You Are Not the Body, So who are you? Options

[Simba]

"I am a collection of water, calcium and organic molecules called Carl Sagan. You are a collection of almost identical molecules with a different collective label." -- Carl Sagan, Scientist

There are many people who believe that they, real selves, are in fact their body. However, there have been other people that have suggested that you are actually not your body, but an eternal soul.

An analogy supporting this would be that we are to our bodies as people are to cars. A person drives a car, has to take care of the car, can decorate the car, but is in fact not the car itself.

Sound too supernatural to be for real? Discuss.

[Ington]

For the sake of this topic, I'm going to switch sides and provide a counter-argument.

There is no proof against my idea that our perspective may be nonexistant. Our personalities and thoughts may just be a complex system of neurons, an intangible algorithm from within our body. We have no proof that we are really sensing our environment through the spirit with the body as the window. Yet we believe it, because we cannot understand something we know to be true being wrong.

I say that if we are able to believe that we are spirits and souls, which we, being human, cannot fully understand, why can't the other extreme be possible? It is just as likely that we do not exist as spirits, but only as flesh. Neither of them have solid proof, so each are just as likely to be the case.

Besides, its not such a far-fetched idea. We may not understand how vast the algorithm of thought and perspective is, but we also do not understand how vast the universe is. We do not understand how vast God is. We do not understand much of anything. Does that mean its impossible?

I am somewhat arguing both sides. However, what I'd like to accomplish with this is to put them on an even plane. We will never truly know which is right, we can only guess. However, with this, I'd like the guesses to be even.

Also, religion is not solid proof. Please do not bring religion into this. Spirituality and religion are not the same thing. You may talk about souls if you wish, but please do not cite religious texts, as not all will accept them as proof. I honestly do not want to start debating about religion in this, as its a pretty interesting topic.

Also, as a request, can someone jump sides with me?

[Kontroll]

For the sake of this topic, I'm going to switch sides and provide a counter-argument.

There is no proof against my idea that our perspective may be nonexistant. Our personalities and thoughts may just be a complex system of neurons, an intangible algorithm from within our body. We have no proof that we are really sensing our environment through the spirit with the body as the window. Yet we believe it, because we cannot understand something we know to be true being wrong.

I say that if we are able to believe that we are spirits and souls, which we, being human, cannot fully understand, why can't the other extreme be possible? It is just as likely that we do not exist as spirits, but only as flesh. Neither of them have solid proof, so each are just as likely to be the case.

Besides, its not such a far-fetched idea. We may not understand how vast the algorithm of thought and perspective is, but we also do not understand how vast the universe is. We do not understand how vast God is. We do not understand much of anything. Does that mean its impossible?

I am somewhat arguing both sides. However, what I'd like to accomplish with this is to put them on an even plane. We will never truly know which is right, we can only guess. However, with this, I'd like the guesses to be even.

Also, religion is not solid proof. Please do not bring religion into this. Spirituality and religion are not the same thing. You may talk about souls if you wish, but please do not cite religious texts, as not all will accept them as proof. I honestly do not want to start debating about religion in this, as its a pretty interesting topic.

Also, as a request, can someone jump sides with me?

[b]http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/brain.html
Your personality is a direct product of that physical organ in your head, your brain. If your brain is altered, your personality (your "soul") is altered. When your brain dies, your soul dies with it.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro06/web1/bjohnson.html
The Islamic view is that soul gives life to the body, which is also true of the Christian faith.

http://scienceweek.com/2004/sa040903-4.htm
2) Mind is in the head, sustained by the brain. That much we know from everyday experience. What modern science has taught us in addition is that mind and brain are intimately connected, anatomically, functionally, and historically, by linkages that are beginning to be understood. The two are indissolubly linked, leading to the notion that thoughts, feelings, and all other manifestations of the mind are products of the activities of neurons in the brain. The concept is not new. The same was said two centuries ago.

3) "The brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile." Thus declared the eighteenth-century French physician Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis (1757-1808). The German literature attributes a renal version of the saying to the nineteenth-century Dutch physiologist Jakob Moleschott (1822-1893), who is said to have written: "The brain secretes thought as the kidney secretes urine." In the climate of the times, these affirmations were meant as provocative attacks on the religious belief in an immortal soul. At present, the words have lost their incendiary character and their substance is accepted by most neurobiologists.