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I found myself thinking of that argument on rasfc a while back (was it really a few months ago? I'm not sure), the whole what is identity and not, and the claim that changes to the body don't change the sense of identity, unlike changes to the mental process.
I spent this weekend far more dependent on my cane than is normal for me even when I am using it. (Usually I need it for a day or two and then I'm more or less okay. This weekend I needed it to climb up the steep slopes of curb cuts.)
And one of the things that drove me completely bats about that dependency, about the limitation of the pain, was this steady persistent awareness that this is not me. And I don't have the identity I had as a child, when I could do nothing, be nothing, that did not run, but damnit, I can walk. That hurt, sometimes, more than the pain.
My mother tells me that my brother could never have riding lessons like I did as a child because his hip went weird on him too easily. And muses about her need for a hip replacement.
Who am I, in the bone?
I spent this weekend far more dependent on my cane than is normal for me even when I am using it. (Usually I need it for a day or two and then I'm more or less okay. This weekend I needed it to climb up the steep slopes of curb cuts.)
And one of the things that drove me completely bats about that dependency, about the limitation of the pain, was this steady persistent awareness that this is not me. And I don't have the identity I had as a child, when I could do nothing, be nothing, that did not run, but damnit, I can walk. That hurt, sometimes, more than the pain.
My mother tells me that my brother could never have riding lessons like I did as a child because his hip went weird on him too easily. And muses about her need for a hip replacement.
Who am I, in the bone?
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From:
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The thing is. . . the way I feel changes the way I think. And I am entirely aware that a good chunk of my emotional response is entirely physiological and unrelated to any outside event. I have depression. That is part of who I am, and when I successfully control my depression with medication, it changes who I am. So I am aware that my body changes who I am.
My arms feel wrong, because I've not been to the gym in months. They are now shaped wrong, and it does feel like an identity problem.
From:
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The really funny thing was that the people arguing in favor of the distinction were, so far as I'm aware, all atheists. The other side was a mixed bag, but I know it had at least a couple of theists (me and a Christian).
(As far as I know, all the people who found the distinction ballocks and argued the point have significant personal experience with major depression.)