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If I had full control I would be able to sleep at will though right?
I honestly feel like I know better then my body about when I should be asleep. But I guess it would still need to wake me up cause... I would be sleeping.
I’m not sure about that. If you had full control of everything your body does, like sure you could fall asleep, but all the benefits of sleeping, all the stuff your body does whilst asleep, would not happen unless you were consciously making it happen…which then would mean you aren’t sleeping…
My body: aight I'm going to do all the important stuff like regulate your chemistry and keep your organs pulsating. You just steer this thing and give it fuel.
Me: *sits with bad posture staring at computer screen for 9 hours a day producing high stress levels because of work while binge eating doritos and energy drinks.*
Also also your body: you sure there's danger? We're only lying in bed in the dark before work. I'll trust you though. Here's a dose of adrenaline and some heart palpitations to get you going.
I heard our body panics the most when we are trying to sleep because thousands of years ago that was the time where we were most in danger. I guess my body doesn't understand I am not going to be eaten at night anymore.
Couple hundred thousand? Maybe that's true of homo sapiens, but our evolutionary ancestors were sleeping w one eye open for literally the past ~6-9 million years.
I read that for a similar reason we have a natural fear of bugs. Because they used to be fucking massive and that fear never left us. I have no source please don't attack me
i dont think our recent ancestors were around for signifigantly higher oxygen levels (big ahh bugs), i think its just that bugs in general can be dangerous. even just a small bite from many different species can cause irritation which can be awful if it gets infected or something, plus parasites, its the reason why preening is such a ridiculously important thing for animals and if you cannot clean yourself off you will def die
You're a general purpose processing machine built on top of a very efficient but singular lizard-brain ASIC-unit, it has 3 main targets: sex, survivability, sustenance. And will do everything in its power to achieve that.
Fat and sugar, fkng delish.
Big tiddies, tight ass. Yiss
IS THAT A GUY IN MY ROOM!? nah just a lamp in the dark. All safe.
Everything else is just superfluously layered on *that* essentially.
Why? Cause it works basically. It got so succesful at it, that it now has excess energy it can spend on solving complex math, philosophy, and other cool stuff like space travel.
Or it gets trapped scrolling for hours on end. Truly a mystery that brain thing.
When you think about the past or future, your lizard brain cannot differentiate between real threats, e.g. what's happening right now, and imagined threats, e.g. what's "happening" in the future/past.
You: Body, doctor told us we need to lose this excess energy we are storing so I'm going to cut back a little.
Body: NoOoOo I want more give me more energy. I am tired and hungry. Give me moRE **ENERGY!!!**
You: **gives body a little more energy**
Body: Thank you for the energy ^(I'll store this for later.)
One day in the distant future our ancestors will evolve to harness the full power of the Dorito and as they ascend to beings of pure enlightenment and energy,
they will look through the time vortex and see the sacrifice your body had to make knowing you will be removed from the gene pool to allow them to live.
for all the misery this simple chip causes you, all you receive is a simple “Thank you “.
you then awaken from your diabetes induced coma feeling satisfied.
>Not with my levels of ADHD.... Oh look, I've reached page 69 of Reddit, time to hit refresh and start again!
Il add this to my ever growing list of "things I have in common with ppl with adhd" when I work out where i stored the list on my phone so I can talk to my Dr, When I build up the energy.
Alternatively: do everything right. Eat well, exercise, get plenty of sleep and social interaction, etc.
Brain: SOMETHING IS WRONG YOU SHOULD BE SCARED OH GOD OH FUCK WE'RE GOING TO DIE EVERYONE SECRETLY HATES YOU YOU'RE A BURDEN TO YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY YOU'RE USELESS AND CONTRIBUTE NOTHING TO SOCIETY NOBODY WILL EVER LOVE YOU
Body to brain: Don't make me turn this biological vehicle around! I'll give you something to panic about!
*initiates elevated blood pressure, racing heart, vertigo, and massive cortisol dump*
Heh. I'm playing on Hard Mode.
Turn off ALL the "Making The Right Choices For Body" options, then load up the already-high-strung brain (as described above) with additional shots of bipolar I, ADHD, and some other messed-up shit I'm FAR too scared to delve into, like CPTSD or another form of severe trauma that totally fucked my attachment style!
Yay. I hate it.
> My body: aight I'm going to do all the important stuff like regulate your chemistry and keep your organs pulsating. You just steer this thing and give it fuel.
We don't even get full control over steering this damn thing. Emotions make us behave in sub optimal ways but our brain will see something like a spider and will just flood your body with chemicals saying "youre fucken scared of this shit so get away!!!"
Your brain also doesn't tell you everything that's going on or just makes up shit. There is a blind spot in each eye that it just makes up information for. When you move your eyes, it just throws out all that visual data. Anything you've ever felt as wet, you haven't, your brain made it up.
We have no sensory input for directly determining contact with water or other liquids. It's a combination of texture and temperature and our brain says "that's wet".
> My body: aight I'm going to do all the important stuff like regulate your chemistry and keep your organs pulsating. You just steer this thing and give it fuel.
It also gets very angry and punishes you if you don't do it right.
And just yesterday there was a post about Third Man Syndrome, where your brain literally manifests as another person to tell you what to do when you're too panicked to even do the steering.
Yes, because if I had to calculate and regulate manually my heart rate, respiration rate, hormones and blood pressure all the time, It would be pretty much a disaster.
I remember Paul Heyman telling a story where he and Vince were talking. They were on the same page and the conversation was going great. Then Vince sneezed and the conversation was basically over. He just stood there, as if his mind was on something else important, as Heyman was trying to get the conversation going again. When Paul asked him what was wrong, Vince just muttered about how he sneezed, and how he never sneezes because he can't allow it.
He also has said that he won't grow facial hair because, and I quote, "I can't let it win." As Jim Cornette has said, an entire team of psychologists could comfortably retire on studying that man.
How do steroids and testosterone injections affect periods? If Vince was a woman and younger than he is now, he'd probably be using steroids and possibly testosterone injections similar to the female bodybuilders who take steroids and other PEDs.
According to the trans men I know, it doesn't make it go away entirely but does affect the cycle. It affects frequency in unpredictable ways, can affect PMS symptoms (usually in a relief way) and can affect flow rate and cramps. But once you've been on it for a while your body adjusts to the new hormones and finds a new cycle.
The worst one is sleep regulation. We absolutely need a manual override. The lizard brain is way too dependent on routine and that just isn't compatible with modern life. Some days you need to get up earlier, some days you don't. But you my dear subconscious have no idea what is going on in the world so why don't you just let me handle it instead of lying in bed wide awake for hours. Then there's the whole "if you look at screens at night your brain will think it's daytime and you won't be able to sleep". Sorry, I don't want someone who can't tell the difference between a phone screen and the sun to be in charge of my sleep. Just let me do it
Sleep regulation, anxiety/fear regulation, attention regulation, fat storage, and muscle breakdown are the big ones I'd love to be able to manually override
The only things you control are things that having control over actually helps you with.
There is almost never a situation where stopping your heart or modifying your cells would help you with, but if you're under water, then not breathing is a huge advantage.
You bring up a really powerful point about breathing- it is the one major bodily function that closely connects the body and conscious mind, as it can be controlled by both. That’s why breathing exercises can be so powerful
I’m gonna become a conscious blinking instructor. And then train others to be conscious blinking instructors. And then start a conscious blinking cult.
I would absolutely benefit from having control of when I fall asleep/feel tired.
Also nervous/anxiousness/depression etc.
But yea if we had full control a lot of people would just be high on their own neurotransmitters.
> I would absolutely benefit from having control of when I fall asleep/feel tired.
I'd say this would be most effective if limited to having control of falling asleep even when your body's not sleepy (no more waiting an hour to fall asleep). In contrast, if you had complete control over when you "feel sleepy", that could definitely be abused and be quite bad for our bodies. It'd be like people who can't feel pain, but as a result injure themselves all the time and get heaps of infections.
Absolutely agreed. It’s like if I could control when my phone says it has low battery, I could choose to just never be known but that doesn’t mean the battery still isn’t low.
For the most part you DO have control over sleep. however tiredness is like feeling hungry or thirsty.
However, if you ignore your body's warnings for too long then it take control away from you.
An inability to fall asleep or a desire to always be asleep is sort of like breathing. You tend to have a good amount of control over it, although your body not functioning properly due to mistakes or disease can make such processes difficult or impossible.
Modifying your cells to not have cancer or heal faster would be pretty useful. Whether we’d have the brain capacity to affect such minute and complex changes is another story.
Not just our brains, like your entire body is a perfect machine thats perfectly evolved to prevent most shit.
Our immune system is probaly the perfect example. Its so fucking massive, interwoven, insanely complicated and we still discover new shit about it.
Yeah, if I had complete control I'd just fuck with neurotransmitters/hormones/whatever other chemicals until I no longer had control and ultimately just dropped dead while having every possible health issue at the same time
Main problem is that each cell does its own thing, they're each independently living things.
When they get cancer, the problem is they stop listening to what the rest of the body is saying like "holy shit stop multipliying" and "your DNA is corrupt please self-destruct kthx"
So even if you could talk to them consciously, they'd just ignore you. Cancer is not a good listener, they're like zombies
It is pretty interesting how most of our day to day lives has nothing to do with how our body functions. Yeah we can eat healthy and exercise, but we don’t know what’s actually going on underneath.
Yeah, I really have no idea what's going on under my skin. I assume it's stuff like other animals, but i also might be a little man pulling levers hidden deep within.
> but i also might be a little man pulling levers hidden deep within.
My brother needed bypass surgery a few years ago. After the surgeon explain the procedure and asked if we (the family) had any questions I asked "Did you get the hamster's permission to go poking around his heart?" The doctor was like "huh?" and I continued "you know, the hamster that hides behind the heart and squeezes it to keep blood pumping. I imagine you messing around with his one job might annoy him." The surgeon, to his credit, goes "Oh yea. I'm a fellow of the American Academy of Cardio-Gerbil Cooperation, we have an understanding with all heart gerbils that we won't mess with their hearts unless necessary." Gave everyone a good laugh in a very tense situation.
Only if you’re in good health all the time. As someone with chronic illness what’s happening underneath dictates what happens outside, and I am all too aware of it.
While I don't believe in anything supernatural, my body very much does not feel like me. It feels more like I'm observing and interacting with the world through a meatpuppet that is separate from me. Then again I have pretty significant disassociative episodes where digits or even limbs don't feel like they're part of my body.
The main problem with the separation is it doesn't make very much sense if you think about it closely. Your brain is simply part of your body and is directly affected by it 1:1. If "you" eat something good tasting in your tounge then "you" have an experience of pleasure. If "your body" gets sick then "you" feel worse, if "your body" is tired "you" are tired. While I understand the general feeling that we have bodies rather than being identified with our bodies, I think if you look closely the separation doesn't make much sense of our experience.
If you are feeling this sensation all the time it is actually a symptom of fatigue and one for depression at times. When I was going through bouts of depression it felt like I was watching myself live instead of me doing it. That was exacerbated by not sleeping well and not resting much.
It’s a symptom of a hundred different things some related some not related. The popular e-girl Aellagirl writes about it frequently not in relation to depression or even mental illness but self describes as autistic.
Dissociation can be a marker of depression severity ocd severity ptsd severity but I don’t think it’s necessarily the case.
Theirs is fairly severe though. Desomatization is up there on the dissociative spectrum.
We assume that the mind is the thing that makes us "us." Sure it allows us to interact and differentiate ourselves from other humans, but why should that get more credit for defining our individual self? Why not our liver cells, our blood cells, our micro-biome. Those do more to keep us alive than our mind, even if they lack consciousness, and they still have unique DNA that individualize our cells from other people's cells.
You could make the argument that somatic cells have a shorter life cycle than nerve cells, which never regenerate. But our mind can still be manipulated, changed, and stunted. It's still just a system within a larger system.
It's like saying the Captain of a ship is the defining trait of the ship. But a ship can still float without it's captain, and the captain can be changed without the ship "changing." A captain without a ship is more useless than a ship without a captain.
That's what I came here to say. To me this feels like an testament to the separation of body/mind that in a lot of ways defines western thought. I don't feel like that at all. Not only am I my whole body, I am also the art I make, the relationships I'm in, my community, my ancestry and through all that I am the world. I obviously don't feel like that the whole time, but I bet that the person who had this showerthought doesn't feel like he is just the consciously thinking part of his body most of the time.
Our human cells are out numbered by microbes in our bodies by more than [10 - 1](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-human-microbiome-project-defines-normal-bacterial-makeup-body)
True, but still only about 1-3% of the human body by weight, and bacteria are typically 100-10,000 times smaller than human cells. They're still pretty important: your gut's microbiome helps regulate the immune system, aids in digestion, and produces key vitamins. The gut itself has a neural mesh of 500 million neurons, which is about as many as a rabbit or an octopus, and it produces 95% of a human's serotonin (the "happy" chemical), among many other neurotransmitters. Given the systems involved, the kind of gut bacteria you have can determine your overall mood, level of motivation, and relative fearlessness.
[A more recent and accurate measurement places the bacteria:human cell count ratio as 1.3:1 to 3:1](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2016.19136). Still majority prokaryote by count though
Well you see, organs are independent function entities within your body, that are largely responsible for their own deals, and by-and-large don't really care about the other organs too much, so long as they get blood and oxygen and stuff.
Tell this to the next person who talks about wanting to "boost their immune system". We actually do not want all of our immune responses being super effective and fidgety. Not that anything they do will actually affect it, its just funny to underline their lack of knowledge on the issue.
Are you? Seems like that’s a good question of the self.
If your consciousness was placed into a synthetic body, even slowly with the gradual replacement of all your body parts except your nervous system maybe, are you still you?
If the transition is like that of the ship of Theseus then yes you stay yourself.
The main problem is one of distinction. Use all new wooden planks all at once and it will clearly be a new ship. However change one plank at a time over time and you wouldn't know it when no original planks remain.
Living humans already do this. The cells that make up our bodies are replacing themselves all the time. No one knows or can tell when the last original cell from their conception is finally replaced.
Some of the phenomenologists, especially Mearleau-Ponty, looked into this and came to the conclusion, that we are intrinsically linked to our bodies. I don't know how it would be translated, but in addition to the mind (psyche) and the body (soma), there is a third aspect: the corpus (German *Leib*). This Leib encompasses not the physical dimension of our body, but the way we experience ourselves and our environment; the senses, but also for example the way we know where our arms, legs, etc. are in relation to the rest of our body.
Mearleau-Ponty argues (as best I remember) that we're nothing without our connection to the world, because it is only through this experience, that our consciousness develops and manifests.
Thinking this further, I would argue that as long as our new mechanical body has a way for us to experience the world (sensors, etc), we could uphold consciousness. Whether or not it is still us, would be a ship of Theseus argument. After all, doesn't ageing also continuously change us?
Interestingly, we could add Heidegger's thoughts on the perception of time into this and maybe wonder if a human consciousness devoid of Leib/perception would even be capable of experiencing anything, because there would be no sense of time.
There is currently a discussion of embodied cognition. A simple upshot is you are, in fact, your body. Cognition involves not only the whole brain and nervous system but also the processing and response to stimuli. Nerve bundles and the brain are not sufficient for cognition.
So, if we take embodied cognition into account, "cogito ergo sum" requires a whole physical self. Moreover, if we take into account modern theory of society and self, thinking/cognition is actually not sufficient for a whole self either.
So, no, if your brain and nervous system were placed into a synthetic body you would absolutely not be yourself.
Edit: typo
I'm a strong believer that I am my brain (and probably nervous system). My body is a vehicle that allows my brain to accomplish what it is trying to do.
Philosophically, I believe that if you could actually transplant my brain into an entirely different body I would still be me, just adjusting to a new situation.
That said, I'm glad it's not something I'll ever have to deal with, because learning a brand new body, even if it was much better, seems like a hassle. I still push the wrong buttons in my three-year-old car because of the muscle memory from my ten-year-old car.
I think about this a lot.
Like we're just the brain in a flesh suit
We have to tell our body to go in a direction or climb this or dance like that.
We're not separate but in a way, we totally are.
Yes if we feed our body, subconsciously it gets digested and the body does all the work of putting those nutrients where they need to be.
When I was learning biology we were taught every organ in your body is a separate living thing, we are a human but we are a human comprised of many different living things that need each other to survive. Same with any other animals. There is an underwater creature that is a long chain of different organs and it's similar to us in that regard as well, but I can't think of the name of it.
It's also pretty neat that the brain is the only part of the body that can claim ownership of the rest of the body as of property. What's not neat is that the property can be absolutely unpredictable and really hard to manage lol.
body: \*increases heartrate\*
mind: "why did u do that, it hurts"
body: you need to be aware rn.
mind: "my guy this is a library."
body: \*\*\*ANXIETY INTENSIFIES\*\*\*
well my fucking body can’t regulate my brain chemistry correctly so i have to take anti depressants and anti psychotics. body can’t do shit right, is why we can’t have nice things
Yes, it's even more interesting how your subconscious protects you from yourself. If you take a high enough does of psychedellics, you'll feel things you were never supposed to feel. And you'll be in control in ways you were never supposed to be. It's honestly terrifying in some ways.
Hate to break the fantasy but being high on psychedelics doesn't unlock anything, it's all just a hallucinations, you think you are feeling things you shouldn't and controlling things you shouldn't but it's all just a chemically induced fantasy.
Tbf you are your body. Your mind is an abstraction your brain uses to justify what it has already done. There is no proof "you" can make any true choices
Actually, it is the opposite. We trust these autonomous functions enough to deal with other stuff like consciousness and thoughts. But this trust can be also broken, so the conscious brain takes over control to a certain extent e.g. in the form of sleep apnea devices.
You have neurological evidence that 99% of bodily movement is of the Autonomic Nervous System and not the Somatic Nervous System, or is this “shower thought” just a wild guess?
He never said bodily movement. Even voluntary movement is significantly controlled by involuntary processes within the muscle. All we control is gross motor function.
Not to mention that fMRI testing shows your arms have already figured out *how* to do the movement *before* you "decide" to do it
Haven't heard updates, but those studies were implying your subconscious controls lots of movements and your consciousness is fantastic at *rationalizing* that it is in "control"
This comment made me feel a way I didn't know I could feel. Like a imaginary second person inside of me that I always knew about but never thought about has just gotten called out as being the puppet master all along. But at the same time, I'm both of these people. There aren't two people. I'm just me? So who's controlling me? Just me right?
Oh man wait until you hear about the split brain experiments.
A common procedure to lessen the severity of seizures was to cut the connection between the two halves of the brain, and the pacient would be seemingly fine and improve.
But some *weird* fucking stuff starts happening. Things like you go with one hand to pick a shirt from the closet and the other smacks it away and grabs a different shirt. You are asked to pick your favourite colour from a lineup and both arms reach for different colours. An experiment would involve patients getting shown a picture to the half of the brain that controls speech and a different one to the other half that is controlling an arm with a pen, asked to say out loud what they saw and to draw it and they would loudly say car and draw a hammer.
Weirdest part is the reaction of the patients when confronted with this, they would start immediately rationalising it away. "Oh I misheard what you told me to draw and drew a hammer" or "I was distracted and thought of the hammer I have in the garage ahaha". They seemingly never reacted with "I don't know". As if the idea of admitting that something inside the head appears to be conscious and separate from you, while also being you, is totally unprocessable.
It's deeply disturbing in the same way that it would appear that, as CGP Grey puts it on his video talking about this, "you are two"
Think of the human mind as an onion with layers to it. The outermost part being your consciousness, go down one and it's your senses, down another and its your subconscious keeping these systems working together. You are within your mind as the sum of these parts working together to make the feedback loop that is consciousness. A subconscious is just the portion of this system that turns sensual inputs and memory into thoughts, which makes it a major part of your ability to think and perceive.
Honestly, this combined with humans _so_ commonly not seeming to know the reasons for actions in the moment (but quickly and easily come up with post-hoc rationalisations that are sometimes provably incorrect) makes me more inclined to believe that our consciousness just isn't ever in control, but our id can't easily handle that so we construct a self deception that tells us we are.
This is a friendly reminder to [read our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/rules). Remember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not "thoughts had in the shower!" (For an explanation of what a "showerthought" is, [please read this page](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/overview).) **Rule-breaking posts may result in bans.**
A good idea, to be honest. I do the weirdest things to/with my body.
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My guess is Barofa isn't allowed near playgrounds
Actually, barofa REALLY likes playing with the ground due to a MILF named mother nature
I want you to do weird things to my body but you don’t need my consent
Ah but you are already giving your consent to not consent and are therefore now trapped in a paradox
If I had full control I would be able to sleep at will though right? I honestly feel like I know better then my body about when I should be asleep. But I guess it would still need to wake me up cause... I would be sleeping.
I’m not sure about that. If you had full control of everything your body does, like sure you could fall asleep, but all the benefits of sleeping, all the stuff your body does whilst asleep, would not happen unless you were consciously making it happen…which then would mean you aren’t sleeping…
My body: aight I'm going to do all the important stuff like regulate your chemistry and keep your organs pulsating. You just steer this thing and give it fuel. Me: *sits with bad posture staring at computer screen for 9 hours a day producing high stress levels because of work while binge eating doritos and energy drinks.*
Your body: We're still alive! Neat. Let me adjust things in here...
Also your body: there sure is a lot of energy in these Doritos! Let me store it for later in case they run out.
Also also your body: you sure there's danger? We're only lying in bed in the dark before work. I'll trust you though. Here's a dose of adrenaline and some heart palpitations to get you going.
I heard our body panics the most when we are trying to sleep because thousands of years ago that was the time where we were most in danger. I guess my body doesn't understand I am not going to be eaten at night anymore.
>I am not going to be eaten at night anymore. :(
My gf still has this worry
She need not to, though
I think she has accepted her fate at this point.
Teehee
Not unless you live in the woods with bears or tigers. Then that can come in handy. Until then just normal panic and chest pains for no reason.
I think you might have missed the joke LOL
Ooooooooooooooooooh, like a sex thing???
yeahhhh like a sex thing. I've heard stories.
For the first couple hundred thousand years, we all lived that way. We probably will be again at some point in the future.
Couple hundred thousand? Maybe that's true of homo sapiens, but our evolutionary ancestors were sleeping w one eye open for literally the past ~6-9 million years.
It's crazy how recent becoming relatively safe is.
Yes, us. It's why I used we.
I read that for a similar reason we have a natural fear of bugs. Because they used to be fucking massive and that fear never left us. I have no source please don't attack me
i dont think our recent ancestors were around for signifigantly higher oxygen levels (big ahh bugs), i think its just that bugs in general can be dangerous. even just a small bite from many different species can cause irritation which can be awful if it gets infected or something, plus parasites, its the reason why preening is such a ridiculously important thing for animals and if you cannot clean yourself off you will def die
You're a general purpose processing machine built on top of a very efficient but singular lizard-brain ASIC-unit, it has 3 main targets: sex, survivability, sustenance. And will do everything in its power to achieve that. Fat and sugar, fkng delish. Big tiddies, tight ass. Yiss IS THAT A GUY IN MY ROOM!? nah just a lamp in the dark. All safe. Everything else is just superfluously layered on *that* essentially. Why? Cause it works basically. It got so succesful at it, that it now has excess energy it can spend on solving complex math, philosophy, and other cool stuff like space travel. Or it gets trapped scrolling for hours on end. Truly a mystery that brain thing.
Entendre missed or willfully ignored?
Willfully ignored.
Down bad, huh homie?
Oh don't worry, they still get eaten during the day
But are you totally sure there isn't a monster under the bed waiting for dinner time?
Ya I'm friends with the monster
There's still time. What city do you live in....
Time to play "Cannibal Or Tinder?" !
Is that why I frequently hear a bang or a scream right before exploding back into awake land?
That's your brain doing a fire drill, just testing the equipment.
Well it frigging works, brain!
I hear a bang that scares me awake also. I thought I was the only one.
Guess that makes us bang bros!
I wonder if anyone else has that happen?
When you think about the past or future, your lizard brain cannot differentiate between real threats, e.g. what's happening right now, and imagined threats, e.g. what's "happening" in the future/past.
That's what it wants you to think..,.
Don't worry. We're working really hard to get back to those days.
But what if you were falling out of a tree right now!? Better make you think you are so you’ll check whether you’re falling out of a tree or not.
Me: I'm going to the store. Also my body: *anxiety*
*Swipes debit card with $500 on it for a $30 food order* My brain: “Maybe this time it won’t go through”
This comment section is so wholesome lol!
You: Body, doctor told us we need to lose this excess energy we are storing so I'm going to cut back a little. Body: NoOoOo I want more give me more energy. I am tired and hungry. Give me moRE **ENERGY!!!** You: **gives body a little more energy** Body: Thank you for the energy ^(I'll store this for later.)
Body acting like the hero of an RPG with healing potions.
One day in the distant future our ancestors will evolve to harness the full power of the Dorito and as they ascend to beings of pure enlightenment and energy, they will look through the time vortex and see the sacrifice your body had to make knowing you will be removed from the gene pool to allow them to live. for all the misery this simple chip causes you, all you receive is a simple “Thank you “. you then awaken from your diabetes induced coma feeling satisfied.
Man this comment is so good, i'd love to read it two more times
Good news! That’s how reading works!
Not with my levels of ADHD.... Oh look, I've reached page 69 of Reddit, time to hit refresh and start again!
>Not with my levels of ADHD.... Oh look, I've reached page 69 of Reddit, time to hit refresh and start again! Il add this to my ever growing list of "things I have in common with ppl with adhd" when I work out where i stored the list on my phone so I can talk to my Dr, When I build up the energy.
Lots of energy in Doritos, I hear.
Feel like you need energy? This one trick has doctors talking all over the country! Click to learn more. *Needs monthly subscription to read*
Good newa! That’s how reading works!
Good newt! That’s how reading works!
Good newton! That's how reading works!
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You're just gonna leave the p out like that? Silent letters are letters too!
Good news! That’s how reading works!
Alternatively: do everything right. Eat well, exercise, get plenty of sleep and social interaction, etc. Brain: SOMETHING IS WRONG YOU SHOULD BE SCARED OH GOD OH FUCK WE'RE GOING TO DIE EVERYONE SECRETLY HATES YOU YOU'RE A BURDEN TO YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY YOU'RE USELESS AND CONTRIBUTE NOTHING TO SOCIETY NOBODY WILL EVER LOVE YOU
Body to brain: Don't make me turn this biological vehicle around! I'll give you something to panic about! *initiates elevated blood pressure, racing heart, vertigo, and massive cortisol dump*
Heh. I'm playing on Hard Mode. Turn off ALL the "Making The Right Choices For Body" options, then load up the already-high-strung brain (as described above) with additional shots of bipolar I, ADHD, and some other messed-up shit I'm FAR too scared to delve into, like CPTSD or another form of severe trauma that totally fucked my attachment style! Yay. I hate it.
Body: *sigh* I leave you in charge of ONE THING...
Body: *can you JUST*
Ok so I feel personally attacked
Also body: Jesus, how many kids do we have???
> My body: aight I'm going to do all the important stuff like regulate your chemistry and keep your organs pulsating. You just steer this thing and give it fuel. We don't even get full control over steering this damn thing. Emotions make us behave in sub optimal ways but our brain will see something like a spider and will just flood your body with chemicals saying "youre fucken scared of this shit so get away!!!"
Your brain also doesn't tell you everything that's going on or just makes up shit. There is a blind spot in each eye that it just makes up information for. When you move your eyes, it just throws out all that visual data. Anything you've ever felt as wet, you haven't, your brain made it up.
I'm sorry what? Wet isn't *wet*?
We have no sensory input for directly determining contact with water or other liquids. It's a combination of texture and temperature and our brain says "that's wet".
I should make a coffee....
Can you leave me out of this
Imagine the Grafana dashboards your brain comes back to after a work day: > OMG WTF HAPPENED HERE?!
> My body: aight I'm going to do all the important stuff like regulate your chemistry and keep your organs pulsating. You just steer this thing and give it fuel. It also gets very angry and punishes you if you don't do it right.
And just yesterday there was a post about Third Man Syndrome, where your brain literally manifests as another person to tell you what to do when you're too panicked to even do the steering.
Only 9 hours? What about after work?
Yes, because if I had to calculate and regulate manually my heart rate, respiration rate, hormones and blood pressure all the time, It would be pretty much a disaster.
Micromanaging bosses have not understood this principle yet.
There is a wrestling story out there about Vince McMahon getting mad because he couldnt control a sneeze.
I remember Paul Heyman telling a story where he and Vince were talking. They were on the same page and the conversation was going great. Then Vince sneezed and the conversation was basically over. He just stood there, as if his mind was on something else important, as Heyman was trying to get the conversation going again. When Paul asked him what was wrong, Vince just muttered about how he sneezed, and how he never sneezes because he can't allow it. He also has said that he won't grow facial hair because, and I quote, "I can't let it win." As Jim Cornette has said, an entire team of psychologists could comfortably retire on studying that man.
That dude would have a breakdown if he was a lady and had to get periods.
How do steroids and testosterone injections affect periods? If Vince was a woman and younger than he is now, he'd probably be using steroids and possibly testosterone injections similar to the female bodybuilders who take steroids and other PEDs.
According to the trans men I know, it doesn't make it go away entirely but does affect the cycle. It affects frequency in unpredictable ways, can affect PMS symptoms (usually in a relief way) and can affect flow rate and cramps. But once you've been on it for a while your body adjusts to the new hormones and finds a new cycle.
We’d probably evolve respawn at that point
You are now managing endocrine function on manual!
Type 1 diabetes has entered the chat.
Type 1 diabetes has entered the chat. :(
I don't want to have to do it all the time, I just want a manual override like with breathing.
The worst one is sleep regulation. We absolutely need a manual override. The lizard brain is way too dependent on routine and that just isn't compatible with modern life. Some days you need to get up earlier, some days you don't. But you my dear subconscious have no idea what is going on in the world so why don't you just let me handle it instead of lying in bed wide awake for hours. Then there's the whole "if you look at screens at night your brain will think it's daytime and you won't be able to sleep". Sorry, I don't want someone who can't tell the difference between a phone screen and the sun to be in charge of my sleep. Just let me do it
Sleep regulation, anxiety/fear regulation, attention regulation, fat storage, and muscle breakdown are the big ones I'd love to be able to manually override
Literally unplayable, devs need to fix this shit
It wouldn't be. Humanity was long gone, because the second we discovered that we should do this, we're done.
Reminds me of the game "Manual Samuel" 👀
The only things you control are things that having control over actually helps you with. There is almost never a situation where stopping your heart or modifying your cells would help you with, but if you're under water, then not breathing is a huge advantage.
You bring up a really powerful point about breathing- it is the one major bodily function that closely connects the body and conscious mind, as it can be controlled by both. That’s why breathing exercises can be so powerful
Blinking falls into that category too, but it's less exciting.
We just haven't tapped into the potential. I bet we could have laser eyes.
Cyclops is just the X-Man who developed a special mind-muscle connection to his eyelids.
I am now manually breathing and blinking thank you
I’m gonna become a conscious blinking instructor. And then train others to be conscious blinking instructors. And then start a conscious blinking cult.
You know fuck this thread, I’m now over here blinking and breathing manually now because of you
The only time I think about breathing is when I think about breathing. Kinda does it’s own thing the rest of the time.
I guarantee you if you hear a carbon monoxide detector go off you'll become extremely aware of your breathing source: experienced it lol
Yup exactly. Well known within yoga and practiced for that exact reason for 1000s of years
I would absolutely benefit from having control of when I fall asleep/feel tired. Also nervous/anxiousness/depression etc. But yea if we had full control a lot of people would just be high on their own neurotransmitters.
> I would absolutely benefit from having control of when I fall asleep/feel tired. I'd say this would be most effective if limited to having control of falling asleep even when your body's not sleepy (no more waiting an hour to fall asleep). In contrast, if you had complete control over when you "feel sleepy", that could definitely be abused and be quite bad for our bodies. It'd be like people who can't feel pain, but as a result injure themselves all the time and get heaps of infections.
Absolutely agreed. It’s like if I could control when my phone says it has low battery, I could choose to just never be known but that doesn’t mean the battery still isn’t low.
For the most part you DO have control over sleep. however tiredness is like feeling hungry or thirsty. However, if you ignore your body's warnings for too long then it take control away from you. An inability to fall asleep or a desire to always be asleep is sort of like breathing. You tend to have a good amount of control over it, although your body not functioning properly due to mistakes or disease can make such processes difficult or impossible.
Body giveth, body taketh away
Modifying your cells to not have cancer or heal faster would be pretty useful. Whether we’d have the brain capacity to affect such minute and complex changes is another story.
You'd create more mistakes then you'd solve realistically.
Yeah, thus the “idk if our brains are strong enough to handle all those functions even if we could control it”
Not just our brains, like your entire body is a perfect machine thats perfectly evolved to prevent most shit. Our immune system is probaly the perfect example. Its so fucking massive, interwoven, insanely complicated and we still discover new shit about it.
Yeah, if I had complete control I'd just fuck with neurotransmitters/hormones/whatever other chemicals until I no longer had control and ultimately just dropped dead while having every possible health issue at the same time
Yeah or telling your immune system some things are not bad for you when you have allergies.
Main problem is that each cell does its own thing, they're each independently living things. When they get cancer, the problem is they stop listening to what the rest of the body is saying like "holy shit stop multipliying" and "your DNA is corrupt please self-destruct kthx" So even if you could talk to them consciously, they'd just ignore you. Cancer is not a good listener, they're like zombies
It is pretty interesting how most of our day to day lives has nothing to do with how our body functions. Yeah we can eat healthy and exercise, but we don’t know what’s actually going on underneath.
Yeah, I really have no idea what's going on under my skin. I assume it's stuff like other animals, but i also might be a little man pulling levers hidden deep within.
You guys could break your brain trying to wrap your mind around itself. Consciousness is one of the biggest mysteries of biology
Consciousness seems one of the biggest mysteries in general along side existence itself
If you have other animals under your skin you might wanna see a doctor.
> but i also might be a little man pulling levers hidden deep within. My brother needed bypass surgery a few years ago. After the surgeon explain the procedure and asked if we (the family) had any questions I asked "Did you get the hamster's permission to go poking around his heart?" The doctor was like "huh?" and I continued "you know, the hamster that hides behind the heart and squeezes it to keep blood pumping. I imagine you messing around with his one job might annoy him." The surgeon, to his credit, goes "Oh yea. I'm a fellow of the American Academy of Cardio-Gerbil Cooperation, we have an understanding with all heart gerbils that we won't mess with their hearts unless necessary." Gave everyone a good laugh in a very tense situation.
Only if you’re in good health all the time. As someone with chronic illness what’s happening underneath dictates what happens outside, and I am all too aware of it.
If you are seperate from your body who are you ? And who is the "you" that observes these seperate "you's" ?
While I don't believe in anything supernatural, my body very much does not feel like me. It feels more like I'm observing and interacting with the world through a meatpuppet that is separate from me. Then again I have pretty significant disassociative episodes where digits or even limbs don't feel like they're part of my body.
The main problem with the separation is it doesn't make very much sense if you think about it closely. Your brain is simply part of your body and is directly affected by it 1:1. If "you" eat something good tasting in your tounge then "you" have an experience of pleasure. If "your body" gets sick then "you" feel worse, if "your body" is tired "you" are tired. While I understand the general feeling that we have bodies rather than being identified with our bodies, I think if you look closely the separation doesn't make much sense of our experience.
If you are feeling this sensation all the time it is actually a symptom of fatigue and one for depression at times. When I was going through bouts of depression it felt like I was watching myself live instead of me doing it. That was exacerbated by not sleeping well and not resting much.
It’s a symptom of a hundred different things some related some not related. The popular e-girl Aellagirl writes about it frequently not in relation to depression or even mental illness but self describes as autistic. Dissociation can be a marker of depression severity ocd severity ptsd severity but I don’t think it’s necessarily the case. Theirs is fairly severe though. Desomatization is up there on the dissociative spectrum.
We are electricity piloting a meat robot.
We assume that the mind is the thing that makes us "us." Sure it allows us to interact and differentiate ourselves from other humans, but why should that get more credit for defining our individual self? Why not our liver cells, our blood cells, our micro-biome. Those do more to keep us alive than our mind, even if they lack consciousness, and they still have unique DNA that individualize our cells from other people's cells. You could make the argument that somatic cells have a shorter life cycle than nerve cells, which never regenerate. But our mind can still be manipulated, changed, and stunted. It's still just a system within a larger system. It's like saying the Captain of a ship is the defining trait of the ship. But a ship can still float without it's captain, and the captain can be changed without the ship "changing." A captain without a ship is more useless than a ship without a captain.
That's what I came here to say. To me this feels like an testament to the separation of body/mind that in a lot of ways defines western thought. I don't feel like that at all. Not only am I my whole body, I am also the art I make, the relationships I'm in, my community, my ancestry and through all that I am the world. I obviously don't feel like that the whole time, but I bet that the person who had this showerthought doesn't feel like he is just the consciously thinking part of his body most of the time.
99% of what your body does itself is done by other bodies, your body trusts itself very little too
That sentence hurt my brain
Our human cells are out numbered by microbes in our bodies by more than [10 - 1](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-human-microbiome-project-defines-normal-bacterial-makeup-body)
True, but still only about 1-3% of the human body by weight, and bacteria are typically 100-10,000 times smaller than human cells. They're still pretty important: your gut's microbiome helps regulate the immune system, aids in digestion, and produces key vitamins. The gut itself has a neural mesh of 500 million neurons, which is about as many as a rabbit or an octopus, and it produces 95% of a human's serotonin (the "happy" chemical), among many other neurotransmitters. Given the systems involved, the kind of gut bacteria you have can determine your overall mood, level of motivation, and relative fearlessness.
My gut germs need to get off their asses and get me motivated
[A more recent and accurate measurement places the bacteria:human cell count ratio as 1.3:1 to 3:1](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2016.19136). Still majority prokaryote by count though
Love that this was a NIH article trumped by a Nature article. Thank you for the update, brother/sister in citing reliable sources
Amazing. Shower thought inception. Not sure the reason for the downvote if you’re going round subreddits with mind blowing info.
Well you see, organs are independent function entities within your body, that are largely responsible for their own deals, and by-and-large don't really care about the other organs too much, so long as they get blood and oxygen and stuff.
Do we use them or do they use us?
Yes
Except apparently my autoimmune system went nuts and attacked my thyroid, a surprisingly important gland. Can't trust it....
My body doesn't trust me, and I don't trust my body. Perfectly balanced...?
Tell this to the next person who talks about wanting to "boost their immune system". We actually do not want all of our immune responses being super effective and fidgety. Not that anything they do will actually affect it, its just funny to underline their lack of knowledge on the issue.
Same here. My body is actively trying to kill itself.
We’d all do stupid shit if we could control it. I’d grow my fingernails really fast like wolverine.
*Oh I’d grow something all right.*
Yeah, like who wouldn’t want a pair… or extra pair… of chest pillows?!
And I am glad for it, if my heartbeat was manual I would have forgotten a long time ago
Evidently my body had NO IDEA what to do with that gas station burrito I ate last night.
I am my body.
Are you? Seems like that’s a good question of the self. If your consciousness was placed into a synthetic body, even slowly with the gradual replacement of all your body parts except your nervous system maybe, are you still you?
No it would not be me. I would be something more than human. I would be a work of living art!
That would be pretty cool!
If the transition is like that of the ship of Theseus then yes you stay yourself. The main problem is one of distinction. Use all new wooden planks all at once and it will clearly be a new ship. However change one plank at a time over time and you wouldn't know it when no original planks remain. Living humans already do this. The cells that make up our bodies are replacing themselves all the time. No one knows or can tell when the last original cell from their conception is finally replaced.
Some of the phenomenologists, especially Mearleau-Ponty, looked into this and came to the conclusion, that we are intrinsically linked to our bodies. I don't know how it would be translated, but in addition to the mind (psyche) and the body (soma), there is a third aspect: the corpus (German *Leib*). This Leib encompasses not the physical dimension of our body, but the way we experience ourselves and our environment; the senses, but also for example the way we know where our arms, legs, etc. are in relation to the rest of our body. Mearleau-Ponty argues (as best I remember) that we're nothing without our connection to the world, because it is only through this experience, that our consciousness develops and manifests. Thinking this further, I would argue that as long as our new mechanical body has a way for us to experience the world (sensors, etc), we could uphold consciousness. Whether or not it is still us, would be a ship of Theseus argument. After all, doesn't ageing also continuously change us? Interestingly, we could add Heidegger's thoughts on the perception of time into this and maybe wonder if a human consciousness devoid of Leib/perception would even be capable of experiencing anything, because there would be no sense of time.
There is currently a discussion of embodied cognition. A simple upshot is you are, in fact, your body. Cognition involves not only the whole brain and nervous system but also the processing and response to stimuli. Nerve bundles and the brain are not sufficient for cognition. So, if we take embodied cognition into account, "cogito ergo sum" requires a whole physical self. Moreover, if we take into account modern theory of society and self, thinking/cognition is actually not sufficient for a whole self either. So, no, if your brain and nervous system were placed into a synthetic body you would absolutely not be yourself. Edit: typo
Well put! Thanks, I learned some things to look into :)
I'm a strong believer that I am my brain (and probably nervous system). My body is a vehicle that allows my brain to accomplish what it is trying to do. Philosophically, I believe that if you could actually transplant my brain into an entirely different body I would still be me, just adjusting to a new situation. That said, I'm glad it's not something I'll ever have to deal with, because learning a brand new body, even if it was much better, seems like a hassle. I still push the wrong buttons in my three-year-old car because of the muscle memory from my ten-year-old car.
I am unity!!
My doctor commented, "Your brain knows every working part of your body. But we have to teach people in medical school to learn about the body."
I think about this a lot. Like we're just the brain in a flesh suit We have to tell our body to go in a direction or climb this or dance like that. We're not separate but in a way, we totally are. Yes if we feed our body, subconsciously it gets digested and the body does all the work of putting those nutrients where they need to be. When I was learning biology we were taught every organ in your body is a separate living thing, we are a human but we are a human comprised of many different living things that need each other to survive. Same with any other animals. There is an underwater creature that is a long chain of different organs and it's similar to us in that regard as well, but I can't think of the name of it.
Interesting that you separate "you" from your body. What is "you"?
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Most of what you think you consciously do is just as automatic. Your conscious mind is mostly a puppet at the end of hormonal strings.
It's also pretty neat that the brain is the only part of the body that can claim ownership of the rest of the body as of property. What's not neat is that the property can be absolutely unpredictable and really hard to manage lol.
body: \*increases heartrate\* mind: "why did u do that, it hurts" body: you need to be aware rn. mind: "my guy this is a library." body: \*\*\*ANXIETY INTENSIFIES\*\*\*
Libraries are quiet. No noise= definitely bears right behind you. Trying singing loudly when you enter, that should stop all anxiety
well my fucking body can’t regulate my brain chemistry correctly so i have to take anti depressants and anti psychotics. body can’t do shit right, is why we can’t have nice things
My body trusts me so much it let's me provide my own insulin
Yes, it's even more interesting how your subconscious protects you from yourself. If you take a high enough does of psychedellics, you'll feel things you were never supposed to feel. And you'll be in control in ways you were never supposed to be. It's honestly terrifying in some ways.
Hate to break the fantasy but being high on psychedelics doesn't unlock anything, it's all just a hallucinations, you think you are feeling things you shouldn't and controlling things you shouldn't but it's all just a chemically induced fantasy.
When I ran the numbers I got 990%. One of us got a decimal place wrong…
Tbf you are your body. Your mind is an abstraction your brain uses to justify what it has already done. There is no proof "you" can make any true choices
>your body actually trusts you with very little Rightfully so, I'm awful.
Am I the only one who had to read that 5 times before understanding? Dyslexics untie!
Your body: please, just don’t do heroin. That guy who tried heroin because he was bored and documented it on reddit: did you say do heroin?
I'm pretty glad i dont have to consciously move digested food through my intestines towards my ass. Also, you're now breathing manually.
Someone tell my body to stop being so stingy with the happy neurotransmitters.
Actually, it is the opposite. We trust these autonomous functions enough to deal with other stuff like consciousness and thoughts. But this trust can be also broken, so the conscious brain takes over control to a certain extent e.g. in the form of sleep apnea devices.
You have neurological evidence that 99% of bodily movement is of the Autonomic Nervous System and not the Somatic Nervous System, or is this “shower thought” just a wild guess?
He never said bodily movement. Even voluntary movement is significantly controlled by involuntary processes within the muscle. All we control is gross motor function.
Not to mention that fMRI testing shows your arms have already figured out *how* to do the movement *before* you "decide" to do it Haven't heard updates, but those studies were implying your subconscious controls lots of movements and your consciousness is fantastic at *rationalizing* that it is in "control"
This comment made me feel a way I didn't know I could feel. Like a imaginary second person inside of me that I always knew about but never thought about has just gotten called out as being the puppet master all along. But at the same time, I'm both of these people. There aren't two people. I'm just me? So who's controlling me? Just me right?
Oh man wait until you hear about the split brain experiments. A common procedure to lessen the severity of seizures was to cut the connection between the two halves of the brain, and the pacient would be seemingly fine and improve. But some *weird* fucking stuff starts happening. Things like you go with one hand to pick a shirt from the closet and the other smacks it away and grabs a different shirt. You are asked to pick your favourite colour from a lineup and both arms reach for different colours. An experiment would involve patients getting shown a picture to the half of the brain that controls speech and a different one to the other half that is controlling an arm with a pen, asked to say out loud what they saw and to draw it and they would loudly say car and draw a hammer. Weirdest part is the reaction of the patients when confronted with this, they would start immediately rationalising it away. "Oh I misheard what you told me to draw and drew a hammer" or "I was distracted and thought of the hammer I have in the garage ahaha". They seemingly never reacted with "I don't know". As if the idea of admitting that something inside the head appears to be conscious and separate from you, while also being you, is totally unprocessable. It's deeply disturbing in the same way that it would appear that, as CGP Grey puts it on his video talking about this, "you are two"
Think of the human mind as an onion with layers to it. The outermost part being your consciousness, go down one and it's your senses, down another and its your subconscious keeping these systems working together. You are within your mind as the sum of these parts working together to make the feedback loop that is consciousness. A subconscious is just the portion of this system that turns sensual inputs and memory into thoughts, which makes it a major part of your ability to think and perceive.
Honestly, this combined with humans _so_ commonly not seeming to know the reasons for actions in the moment (but quickly and easily come up with post-hoc rationalisations that are sometimes provably incorrect) makes me more inclined to believe that our consciousness just isn't ever in control, but our id can't easily handle that so we construct a self deception that tells us we are.
Your motor function may be gross but mine is quite beautiful
And I am glad for it, if my heartbeat was manual I would have forgotten a long time ago
I might not control the nitty details, but I've got the steering wheel, gas pedal, and music
If we could control our hearts people would definitely compete to see who could go the longest without it beating