What makes me Me? If my brain gets damaged and no longer functions, but my organs continue to function, am I still considered to be Me. Every moment of my existence, I feel myself being inside my brain. If there is no brain, can I be Me? The organs may still be able to coordinate enough to continue the survival of the body as a whole, but does it mean I exist, if there is no brain?
Brain, with its 2% weight, often consumes > 20% of the body's energy. Brain indeed is the place when stuff we feel, happens. Before the legs start to run, before the mouth opens to eat, it is the brain that decides. If there is no brain, if I cannot feel myself inside my head, can I exist? If my hand still functions well, but no longer listens to my brain, can feel it to be mine?
Most of what we feel as ourselves is what happens inside the brain, designed and projected by brain at its will. If body is a state with organs as citizens, then its political organization is a monarchy with brain as the reigning god dictating to other subjects what is good, what to do, when to act, and projecting himself as the sole entity representing the whole State. My pain is the pain that my brain tissue feels. Other organs may be in a bad state, may get damaged, but as long as brain is intact, I can feel both sadness and happiness unhindered.
When I sleep, brain creates a play ground for itself, in dreams. Dream is a close cousin of Thought. Dreams have haunted us since time immemorial. Some say, they are the reason why people started imagining an omnipresent entity as god. If I can see the same world when I sleep, when my eyes are closed, if there are two worlds one when I am awake and one when I am asleep, what is real what is unreal? How can I continue to believe that one is real while the other is unreal? Am I awake or am I asleep?
If men were to have an invisible soul driving them, it must be inside the brain.
Brain, with its 2% weight, often consumes > 20% of the body's energy. Brain indeed is the place when stuff we feel, happens. Before the legs start to run, before the mouth opens to eat, it is the brain that decides. If there is no brain, if I cannot feel myself inside my head, can I exist? If my hand still functions well, but no longer listens to my brain, can feel it to be mine?
Most of what we feel as ourselves is what happens inside the brain, designed and projected by brain at its will. If body is a state with organs as citizens, then its political organization is a monarchy with brain as the reigning god dictating to other subjects what is good, what to do, when to act, and projecting himself as the sole entity representing the whole State. My pain is the pain that my brain tissue feels. Other organs may be in a bad state, may get damaged, but as long as brain is intact, I can feel both sadness and happiness unhindered.
When I sleep, brain creates a play ground for itself, in dreams. Dream is a close cousin of Thought. Dreams have haunted us since time immemorial. Some say, they are the reason why people started imagining an omnipresent entity as god. If I can see the same world when I sleep, when my eyes are closed, if there are two worlds one when I am awake and one when I am asleep, what is real what is unreal? How can I continue to believe that one is real while the other is unreal? Am I awake or am I asleep?
If men were to have an invisible soul driving them, it must be inside the brain.
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