“You are not your body”—and other contradictions.

“You are not your body”—and other contradictions.

❡I usually laugh when I hear the assertion “You are not your body”, but lately such talk has driven me to sadness. I wonder how little one must think of himself to declare such a thing. How can one look in the mirror and see a reflection of himself and say: “That is not my reflection”?

If I was to conclude that I am not my body, I would also be saying that every experience I’ve had was a lie—including the experiences leading me to the conclusion that I am not my body. To see, hear, feel, think, decide, remember, conclude, and to express that I am not my body, I need to be a body. In any case, the moment I say I am not my body, I am gravely contradicting myself, as only through my body and as a body can I ever hope to express this.

As a thought experiment, I imagine reverse engineering my body, taking it apart piece by piece until I find out what’s left of myself at the end. I imagine removing my eyes, and with it, everything I’ve ever seen. I remove my ears and every sound I’ve been privy to becomes silent. The lungs are removed; the draw of breath has ended. My brain confiscated, and with it every thought and memory and imagination. This goes on and on until at last I’m at my heart, which then, without the rest to pump blood to, dries and withers into dust, along with every living moment of my existence. What remains? Is there a soul to be found here? A spirit? A ghost in the shell? Where? To say that we are something that cannot be found, is like saying I know where my keys are when I cannot yet find them.

Usually they claim “out-of-body experiences” or “near-death experiences” as proof that we are not our bodies, that somehow something without eyes, a brain, a nervous system, or any particular physical quality, can look down and experience the the physical world from another vantage point. But then again, we have out of body experiences every time we dream, as we imagine ourselves somewhere other than where our body lies in sleep. Could it be that out-of-body experiences are just dreams? Such an answer would be too simple, however rational it may sound.

Intellectually, it seems easier to imagine that we are indeed our bodies, rather than force ourselves to imagine that we are spirits dressed in corpses. When a man dies his body remains for a short while as a corpse. Is it a corpse because that which cannot be seen, heard, or felt, has left him? Or is it that he has simply ceased to function?

Nonetheless, it is always bodies telling me I am not my body. Luckily, in thought and speech we can make such contradictions; but in practice, the exact opposite is always the case.

reply to post by NiNjABackflip


Every signal of information going from the body to the brain is electrical.

So what is stopping the film 'The Matrix' from actually being true ?

i just feel sorry for the atheists who believe in nothing. Because when their body dies their spirit enters darkness; no light, no colour, no sound or smell; just emptyness. Its a pity really.

reply to post by Rapha


How does one believe in nothing? He believes in something that isn't there. I also feel sorry for those who believe in nothing.

What is not nothing, however, is the body. The body is something. The same cannot be said about the spirit. It seems more honest to say that it is the atheist that believes in things, while the theist believes in nothings.

reply to post by NiNjABackflip


No one ever believes in nothing. If you believe in something, even if that something is the lack of something else, that idea is existent. And if abstract ideas are just as real as everyone around here claims, then that means you believe in something. Even if that something feels like nothing to someone else.

The question whether certain experiences "are just dreams"...is irrelevant. Do we REALLY know what dreams are? Do we really know whether, say, certain drugs like [cannot name here] are in fact opening a door to an alternate reality (a reality which in ITSELF is 'objective', mind you!) or simply cause the brain "to hallucinate".

Experiences like NDEs, OBE but also alternate states induced by drugs, meditation etc. do NOT exhibit characteristics they are only random "hallucinations" where "brain cells are firing randomly".

More often than not, there are astonishing patterns and rules in those "alternate worlds". Even with something simple as "dreams". I personally cannot do off dreams as "simple dreams", because this explanation is WAAYYY to simplified for me.

I also cannot accept so called "scientific explanations", for example when they measure someone's brain waves during certain experiences. (Because I am not doubting that whatever experiences ALSO result in some specific brain activities [this is to expect]...but the measured brain activities DO NOT explain the experience itself.

To make it short, for me "dreams" are pretty much equally valid realities as "reality" in waking state. How would you assess each and say that one is "more true" than the other? What is the criteria?

Ok, now coming to the main subject... "Be your body...not be your body".

Isn't it proof enough that you CAN

* see
* hear
* talk
* meet others
* walk/move

etc. while you sleep...while OBVIOUSLY your physical eyes are closed, your body shut down and you are (in this reality) lying in your bed. REGARDLESS, I can experience another "reality" and this includes making use of my senses.

Even better and more obvious with OBE/LD...where there is an extreme feeling of "reality" and "being conscious" so that most of the time it happens people think/say "Wow! I can't believe it, I am REALLY conscious now. I can see, feel, touch this and that". I am FULLY aware that this is not the 'normal' reality since I KNOW I am actually in my bed, with eyes CLOSED. Nevertheless, I (or some part of me, or my true self, soul, or whatever you wanna call it) is very clear of the situation and you can look around and sense feel, touch things. I have an awareness of myself and my consciousness AND an awareness of the surroundings.

Isn't this alone proof that the traditional explanation of "we are only a physical body" is not sufficient?
(What does it mean..."we are only a physical body"? Means we would depend on our physical senses to experience reality? OBVIOUSLY, yes that's the purpose of those senses. But it is simply FACT that realities can be experienced WITHOUT those senses. And yes I say FACT.)


re: "corpse"....

Of course he is "a corpse" because the physical body cannot last forever. It is born and has a certain lifespan. While alive, we can perceive pleasure (with this body) but can also receive pain etc..the advantages/drawbacks of physicality. Once you realize that physicality is only ONE aspect of a greater reality, of a greater "self" (a theory which I myself see as plausible with lots of evidence)...then it's clear we're more than our body.

reply to post by NiNjABackflip

 

What is not nothing, however, is the body. The body is something. The same cannot be said about the spirit. It seems more honest to say that it is the atheist that believes in things, while the theist believes in nothings.

The body just rots back into the system from whence it came - earth.

These few atheists believed in nothing.

These are exact quotes so i guess a google search will come up with the original PDF document containing many other last dying breath quotes.

Steve Jobs, the driving force behind Apple, uttered this about 3 hours before his death as reported by his sister Mona Simpson: “OH WOW, OH WOW, OH WOW.” Was he in pain? Did he reflect on his life? Did he see a vision? We’ll never know.

Sir Walter Scott the skeptic said: “Until this moment I thought there was neither a God nor a hell. Now I know that there are both, and I am doomed to perdition by the just judgment of the Almighty.”

Sir Julian Huxley, English evolutionist, biologist and staunch atheist, on his deathbed: “So it is true after all, so it is true after all.”

Robert Ingersoll, noted lecturer and avowed anti-Christian on his deathbed said: “Life is the cold and barren value between two eternal peaks. I strive in vain to see beyond the distant height. I cry out and the only answer I hear, is the echo of my empty wail.”

The atheists listed above found out the truth the hard way.

reply to post by AfterInfinity

No one ever believes in nothing. If you believe in something, even if that something is the lack of something else, that idea is existent. And if abstract ideas are just as real as everyone around here claims, then that means you believe in something. Even if that something feels like nothing to someone else.

I agree completely.

reply to post by NoRulesAllowed

But it is simply FACT that realities can be experienced WITHOUT those senses. And yes I say FACT.

And what realities would that be?

Of course he is "a corpse" because the physical body cannot last forever. It is born and has a certain lifespan. While alive, we can perceive pleasure (with this body) but can also receive pain etc..the advantages/drawbacks of physicality. Once you realize that physicality is only ONE aspect of a greater reality, of a greater "self" (a theory which I myself see as plausible with lots of evidence)...then it's clear we're more than our body.

Maybe you could explain how it is clear we are more than our body.

reply to post by Rapha

The atheists listed above found out the truth the hard way.

The statements were made while still alive. Yes, living people can change their minds, even while on their death bed. Nothing other than that is proven.

reply to post by NiNjABackflip


try to imagine if you have no mind
will you have the body?
can you perceive the body?
also imagine if you sleep and never wake up.
or imagine: what if its true that we are living inside a machine.
and if the machine is turned off what will be your existence?
will you survive?

the last one gave me interesting experience that changed how i see the world
maybe something will also happen to you. maybe.

S@F nice post.


I, for one, do not feel very attached to this body of mine. Not because
I don't like it--it is a very good body, strong, quick, good brain, no illness.

I don't feel particularly attached to it, because I believe it is just a vehicle
that I am sequestered within.

I believe this not because of religion, or because I fear death, or because
I wish I were immortal...

I believe this because I am a walking conundrum. I am host to billions of
virus, bacteria, and parasites--a cooperating conglomeration of billions
of cells. An enigma of consciousness that arose on a small planet in
the midst of a huge universe of possibility.

And yet I am aware.

So how did this happen?

Was there a blueprint for me? A blueprint to follow, to show exactly
how my body should be assembled, so that when finished, my unique
consciousness could or would arise?

That's the enigma that forces me to be spiritual. I believe I am more
than meets the eye, or more than any of theses meager senses can perceive.

NiNjABackflip


How does one believe in nothing? He believes in something that isn't there.




I love this comment!!

edit on 29-9-2013 by bintang because: (no reason given)

reply to post by NiNjABackflip


I think you might be taking the saying WAY to literal. I have always interpreted that to mean if you lose your foot, you are still you. If you hand offends you, cut it off. You are not the sum of your parts (but we all know that you are). I don't think you have to dig as deep as you are on this one, but I could be wrong.

Have you ever personally experienced an OBE? If not, how can you speak about it with any authority?

Visitor2012
Have you ever personally experienced an OBE? If not, how can you speak about it with any authority?

edit on 29-9-2013 by Visitor2012 because: (no reason given)

Our materialistic take on reality is totally flawed, if you go back a few thousand years before religion when facts were important. The belief was that you were composed of a Ka an astral body that you could travel in, if you were that way inclined and a Ba which was your personality that travelled in the Ka. This essentially was the imperishable part of you, the real world? This was taught in many places it hasn't got the dogma of religion it was just a fact gleaned from shamanistic flight, and natural observation. Most things require energy, and the energy was some electrical thingy that flowed and flowed through the Earth, stronger in certain places than others. Then some Shaman discovers that a cave dug into a hill is a great place to power up the Ka. Its almost as good as the top of a hill where the telluric currents flow, and better than a sacred grove of trees, which were usually Oak because they have an electrical affinity. Finding the hunting so much better when you asked the Shaman where the herds were, more food equalled more people. So over the years the Shaman decided to train other slightly weird individuals to become shaman. He installed into them that wealth didn't matter much because you were going to become a Starwalker and you couldn't take it with you, indeed if you tried and hung around to long in the Ka you would end up having to go through the tedious businesses of getting incarnate again. So as the individuals took on a slightly otherworldly fashion, and mainly kept themselves to themselves and looked after there Karma, they thought with any luck they wouldn't have to hang around to long in the flesh. Because they had found that without the body there were infinite possibilities in the Star Dome, which they said to the average joe was heaven.
The average Joe become in awe and slightly suspicious of there motives, but the Herds of game were there no denying that, the information they provided was accurate. The guild of Shaman had been told by the Star people, which they interacted with (when the telluric currents allowed), that they were only to instruct, but not to compel because the truth was self evident if anyone was interested. But it all turned to C^%p, after the Shaman decided to build a Temple of all knowledge, they went upmarket and called themselves Priests now. They built it at the centre of the earth, a special place where all the telluric currents combined to make amazing spectacles. Arak Thall the head priest had the key to get in. But one day when out in the desert, his bag of tricks fell from his shoulder, and trying to grab it from a fast moving chariot he slipped. Then when falling broke his neck, a spooked horse leaving his lifeless body. His Ka and ba went to the Chamber in the Temple, he even wrote a note in the dust saying where the key was in the desert, but in the end as the telluric currents built up, he decided to just take the blast to Starland. It would never be the same on earth but then again change is the only sure thing.

reply to post by dodol

try to imagine if you have no mind
will you have the body?
can you perceive the body?
also imagine if you sleep and never wake up.
or imagine: what if its true that we are living inside a machine.
and if the machine is turned off what will be your existence?
will you survive?

the last one gave me interesting experience that changed how i see the world
maybe something will also happen to you. maybe.

I have considered deeply the "ghost in the machine" concept. It once gave me comfort when I feared death. When I know longer feared death, it's use faded with those fears.

reply to post by VekTorVik

I think you might be taking the saying WAY to literal. I have always interpreted that to mean if you lose your foot, you are still you. If you hand offends you, cut it off. You are not the sum of your parts (but we all know that you are). I don't think you have to dig as deep as you are on this one, but I could be wrong.

I am indeed taking it literal. But no where is it stated that "I am not my body" is a metaphor.

reply to post by Visitor2012


I have had an OBE through techniques that cannot be related here. Do I think something within me left my body? No. I believe I hallucinated or imagined it, just as I do when I dream. No imagined entity is needed for this conclusion.

reply to post by rival

I don't feel particularly attached to it, because I believe it is just a vehicle
that I am sequestered within.

I believe this not because of religion, or because I fear death, or because
I wish I were immortal...

I believe this because I am a walking conundrum. I am host to billions of
virus, bacteria, and parasites--a cooperating conglomeration of billions
of cells. An enigma of consciousness that arose on a small planet in
the midst of a huge universe of possibility.

Your thoughts and observations here are important. I too believe we are quite the ecosystem. But no where does it show or imply that it is an ecosystem that contains a spirit, or something that is non-physical. Isn't it more likely that this ecosystem itself is the thinking and experiencing spirit that guides us through our lives? Isn't this what we are?

Thank you for sharing your ideas.

NiNjABackflip
reply to post by Visitor2012

 

I have had an OBE through techniques that cannot be related here. Do I think something within me left my body? No. I believe I hallucinated or imagined it, just as I do when I dream. No imagined entity is needed for this conclusion.

If you believe it was a hallucination or something you imagined, then you've most definitely NOT had an OBE.