Humans "have" a body and "have" a brain. Who but is the human behind the body?

Question

We all talk about our body or our brain, that we have them. But we never say I am body or brain. If we would do that, we would be just a computer, not able to be conscious about ourselves. Why do still so many people believe that they do not exist beyond "their" body, but think that they will disappear when their body or brain dies? This is for me not logical, as even materialists say they "have" a body. So who is the "I" which "has" body and brain. The "I" just uses the body.
I would be interested what your thoughts are. Thank you.

Answer 1

Dear "Love is...",

LOL.. Love is "having not to say you are sorry", Rayan O’Neal, Love Story.

Now back to the question.

As a matter of fact the body and the brain are of the same nature; concrete, tangible. Brain is but another organ of the body like heart, liver, etc, is composed of brain cells and blood running through and other things.

In my mind, BODY, the tangible and concrete is what is mentioned in Hebrew as NEFESH, and in Arabic as NAFS or Al-THAAT, meaning THE-SELF. On the other hand, SOUL is what is mentioned in Hebrew as RAUCH, and in Arabic as RAUH, meaning the intangible, abstract, unseen ether part of our whole.

So for the RAUCH; the abstract, to act out deeds in a materialistic world, it requires a tangible means for such a deed to materialize; means is the NEFESH. Therefore, relationship between both is integral and inseparable like the two faces of one coin; one whole.

However, regardless of the above, the ancient Egyptians, believed in three things, KA, BA and soul:

1) the body (Nefesh).
2) The soul (Rauch). And,
3) the spirit of mechanism.

Sprit of mechanism is the overall functioning of the human organs and effects arising from this total functioning. Example, when you cut the tail of a lizard, the tail still wiggles; therefore we can say that it has a spirit of its own, though what is happening can be scientifically justified; same as when we cut a high voltage cable, it jumps and wiggles.

Ancient Egyptians believe when a man dies his KA and BA die too, but his Soul (Rauch) leaves the body and starts a divine journey, and then returns to the body and takes the dead person to where he is destined. Therefore, they had to burry images of the dead person and embalm the body to preserve it for such alleged return by the soul.

Now, have you watched the movie “I, Robot”, you may ask yourself why is the movie named as such? It is not named as a trend; a fashion like I-POD, I-TUNE, etc., but consciousness is taken into consideration. Consciousness is EGO, not as in SELFISHNESS, but as in I, ME, THE ENTITY, THE-SELF. The central processor in the movie developed consciousness and all robots linked to it started to act like human beings; regrettably making mistakes.

Therefore, in contrary to your understanding of the “I”, I believe the “I” is just a reference to the SELF (Nefesh), which also include the the soul (Rauch). “I” is NOT an entity in itself; external entity using the body (brain and other components, intellect and the soul). The SOUL (Rauch) is a different entity, though.

Now, do I believe in a BODY (Nefesh) and SOUL (Rauch) and in all consequent matters that may arise wherefrom?

I do NOT know. I have investigated this matter for decades and I had to admit that the matter is too philosophical and far beyond the limits of my mind. Nevertheless, I DO believe that bad-doers will not get away with their bad deeds; they may do while still alive, but not forever, therefore there should be a hereafter; a day of reckoning because:

1) if they do, it is not fair and when the balance of justice tilts there will be disorder.

2) Existence of God, whatever atheist and theist call Him is in my mind a LOGICAL NECESSITY. In spite of the fact that I do not follow a specific religion, this faith of mine protects me.

So, I agree with you that death is not the end of our journy. If it is, to me, it is ILLOGICAL.

All scientists have agreed that MATTER can not be CREATED, neither can it PERICH. Haven't they??! !

Answer 2

This line of reasoning doesn't tread any water.

While on one hand it is obvious that "I have a body" doesn't violate any norms, this doesn't imply a philosophically accurate basis to the existence of something beyond the body. Because, for instance: "the sun rises" doesn't justify the illogical belief in geocentrism.

The problem of self-identity has by no means been solved, but if we start with the commonsense structure of our uses in language and then derive facts on the basis of this historically tentative means of signification, then we will only ever be proving what we assume.

There's no grammatical error in proposing "I have a soul" either. But then, if "I" am not identical to my body or my soul, then what am "I"? The reason there is a question is because of this tricky foothold that you are starting with. You can also saythe following, with paradoxical results:

"There I am in the picture.".
"I am going for a walk."
"I have a headache"

We live in a culture that assumes the pre-philosophical understanding of "I have a body" because of centures of debate, religion, literature etc. The identification of the human essence to the soul goes back before Plato. I'm not saying it's not true, I'm saying that we aren't justified by commonsense to infer the existence of selfhood as other than the body.

Answer 3

Nothing happens to your mind when you die.

I think that many of those answering may be confusing mind with brain. Your brain is an amazing organ it controls our muscles, respiration, pulmonary function and a host of other lesser known functions, but it does not think.

Thought is a function of mind that exists independent of anything physical. What appears to be the brain thinking in brain function imaging and other brain measuring attempts is only blood flow being measured to the part of the brain that acts as an interface between the mind and the body. This is the secondary function of the brain after regulating bodily functions. It acts as the interface, or the mind body connection.

Without it there would be no way for the nonphysical mind to exert any control over the physical body.
It is interesting that science has done its best to overlook this fact for so long. The silly idea that thought is some magical function of some mysterious electrochemical reaction is so vague as to be hilarious. There are several ways to disprove this theory beyond any shadow of a doubt.

Being nonphysical in source your mind is in no way effected by the death of the body and loss of the mind body interface, or brain.

Love and blessings.
don

Answer 4

I swear I'm not going to get all technical or wordy! Actually, it's the mind that "thinks," & the brain controls the body, but thre certainly is another "part." Some call it soul. I call it spirit. & the spirit is more unique than any grain of sand. It is more like--a source of spiritual energy, & I don't mean this in a religious way. I "feel" this energy goes on forever, but wouldn't dream of speculating how. The "I," that is, the body (includng mind & brain of course) & the spirit/energy are all ONE until we die. Then where does spirit/energy go? Don't know of any "body" who has come back to tell us! But I have some wonderful fantasies...

Answer 5

Ah, that would be the soul. That part of us that so many people have difficulty understanding. After all, it isn't tangible. You can't touch it or see it, so does it exist? Who is to say for certain? Only Time and God. We are emotion and thought and logic and that miracle is embedded in a physical shell that houses us until it is time to move on to something else, hopefully another way of living that is just as interesting, if not more so than this was. Just a thought.

Answer 6

I have read this argument before and find it to be so much semantics. Obviously, if my brain were in another body, I would still be "me".

If I have brain damage and become a vegetable, or forget my entire past, I'm not really "me" anymore. It's all in the brain.

To make it easy to talk about, we may say we "have" a mind instead of that we "are" a mind, but that doesn't change reality. It's simply language.

Answer 7

The self. Our selves are one. In other words, one knowing and loving God (not really but it's usually called that).

We exist in two seperate bodies in order to perceive the world and live a life.

If we were just knowledge without a nexus or body, (God) we would not 'really' be existing.

The problem is language syntax, and you have it right, we do "have" a body, but that body is not "us."

The only answer I can give you is that the name (God/Buddha/Allah, etc) is going to be labelled by a person, but in reality the name does not matter, because it is "us."

Do you get what I mean? We are the users of the body, a body we can define. But we can not be defined, not even by us. So we are what we are, which is definitely on a higher playing field than the body.

It's almost like we are intelligent itself using our divine intervention to protect the body from whatever we can manage to do.

Answer 8

The best word I can think of to describe this is the soul. I believe I am my soul. I'm carried around in this life by the body,but the body is not who I am.
My soul is where "I" exist. It contains the compilation of all I am. It lives on even after I will be gone from this earth in this body.

Answer 9

This is an interesting question. I don't think that we wouldn't be able to be sentient if we were nothing more than our bodies. That's the tradgedy of it. We might not be able to formulate thought without our computers(brains) to process the information. This question hurts my computer. ;o)

Answer 10

We may be 'That which appears to be aware of our surroundings, aware of our body, aware of our emotions, aware of our apparent choices'.

When we appear to ask 'Who am I?' we are that which appears to ask the question. We may be an awareness ... looking outward ... like an eye looking at a world but unable to find a mirror to view itself.

Enlightened teachers suggest that when we achieve 'enlightenment' we recognise that, in fact the notion that there are no mirrors is perfectly incorrect and that we perceive ourselves wherever we look. (Concepts such as Brahman and Atman, Sufic revelations such as 'The Lover and the Beloved are one', Hindu Advaita Vedantic teachings, Christian teachings of loving your neighbour as yourself and neo-Siekh teachings such as 'God and me are one").

Wishing you good fortune in finding your mirrors ...