine.
  
  Shh now, don't tell them about necromancy.
- Oh man, this reminds me of a really cool PBS Nova mini series on the brain and how it’s basically very flawed at perception and how we ingest the world around us. Extremely fascinating.
  https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/series/your-brain/
- That's valid and objectively sound. The area closest to the most detailed sensory input and processing ability makes sense as the center.
  Though if people feel strongly that they are somewhere else, it'd be really intdresting to hear about.

Sitting on the toilet taking a shit. I'd prefer not to.
- Ahh shifting your center of mass.
- You can do it 💪
- May the force be with you
- Cheering on the guy who does not avoid shitting for 3 days Keep up the good fight, my dude!

- Accurate. We're bone mech, wearing flesh armour, driven by gut bacteria in our gut cabins.

Quite literally you are your brain, trying to account for the entire body and mind as the self simultaneously. But you may catch yourself thinking or saying things like "I can't wrap my brain around this." Isn't that odd? Your brain refers to itself as my brain. Is that a linguistic issue or is your sense of perspective off?
"Don't you have a heart?" Why do we imply that our sense of compassion is only located in an organ that just pumps blood? That clearly can't be the case.
We know cases where someone gets a brain tumor and suddenly becomes violent or unfeeling. When the brain is damaged either during life or during gestation, we know that we can lose all manner of things: cognition, motor skills, memory, emotions, etc. It's all the brain.
What confuses the issue is everything the brain is attached to. What I think all conscious humans do is try to make sense of the mind-body connection. I feel tired, that's not just my brain feeling tired. I can feel tired in every single part of my body independently or all together. "I" am the brain. If I lose an arm, I don't lose my sense of self. But losing important functions can damage the self I've constructed of myself. If I lose my eyesight I will be a very different person when I'm unable to visually enjoy video games, movies, art, nature. But clearly blind people still have a self. If it sits behind their eyes, will it move? Adapt to their ears?
All this to say, your self is self constructed. It's malleable. But make no mistake that the source of where self and consciousness are maintained is the brain.

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.

My brain silently groaned "Ugh, I need more coffee to process something like this so early! Body, take me to the coffee."
I feel this is an answer to the question.

I've never felt particularly connected to my body.
- Have you ever felt someone else connect to your body?
  
  No. It's just more a feeling like my body is a tool I'm using. It's not me, and has little to do with me personally any more than a hammer I use is personal.

I live in my head. My body is annoying.

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.

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.
- After you've cleared completely or during the comedown? Can you even control what you think about while on psilocybin? If so, what's your method? I've done it twice and never managed to think about what I wanted to think beforehand.
  
  I have a remarkable connection to reality when I eat mushrooms, it seems. I can just point my brain in a direction and it will go as far as I let it. For me, and I don't know what to call it, I have an interesting "reality bubble" that I can "stay in" if I desire. It's a part of my brain that knows that everything I am seeing is not real and where I can make somewhat decent choices if I need. I have a tripping inner dialogue as well as a "normal" internal dialogue that keeps me sane. It's... Interesting.
  If I have a task to do, like drawing something or working in CAD, it will keep my brain somewhat focused albeit with a ton of added flair.
  And no, I can't control all of my thoughts but those still remain somewhat superficial and are not really that intrusive. However, letting my mind go free and letting me think about things from a different perspective is probably the primary reason I trip. My personal mental barriers that I have put up over the years are needing to be torn away so I can become the good person I strive to be and deal with some aspects of my past in a somewhat healthy way. I have no fear of a "bad trip" as I view it as an aspect of my life and personality that needs further exploration.
  I should note that I have a very high tolerance and psilocybin is a perfect match for my personality type and brain chemistry. (Weed, for example, gets me super paranoid and is not for me.) I can easily eat 5-10 grams just to get me started and have eaten as much as 20 grams throughout an evening.
  Short term memory loss is a thing as well. I can completely forget what it was a wanted to think about, but after a bit, I can usually get focused on something. What usually happens is that my brain figures out the solution to the problem I wanted to think about extremely fast so there is not much to ponder on. :P

It would be interesting to know whether the location of your 'self' is tied to your dominant sense. So people blind from birth could be 'between their ears'? Which isn't that different, but would still produce slightly different answers. And how about people missing both hearing and vision? Could a person be 'in their hands'? 'Up their nose'? I'd better stop.

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).

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.

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.

In Japan, people point to their face to indicate themselves

I'm probably, mostly, behind my eyes, inside my head.
In moments of adrenaline and action, I'm in my chest or gut. Sometime hands, especially when doing delicate or involved work. Sometimes legs or arms when laboring.
In times of pain, I'm often at the focus of the pain until I work and ignore the physical and go somewhere deep inside that doesn't hurt so much. Usually, a good memory or fantasy.

The bit that thinks is in my head feels to be at the front. But it knows that my heart is equally important. So I feel that I am my head and my body.
People who have lost a limb say they feel like they’ve lost a part of themselves not just physically but in their sense of wholeness.

I am my whole self most of the time but sometimes specific parts are more attention grabbing than others. Usually during orgasms or when something hurts.
If you are more kinesthetically aware of your body, you will feel every part of it and be able to better understand what is going on in 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.
My experience is very similar, and I tend to explain it as "I (feel I) am my frontal cortex", which it's conveniently positioned there.
Can you move?
If I close my eyes, I don't feel I can move in the sense of "going to a different place", but I feel like I have an "internal orientation" which (almost always) aligns with where I'm looking at. But with the eyes shut I can change that orientation and point it in different directions.
I don't know if this will make sense to anyone... it's very hard to explain these sensations with words.

- 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.

This is more of a philosophical question (touching multiple aspects) that doesn't seem fitting to no stupid questions.
You already mention the common aspects to it. We put our conscience, our awareness behind our eyes because of how visually focused we are. We put our body center to our torso and heart, because it's both central to the physical body and the heart and lungs are an noticeable and continuously active part of our physical body.
When you ask you first have to ask yourself, what are you asking for? You used the terms "you" and "self". Where do we draw the borders of those? Do people put themselves differently or is it the same for all of us? Is it objectifiable or subjective?
I'd interpret "you" as the entirety of me. Including body and mind/conscience. Placing myself in it does not make sense, because I am all of it.
"Self" on the other hand be interpreted as consciousness rather than your entirety. But not necessarily so.
- People have different interpretations of these concepts, and I want to hear what they are and how they feel and think about them. Overspecifying shuts out half of the interesting answers.

I am all of me

You are more than just a point in space. You see others perform actions and you attempt to replicate them.

Just: I am a specific process running on our brain.

This is a question the greatest minds haven't been able to answer in millennia. Don't expect an answer in a random lemmy thread. The closest answer to the truth I could give is "we don't know".
- Not true. Many people have an answer to this. They are different, and I want to know what they are. :)
  
  Thats fair. I guess because there is no definitive answer, everybody can have their own interpretation.

You have a brain in your head and a "second brain" in your gut, so thinking of yourself behind the eyes and pointing at yourself in the center of mass when you are referring to yourself both have arguably valid reasons behind them.
- And then there are the split-brain patients, suggesting that the brain is actually two brains that usually act together, until they don't

So many different answers. I am not going to delve into the self as a concept or why I feel the way I do. I've always felt my awareness inside the head, but my sense of self is in the chest. So yeah, both of your examples ring true with me.
- Yeah, explaining these things can be impossible. Would be fascinating to learn more, though :)

Under my blanket. No, my dog is sleeping on my legs.

I vary.
My oddest self is working. I operate a lot of automated machinery that are interactive, and many levels of recirculating materials. I have to zone in and become my machinery, feeling the vibrations, heat, smelling, and hearing the manufacturing processes and guiding the settings to keep as optimum as conditions allow. My day can turn very bad in minutes, it is that unforgiving of specs. I don't like being too public in what I do on the internet, but there are only a few handfuls of who operate at my scale throughout the world/ per my employer.
I can only compare it to a race car driver, or aerialist flyer in the mind/machine joining of sense of space.

So, you're talking about perspective, basically "where it seems someone is looking from". You can control this, it's not locked-in to how it normally feels like it functions, even if it normally seems that way.
It just takes significant amounts of practice in directing and controlling your attention instead of letting it control you. There's a lot of ways to practice, but meditation regimens are probably generally one of the quickest.
Like, your internal dialogue for instance. Just because it's always on doesn't mean it has to be. But unless you can turn it off, the constant stream of dialogue through your head is going to make it very difficult to "look from" anywhere else. It'll always pull you immediately back so long as it is present.
- I was trying to keep it separate from perspective, since a person peeking through a telescope for example could change perspective without feeling like they themselves are somewhere else.
  
  I think the commonalities between the two are more important than the differences. It's the same phenomenon at the end of the day, Einstein's Relativity does not have anything genuinely unique to say about perspective.

When the wise man wants to feel himself in his toe, he hits it with a hammer.

I don't know how to work the body...
- What did you do to him!? Fucking breath, dad!!

My location is irrelavent. All you need to know it that I am 1 mile from your location and approaching rapidly.

I'm most of my self. There's a small part with severe nerve damage that, well, it's something else. I've given it a name. It kind of has a mind of its own. We exist.
- I feel like I'm two. Idk if it's two half brains or what. But sometimes one takes over or the other. One is happy and the other is quiet, focused.
  
  I just have this little annoying parasite clinging to my side. We get along most of the time but not all of it. I'd tell you his name but that'd be doxxing myself. All I'll say is I named him after a Muppet.
  Funniest times are when he chimes in on conversations and my wife tells him to shut up. Dude can get kinda loud.

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