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The human body is a watercooled biological machinery
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
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The difference between saying “you’ve been brainwashed” and “we’re all constantly subject to propaganda which affects all of our perceptions and none of us is immune” is very large. In the former, we eventually get to a conversation where I aggressively overshare and you reveal nothing, as below. In the latter, we could have kept it impersonal and talked about the nature of the propaganda affecting us.
My perceptions come from a combination of my experiences and beliefs, not more subject to brainwashing than anyone else.
The experiences that led to this belief were probably the multiple body parts my mother lost during my childhood (a decade of aggressive cancer and more aggressive treatment). A certain kind of pragmatism was instilled in me about what you actually need to keep going, and why that’s important (also we’re all autistic, which almost certainly has something to do with our attitudes about this).
So yes, some people have an altered sense of self after a bad haircut, but I do not. My head has been shaved and worn every type of mullet (I grow it out and then buzz it to donate every couple of years).
I once had a broken orbital, which made it painful to smile. I am a smiley person, so it was an adjustment (which means brain changes), but I started flaring my nostrils to my friends instead as an inside joke, and retained all of my smiliness after the orbital healed(not personality changes). I have had a pact with my sisters that we’ll get a mastectomy the second we have a tumor since before I had breasts, and I will keep it without hesitation. Hell, if my sisters both got breast cancer, that might be enough without my own symptoms (they’re older than I am, so I tend to get their health issues on a delay).
Perhaps a finger would make me a more withdrawn person, there’s no way to know until it happens. I don’t think I’d suffer significant long term personality changes though.
I never said "you've been brainwashed." That was your strawman. Quote where I used "brainwashed." I literally said "propagandized." Idk why you acted like I said otherwise.
Have you ever worn a costume or played a part in a play? It absolutely affects your ""self"" to wear different haircuts etc. Wearing a George Washington wig feels different than Morticia Addams.
If you had cancer, did you go to those support meetings? Do you remember the type of speech that happens around getting better? A lot of that is to instill a survivor sense of self - the cancer diagnosis itself causes people to feel like they are dying as part of their identity often (not trying to mansplain cancer here, sorry) so these support groups help with countering that identity with a different one.
Yes, souls and something being separate from our physical shells feels comforting because it means we can conquer death.
The post I remembered it in has been edited, but I could have remembered it wrong. If that’s the case, my bad. My point was that you dismissed an opinion about something that’s a matter of opinion instead of diving into the foundation of those opinions. “That you've been propagandized to believe otherwise is so you'll fight in a war and not mind dismemberment,” doesn’t sound like you want a reciprocal discussion, but like you’re explaining a known fact, which is why I asked whether there’s an empirical metric for the physical location of the personality.
Absolutely it does, temporarily. Most people wouldn’t be forever changed after having worn that wig, which is what I would find more interesting. Temporary changes in personality can be caused by all sorts of things, like temperature, weather, location. No arguments there.
I didn’t have cancer, my mother did. I also would consider the effect of the cancer diagnosis to be psychological, not physical, as it’s an emotional reaction to information, not a belief caused directly by the tumor.
I don’t know what this is in response to exactly, but I don’t believe in a soul that exists beyond death. I think people use the word “soul” to mean a lot of things though, and I wouldn’t object to using that term for vitality or life essence or whatever you want to call the state of living. In that sense, the soul is extinguished upon death, but that’s not exactly a comforting thought.
Yet if a hairstyle doesn't change people, why is gender affirming care so important? Why does balding affect people so much? Why do actors and actresses become distressed playing certain parts?
I didn't edit that part of the post. I don't use terms like "brainwashing."
Religion has been used for a long time to get people to endure harm. Buddhist monks are able to self immolate for example.
What do you think the self is, then, if it is neither a soul nor strictly physical?
There are aspects of personality in the entire brain. There's no single area of the brain that's only "personality." That's not how it works. The brain has SYSTEMS that connect together and light up when you do anything. Including when you use your body and limbs. These neurochemical and electrical systems go off in general patterns and perhaps that is a person's "personality," but then that means dismemberment, visual cues, trauma, all affect this neurochemical system and thus "personality." It's not separated like I said. Mind/body split doesn't exist.