Body awareness and Self

If you think about the body it is an extremely weird and unfamiliar thing.

I'm sure there is a phobia in what I'm about to say because at school despite specialising in Biology, and I am not squeamish at all, but learning about human biology was extremely unsettling because I was learning about "myself."

And there are 2 sides to this thing.

(1) If you saw one of these on the table at home you would be a bit freaked out. (This is not real, its a model).

And yet you are always in the company of one of these: your own! Sitting watching the TV you have one of these on the couch: your own.

That is just weird.

(2) At school you may well have dissected a rat

One thing to note is the extreme similarity with a human, with yourself. In particular is the way that the body cavity full of organs. You can take them out and there is not much left. This is the extraordinary thing that is quite unsettling. Inside your body (where you think "you" live) is actually an empty space full or organs, plumbed together with blood vessels. You could lay yourself out on a table in discrete bits with space between them all. This "space" appeared very unsettling to me because "I" do not have a space within me. Where in this body is there room for me.

So (2) is pointing to "me" not actually being in the body at all. At school I was not ready for this because surely I must be somewhere.

Resoling (2) helps to neutralise any weirdness about (1).

We can continue with (2).

Eating is a weird thing. On the outside it is normalised: having dinner, plates, knives, and recognised food. Chewing and swallowing are also normalised. But after that it is extremely unusual. The body excretes juices that mix with the food break it down so that it can be absorbed into the body. We never really see or think about this. But is this really "me" doing this?

Sex is another weird thing. I've always questioned why we do this odd thing. Something in there about desire and attraction draws us to each other and then we do some very odd things. Is any of this really "me"?

After some considerable inspection and reflection on this we will in stages probably get to the point where we no longer recognise ourselves in any of this.

This biology has more in common with the zoo than with "our self." As the Bloodhound Gang in "The Bad Touch" (1999) sang "You and me, baby, ain't nothing but mammals. So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel." This is part true.

But it is also not true because we place "ourself" in the body and so we consider ourselves more than "mammals"

To make sense of this the idea of "soul" or similar is invented so that while we look like a rat on the inside, we do never-the-less have some "soul" in there to restore "our self" and our "humanity" and "spirituality."

But this is only part true.

The truth lies between Bloodhound Gang and Soul.

Bloodhound Gang is correct "we" are nothing but mammals. At least the body is nothing but a mammal.

The problem is to confuse this with myself.

I am not a mammal.

But where this immediately comes off the rails is once thrown out of the body we run to inhabit some other entity, probably resting on the form of an invisible "spirit."

Nothing gained. When we realise we do not inhabit the body cavity or any part of the body, when we realise that the body is so weird that it is not "me" then we also realise we are not embodied anywhere.

That is the ultra unexpected thing. In the 21st Century where science thinks it knows everything and we have total certainty about what we are and where we fit in the world: the truth is we do not exist in the world at all.

What we are is the "viewer" of the world, not the world itself.

That can start a long study of science where we start to examine the nature of vision, brains and consciousness. All the while we are still looking for a new body cavity in which to hide. Once physical then we get into metaphysics and spirits or consciousness or any other variety.

But wherever we decide to rest and hide, it is just a matter of time before this starts to feel unfamiliar and we realise we do not belong there. True it is easier to feel alienated by digestive juices, blood or sexual fluids. Do "I" really have blood? Do I really create poo? Or does blood exist in the body and the digestive system produce poo and I somehow watch all this happen? It is the latter isn't it.

So I am the watcher and the watcher cannot live anywhere because that "where" is just being watched.

Perhaps said that like it makes us feel like an alien. But that is only because we still feel embodied, but now with no home. The end point is to realise there is nothing there to find a home. Were there anything there we could watch that too.

So this makes us look like we are "epiphenomenal" just a passenger in life looking in on it through a glass panel.

This is part true, but still reveals we are trying to view our self as "something" and hiding somewhere. The sense of being "epiphenomenal" is that there is something that is "outside" the picture. And for that to be true we would need to be something. And if we were something what is to stop us viewing that. And if we were viewing ourselves where would be stand in order to do that. It is an infinite regress until we realise we can't be anything that can be viewed: we are the view itself. Even to say we are the viewer is to sneak in a sense of being something.

Check this is true.

In vision: have a look at what there is to see.

You can see a world. Things lit by whatever light there is, positioned in the scene whether that is a room or wherever. There is a world there.

Can you see yourself?

This triggers some thoughts. Perhaps you look at your arm to check you are there. Perhaps think of a mirror to look at yourself. Perhaps think of things like your name, parents. Then you'll think of what other people see. A chain of thoughts start.

Stop those and go back to what you saw before.

The answer is no. You cannot see yourself. This is the actual truth. You are the view.

Everything else you may think about yourself comes next. It is not exactly wrong but it is not the core self. And all of it is ultimately uneasy and not quite right. Just as it is odd to think of us being inside a "skull" or having a "skull" actually it is very weird to think we even have a "name." Sure all these things exist but they are not really "me."

===

So far so good.