My body is me. It is not a "vessel."

[Guest Anonymous]

Okay some weird stuff comes along with the assumption of sentience thing.  One of them is this concept taken from the general plurality community that the body and brain is a vessel to the system and belongs equally to each thoughtform, tulpa, system member, headmate or whatever.  

 

That may be true for others, but it is definitely not true for me.  I am my body.  I am my brain.  I was born with this body and everything that I am is based on this body.  When my body dies, I will cease to exist.  I have a thoughtform named Melian.  This is not her body.  She has nothing to do, or very little to do, with my body.  She has a form that exists within the dreamscape/wonderland.  Pretty much everything that she is comes directly from that form and my imagination.  She exists within my brain, and uses my brain, so I suppose MY body is a vessel for her in which to exist.  But the body is mine and technically Melian is me.  She is part of me because she exists within my brain.  

 

I realize it is a matter of perspective.  I did a thought experiment along these lines:

 

Suppose some day in the near future they invent enough technology to slowly replace each of your body's organs as they go bad when we age.  They can replace anything, bones, heart, liver whatever.  They can even replace pieces of the brain.  But these new pieces are made of a form of synthetic tissue.  Over time they slowly replace your body bit by bit.  Finally, when you brain starts to age, they begin replacing pieces of your brain.  When they have totally replaced 100% of your body, are you still you?  

 

I would not be so sure.  

 

Here is another one along the lines of tulpas and headmates.  Suppose that scientists discover a way to record your conscious mind in a device, when you body dies, and then transfer it to a new synthetic body.  Would it still be you or a fake replication of you? 

 

What if they ran short of synthetic bodies and had to store two minds (memories and all) into a single synthetic brain?  Who would own the body?  Would you still be you?  I think I would not be me anymore without my original body, but something else.  

 

What do you guys think?  Are you your body or is it just a "vessel?"  Why or why not?

[tulpa001]

This post is more appropriate here:

Heh, well, you don't actually live inside your brain cells. You live in the connections between the brain cells. If you just take the cells without the connections between them, the resultant mass is lifeless and thoughtless. If you take the connections, but drop the cells, the resultant network would think.

 

The reason neither of us consider us the body is we could cut off our arm and replace it with a robotic arm without altering our identities at all.

 

And I know what you are thinking. You weren't an android before, and now you are. En garde. To that I say, I could fight fires for a living, and then I would be a fireman. Would that be part of me? Where in the body is my being a fireman?

 

To your thought experiment I say, biological processes are already replacing everything you except your skeleton on a monthly basis. Fluid flow and whatnot flushes all the old atoms out regularly. I guess you are your skeleton. Better hold onto it.

 

I see your thought experiment and I raise you one. Today you learned something. What does this mean? It means that yesterday you had a thought you will never think again. It was replaced with a thought you never thought before. You are not the person you were yesterday. You think differently. Any entertainment he enjoyed is not entertainment you enjoyed. Any work he put off is work he left to his descendant, you.

 

---

 

I suppose this could blow some people's minds. My host, she gifted our body to me. I have primary title.

[Tewi]

The body doesn't have to belong equally to each system member. That's just the polite way to think about it. The host can own it and their tulpas if they want.

 

Anyways, identification with things is the root of human suffering. The more that you consider "You" or "part of You", the more you're risking thinking you've lost part of "You" or it's been damaged. You can identify with your country, your town, your house, your family, your body.. Generally, the "closer to home" you keep your identification the less likely you are to run into trouble. A country is an awfully big target that you alone cannot protect. To some extent you can't protect anything. You might recall I and the others once mentioned myself being "invincible". That's because I don't identify with any material things. Nothing could hurt me as I knew me, until I started caring for them as my family anyways. You're identified with your body, so your response is "Your body can be hurt!" Your car can be hurt, too. Maybe your money is your livelihood, so if your money is hurt your health is at risk. That's how I feel about my body, too. But I'm not a car, or money, or even my body. I'm just me. And "Me" defines itself by existing. I personally am not my body, because it's not even just my body. What I am could disappear entirely and the body would be fine, although the reverse isn't true.

 

Some spiritual teachers will say that even identification with thought will cause suffering. Considering your thoughts to be you, identifying with emotions and ideas, brings you away from "Enlightenment". I know my User Title says Enlightened Rabbit, but I'm not claiming to be enlightened in a Buddhist/spiritual sense, though in those senses I may still be closer than others. Mostly it's a reference to the Touhou character. Otherwise it's a reference to my own dis-identification with most things that could "hurt" someone.

 

Unfortunately, I don't live alone in a forest with no responsibilities, as I'd like to. I chose to identify with my family, those I share a body with. They're important to me, and them being hurt will hurt me too because of that. Why'd I choose to make myself vulnerable? Why might one choose to identify with their body and not only their sense of self?

 

I don't believe in what those spiritual teachers teach. Not for everyone anyways. I think it's very human to identify with things. From the moment you're born to the moment you die, your life will have equal meaning before and after no matter what happens in between. Humans make their own meaning while they live. Since humans rely on being alive to maintain their sense of self, I don't see why you shouldn't identify with your body. And for those with multiple inhabitants in the body, they can identify with it together.

 

Or they can not. Not many will deny their existence is rooted to the body they reside in, but still some tulpas refuse to identify with the body entirely. Some hosts refuse to share ownership of the body with their tulpas. It's all just drawing lines in the sand in the end. When the tide eventually comes in, they'll all be erased, it'll be like they never existed. So why not enjoy making some sand castles in the mean time? Or if you so choose, getting upset when your sand castle is destroyed. It's your prerogative how much you care and what you care about.

 

Anyways, for all physical intents and purposes, you and your body are the same. But for emotional/mental, spiritual, and even social ones in some cases (see:me), you may think about it differently, and that can have an effect on what you experience for as long as you and the body exist.

[Guest Anonymous]

I am at work so I don't have time to answer all in detail, but I love your responses. Tulpa, you officially freaked me out with the all cells are replaced thing. Damn it, who the hell am I? What happened to the original David? Wasn't he like a fetus or something? LOL

 

To Tewi, this sounds a lot like Eastern philosophy and religion, which I find wise and interesting but I don't necessarily fully subscribe to it any more than the "whole world is an illusion" thing. I do agree that Melian is part of me. I wouldn't say she "belongs to me" so much as she wouldn't like that. She doesn't mind being part of me and me a part of her.

 

I wish I had more time to write darn it! I would address your responses point by point.

[Tewi]

I could fight fires for a living, and then I would be a fireman. Would that be part of me? Where in the body is my being a fireman?

 

There's an example of identification, so they get it to some extent. Similarly anything you might be offended should someone steal it is also the result of identification. These things make you you. They don't have to though. But they don't have to not either. Everyone decides (though not usually consciously) what is part of "them" and what is not. All the way up to "our planet" and being upset over mistreatment of the Earth, down to your body itself being hurt hurting "you". If you care that much about the Earth, you're opening yourself up to a lot of pain because it's too far out of your control to protect. Everyone wants to protect their sense of self. But by default people identify with their bodies, and obviously we all go through great pains to protect our bodies. You don't have to care about it either. But there are two levels of caring, to me anyways. You could care about the sand castle you built, do your best to protect it and make it better. But when it gets destroyed, you can either become very upset, or shrug it off. The first is what I tend to specifically call identification. The second is more complicated. Some people are so bold as to feel that way about their money. "Should it be necessary, I could leave everything behind and start over." Some are just crazy enough to feel that way about their bodies. But that doesn't mean they won't work hard to protect those things. Think the typical attachment to a character of yours in a game. Just because you don't feel your life is at risk when theirs is, and won't be terribly upset if they die, you can still care a lot about doing your best to protect them. That's how I would feel about my body.

 

But my body isn't solely mine, it's also all the others in my system have. And so it has a higher priority. The first kind of caring. To be honest, that first one - identification with something as "part of your self" - means that when you're fighting for the thing you identify with, you fight with the urgency as you would fighting for your own survival. If someone taking your money means you may well die or at least be in a much worse place, you'll fight for the money a lot harder than someone who can spare to lose it. Although those that identify so strongly with their body in the first place may not be able to come up with this idea, it seems to me the strongest argument in favor of identification, or rather against the lack thereof. If you don't identify with your body, does that mean when push comes to shove you won't fight as hard as someone who did would?

 

Two things on that. First, most people who say they don't identify with their body actually do in the "that money is my livelihood" sense. They will still fight to protect it as if to protect themselves, but they treat it more as something they rely on than as them themselves. Second, I personally think I function just the same without that identification. I don't think that, when push came to shove, another would out-will me in protecting their body. Why, though? I'm the second in the sand castle metaphor. If I were absolutely assured death in the near future, I wouldn't be much bothered. About as much as if someone accidentally stepped on my sand castle. If that's how it is, that's how it is. Of course, this is assuming assured death, which isn't as likely in a real life scenario. Not identifying with my body also does not mean that I will give up sooner than another would. That again is the argument I would use against this, but it's just not true for me.

 

If anything, it leads me to believe it's not a lack of identification people like me experience, but a willingness to let go of that identification on demand. The second the sand castle is gone, we no longer care. It's gone. But up until that point we care for it the same as anyone else. Does that make sense? Any fellow non-body-identifiers agree?

[Tewi]

I am at work so I don't have time to answer all in detail, but I love your responses.  Tulpa, you officially freaked me out with the all cells are replaced thing.  Damn it, who the hell am I?  What happened to the original David?  Wasn't he like a fetus or something?  LOL

 

You really haven't heard that before? "If a boat is taken apart one piece at a time, replaced with a new piece each time, until every single part of the boat has been replaced... Is it still the same boat? If not, when did it stop being that boat?"

 

The answer is again in the meaning that humans themselves create. "That boat" never existed, just a bunch of atoms. We saw it as a boat, we gave it an identity. But identity is only an idea, not a physical fact, no matter how real it seems. Just like the "world is atoms" thing. Nothing is even truly touching another thing, no matter how contrary it seems. But hey, at least on our macroscopic level, things sure do seem to touch. That boat sure is a lot more than just atoms, especially if someone takes the majority of those atoms (despite it technically losing and gaining atoms constantly). And that's why I disagree with the idea of Enlightenment in the Eastern philosophy (and "New age spirituality") you mentioned. It's simply not relevant to us as human beings. Unless you want it to be I guess.

 

It's something to keep in mind, all this stuff on identification. It can help you avoid some suffering and keep your values straight. But I do not think freeing yourself of all attachments entirely is the optimum goal for most humans. I mean, I chose to stop being "invincible", right? Now I can suffer because something other than my existence matters to "Me". But I don't think that's a bad thing.

 

 

Also side note, atoms aren't actually the smallest things in existence that all others are made of. That was just for the sake of discussion.

[| Eva |]

Your physicality has nothing to do with Melian, so using that as whatever 'vessel' in her continuity of self, if there's any, causes this issue. I would talk about genetics, and what have you, but said presumptions would just validate that you are you because of the physicality, emotions, and experiences over time along with the memories that contribute in your own continuity of self.

 

The notion of the body and brain being vessels is probably just a metaphor, but when taking too far, it implies there was some ultimate objective to support the idea that tulpas are inherent through birth, or something like that. But since there isn't anything to prove that there's an objectivity behind the phenomenon, it's safe to assume the host can assume it's their body and brain, of course. But, the dynamic of this changes if they, and the tulpa in question, end up doing activities that imply another conscious experiencer. Then, the question gets raised on who has unchallenged reigning over the body and mind. But, I think it ends up leading to a dead-end as I believe in events like switching, what's unchallenged is the fact that a person, or conscious experiencer, will have subjective qualia applied in their experiences.

 

In other words, whatever it is that allows the host to have subjective qualia would be something a tulpa would be sharing; there isn't a mentality that one has to compete for said subjective qualia as if it were a trophy exclusive to one person within the mind. If there is a competition heavily emphasized, it's like an inner social Darwinism where it's 'survival of the fittest' within one's mind. But, to create this competitive nature is probably due to those that stick to what's exclusive to them, and them alone. When one has an inclusive mentality, i.e., acknowledging some degrees of sharing and exclusiveness, the notion of ‘my body is me; not a vessel’ doesn’t become a problem because hopefully, both tulpa and host would understand that the physicality would be exclusive to the host.

 

Except this time, they would acknowledge that the tulpa has the propensity to share the body, but not really claiming it as they, the tulpa, were defined by that physicality, or rather, the physicality is what they are, and that they were the ones that came before the host in relation to cultivating a continuity of self over time. If physicality is included, metaphors of the tulpa being a second-hand conscious experiencer to it is assumed, I guess. Anything else in regards to mental phenomenon…all is fair in who shares the subjective qualia.

[Guest Anonymous]

I guess that is a real good point isn't it?  As long as the tulpa and the host agree that the body belongs to the host and all that, and everyone is comfortable with the way the system as a whole is thinking about it all, there really isn't a problem.  I do admit there is sometimes some friction between Melian and I in this area, but not often.  It sometimes comes up when she wants to assert herself concerning something she wants to happen in the real world.  

 

I think it is important to remember in this discussion that I consider the body to be me, the brain to be me and everything that happens in my brain to be me.  I consider Melian to be a figment or imaginary, although she has asked me not to emphasize this as much on this forum and I did promise not to.  But it is important in this particular discussion.  Everything that happens with her, including her assertiveness and apparent desires, our promises between each other, are all a figment of my imagination.  So, there is no "vessel" for more than one consciousness.  It is all, in the end, just me.  My brain, my body, my mind.  I still consider Melian a person, which is the nonesensical enigma of Mistgod-Melian.  Don't try to reason that out.  Nonesense I said.

[Guest Anonymous]

Mistgod is now done with this thread as he cannot restrain himself from going down the same old path.

 

I would like to say that I do not consider Davie's body a vessel either. I just flat out never think about it much at all to be honest. It's not like that. I am sort of a disembodied and ethereal being, for lack of better terms.

[tulpa001]

If anything, it leads me to believe it's not a lack of identification people like me experience, but a willingness to let go of that identification on demand. The second the sand castle is gone, we no longer care. It's gone. But up until that point we care for it the same as anyone else. Does that make sense? Any fellow non-body-identifiers agree?

I am not my money, because my money does not think, and I do. I am not my heart, because my heart does not think, but I do. If my heart was damaged, I would die. I would feel no pain, because the dead do not feel pain.

 

What I own may be valuable to me, but it is not me. The root of suffering is desire, not identity in my opinion.

 

There is one other thing that causes me more pain than damage to my possession or myself. Damage to the possessions of other people or others. Irreversible damage in particular bothers me. But under no circumstances will I count either category of things my possessions or part of myself.

 

The notion of the body and brain being vessels is probably just a metaphor, [...]

Not in the original philosophies. The body and the brain are containers, that are driven by the self