On Skeletal Structure and the Nature of Identity

[kiya]

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?

Comments

[beaq.livejournal.com]

the claim that changes to the body don't change the sense of identity

?!

?

!

There must be more to this claim than it looks like from here.

[artan]

claim that changes to the body don't change the sense of identity

Anyone makind this claim isn't really up on current AI research, as body-identiy-capability is now recognized as deeply tied in evolving AIs. Some of the MIT labs are now testing postulates that one of the reasons that human-relation AIs have been tradititonally bad at is is because they lacked some of the self-form.

limitation of the pain, was this steady persistent awareness that this is not me

This is one of the reasons I get so wound up around personal body issues and exercise and diet and stuff. Really I'm not all that limited by most things, but my internal perception image is... MUCH more physically capable than I am. I'm not sure where this perception is directed really, but things like endurance and flexability. That's one of the main reasons that I've been concentrating my exercise rountines (when I keep up with them) to these areas. Current physical self is not-me in some ways, and not even in the sense that I've identified internally as about 50-ish since about age 8 or so.

[luellon.livejournal.com]

I tried not to define myself by the limitations of my severely lacking in the seeing department. I've had hard contacts since I was 1 and a half. I wouldn't allow myself to be removed from gym class when they had balls involved. I can't catch really well since I don't have depth perception. But I didn't want to be limited. Dammit. Of course, that doesn't help because now I'm skittish around balls.

A year ago, I finally have glasses that work with the one eye I can see out of. They're not as good as contacts, but my eyes haven't been liking contacts for the past couple of years so, then doc said glasses.

It was a weird shift.

I find though I like glasses better. I don't have to clean them everyday and night. I don't have lose them inside my eyeball and pry them out.

I can just put them on and go.

Heh.

Chants: I am not my disability.

[sheta-kaey.livejournal.com]

Friended you a while back, and left a comment. Shall I go?

Not sure how long I'll be sticking with LJ, but.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Well, if I believe that I AM an immortal soul riding in a body, then, sure, I can see that. Mind-body dualism and all.

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.