The brain has chemical issues that do stuff against our will.
When your leg gets a cramp, you aren’t doing that.
It’s doing stuff that we don’t want.
We are DESPERATE TO STOP IT, BUT IT STILL HAPPENS, NO MATTER WHAT WE DO.
Of COURSE it doesn’t feel like it’s us. We exist in spite of the substrate upon which we exist.
We are no more our brains than we are the dirt our bodies live on–and those who DO believe that soil == personal identity are literally fascists so let’s not even pretend to entertain that fucking bullshit.
Uhm… Hate to fit your strange definition of fascism, but you absolutely are the dirt, and the oxygen in the atmosphere, and the food you have eaten and are yet to eat.
I recommend you read about Alan Watts’ Organism-Environment theory. It posits that you cannot separate the biosphere an organism lives in from the organism itself. That the entire system as a whole is one unit and that each organism within it is as an organ is to said organism. The air, breath, food, waste, chemical processes, etc. do not exist within a barrier contained by skin. You are more than a meatbag propped up by bones sustained by external fuel.
Now conciousness… That’s another beast, and those who tie individual conscious agents to a national identity or some other arbitrary box do absolutely have ulterior motives. Namely control and oppression.
Edit: After re-reading your argument, I agree. Personal identity is a product of conscious agents, not the physical makeup of our biosphere, thought physical observations of the world do play into personal identity.
The brain has chemical issues that do stuff against our will.
When your leg gets a cramp, you aren’t doing that.
It’s doing stuff that we don’t want.
We are DESPERATE TO STOP IT, BUT IT STILL HAPPENS, NO MATTER WHAT WE DO.
Of COURSE it doesn’t feel like it’s us. We exist in spite of the substrate upon which we exist.
We are no more our brains than we are the dirt our bodies live on–and those who DO believe that soil == personal identity are literally fascists so let’s not even pretend to entertain that fucking bullshit.
Uhm… Hate to fit your strange definition of fascism, but you absolutely are the dirt, and the oxygen in the atmosphere, and the food you have eaten and are yet to eat.
I recommend you read about Alan Watts’ Organism-Environment theory. It posits that you cannot separate the biosphere an organism lives in from the organism itself. That the entire system as a whole is one unit and that each organism within it is as an organ is to said organism. The air, breath, food, waste, chemical processes, etc. do not exist within a barrier contained by skin. You are more than a meatbag propped up by bones sustained by external fuel.
Now conciousness… That’s another beast, and those who tie individual conscious agents to a national identity or some other arbitrary box do absolutely have ulterior motives. Namely control and oppression.
Edit: After re-reading your argument, I agree. Personal identity is a product of conscious agents, not the physical makeup of our biosphere, thought physical observations of the world do play into personal identity.