Where am I?

[eggo]

Where does my "self" reside? Is there any way to resolve this without resorting to a soul?

Suppose I have my legs removed at the knee, few would argue that I am no longer a sapient being. The same goes for amputation of everything from the pelvis down. What if I had my body removed at the neck and replaced with the needed machinery to keep my head alive? Am I still human? Something else? Does the sapient being now include the machinery? If the tissue-rejection issues could be overcome, implant my head on another person (one that still has their own head) connect the needed arteries and veins to them. Assuming the "host" person is still considered sapient, am I as well? If so, the "Self" seems to reside in the brain.

Reduce me to a brain and spinal chord, still sapient? Now suppose the technology existed to make a copy of my (still functioning) brain in digital form, still human? Still sapient? Which one of them is "me"?

All that aside, suppose and exact replica of me is made, atom-for-atom, down to the smallest detail. Besides Heisenberg rolling in his grave, what would happen? Would it be sapient? Would we share a consciousness? I tend to think we would not, but then, which one is me?

[infamous]

Where does my "self" reside??

Welcome to Hypography eggo, your question is one that philosophers have been asking from the time the discipline began. I don't think this question can be answered in scientific terms, never-the-less, as a Christain I have my own answers that begin with faith. Because faith is such a personal attribute, it is an impossible task to make it fit in with everyones views. At any rate, welcome and enjoy the discussions.

[nkt]

An interesting question...

 

I see sentience as being the ability to control your own destiny, with your own thoughts. Without the ability to control yourself, you are no longer sentient, and so those in deep comas are not sentient. Nor would be a brain in a jar, unless it was still demonstrably thinking and controlling it's own thoughts.

 

A frog is therefore argueably sentient. Lower lifeforms are probably not, since they are controlled by the wiring of the brain through genetics and evolution, and are unable to react differently. Dogs are certainly sentient, and cats may well be too, though they appear to refuse to take the tests...

 

As for the question "Where am I?" - you are at a computer! :-P

[alxian]

your "self" may reside in the cortexs (sp?) where you are a running process that is mostly only aware of its senses. without our sense we might not perceive the passage of time nor be able to think.

 

it is thought that our "thought" as subvocal verbiliizations, thus thoughts are handled by the speach centers of the brain where you are talking to yourself. if thats the case mind reading "of thoughts you are subvocaizing (sending impulses to the muscles which don't react to them) may be substantial enough for sensors to pick up. people generally can't stop thinking, either thinking thoughts or following along while listening viewing something thinking about what they are experiencing.

 

the more sense you have the more you have to focus on the more memories/experience you'll have to draw upon to create a personality and judgement for decision making.

 

hmm.. maybe Qrio/Asimo will become sentient when he has more real senses and memory available to him as well as processing power to lay down memories and enough free cycles to ponder them, with several years to lay down enough experiences he may even become "intelligent".

[C1ay]

lefthttp://hypography.com/gallery/files/9/9/8/1.jpg[/img]In the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[infamous]

Best answer yet C1ay.........let's see if anyone can top that one??

[nemo]

C1ay, I've always wondered who held the camera for that picture...

[C1ay]

C1ay, I've always wondered who held the camera for that picture...

Maybe it was a raelian. They claim to be from out of this world. :)

[pgrmdave]

I think that Douglas Hofstadter got it right with the idea of strange loops. It is the pattern within our brains, that is self-modifying, that is what causes us to be us.

[eggo]

Thanks for all the replies, particularly pgrmdave. I did some looking and turned up this and this. I had never heard of the guy before, I'll have to pick up a copy of that book.

C1ay, you owe me a new Mountian Dew, as I spilled mine snickering at your post.

[sergey500]

Onself is a self-aware feeing resediding (spelling?) in the brain. Being self aware is all that your so called soul is really. Your brain is where your personalities, memories, everything that make YOU up is in your brain, different parts of it but it's there. So the answer to your questions, is in a cluster of nuerons creating a self-aware image of the bosy.