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You know roughly where your body is at all times, but where in it is your "self"?

Your center of mass is around the solar plexus, yet that doesn't seem to universally be where people feel the center of their self to be. Most people feel they "are" right behind their eyes, probably in the brain.

Sometimes people have out-of-body experiences, completely changing their anchor for a while.

When pointing at themselves, people tend to point a thumb at their chest or face. Do they feel differently about it, or is it just convenience?

Are you a body with a head full of thinking goop and sensors on top, or are you a head sitting on a body?

And wherever you feel you are, have you felt different at any time? Can you change it?

Personally, I can't separate the feeling of self from my vision, so "I" am directly behind my eyeballs and I can't change it.

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[-] Candelestine@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

So, you're talking about perspective, basically "where it seems someone is looking from". You can control this, it's not locked-in to how it normally feels like it functions, even if it normally seems that way.

It just takes significant amounts of practice in directing and controlling your attention instead of letting it control you. There's a lot of ways to practice, but meditation regimens are probably generally one of the quickest.

Like, your internal dialogue for instance. Just because it's always on doesn't mean it has to be. But unless you can turn it off, the constant stream of dialogue through your head is going to make it very difficult to "look from" anywhere else. It'll always pull you immediately back so long as it is present.

[-] Deestan@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I was trying to keep it separate from perspective, since a person peeking through a telescope for example could change perspective without feeling like they themselves are somewhere else.

[-] Candelestine@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I think the commonalities between the two are more important than the differences. It's the same phenomenon at the end of the day, Einstein's Relativity does not have anything genuinely unique to say about perspective.

[-] zecg@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

When the wise man wants to feel himself in his toe, he hits it with a hammer.

[-] Mothra@mander.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

So many different answers. I am not going to delve into the self as a concept or why I feel the way I do. I've always felt my awareness inside the head, but my sense of self is in the chest. So yeah, both of your examples ring true with me.

[-] Deestan@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, explaining these things can be impossible. Would be fascinating to learn more, though :)

[-] DirigibleProtein@aussie.zone 2 points 1 year ago

Under my blanket. No, my dog is sleeping on my legs.

[-] n0m4n@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I vary.

My oddest self is working. I operate a lot of automated machinery that are interactive, and many levels of recirculating materials. I have to zone in and become my machinery, feeling the vibrations, heat, smelling, and hearing the manufacturing processes and guiding the settings to keep as optimum as conditions allow. My day can turn very bad in minutes, it is that unforgiving of specs. I don't like being too public in what I do on the internet, but there are only a few handfuls of who operate at my scale throughout the world/ per my employer.

I can only compare it to a race car driver, or aerialist flyer in the mind/machine joining of sense of space.

[-] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I'm most of my self. There's a small part with severe nerve damage that, well, it's something else. I've given it a name. It kind of has a mind of its own. We exist.

[-] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I feel like I'm two. Idk if it's two half brains or what. But sometimes one takes over or the other. One is happy and the other is quiet, focused.

[-] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I just have this little annoying parasite clinging to my side. We get along most of the time but not all of it. I'd tell you his name but that'd be doxxing myself. All I'll say is I named him after a Muppet.

Funniest times are when he chimes in on conversations and my wife tells him to shut up. Dude can get kinda loud.

[-] RIP_Cheems@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

My location is irrelavent. All you need to know it that I am 1 mile from your location and approaching rapidly.

[-] cpekin@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

I don't know how to work the body...

[-] calabast@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

What did you do to him!? Fucking breath, dad!!

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this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
168 points (92.9% liked)

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