What Is the Self? A Mind Body Answer

A Quick Summary

Main Points On This Quick List

[1] The basic currency of all human consciousness, including all thought and emotion, is the five senses. All awareness arises from a personal interaction with them.
[2] The five senses derive from two sources, [1] the physiological body (the body's experience of five senses) and [2] the psychological body (the mind's experience of the five senses). Sensation itself thus arises directly from the two bodies' experiences of life.
[3] The sum of the body and mind's experiences of the five senses is called, "primary sensation." As such, primary sensation is the root and essence of one's personality.
[4] All primary sensations get recorded into memory. Moreover memory exists in both the actual physical body and in the mind's image of the physical body. Thus there are literally two bodies (the physiological body and the psychological body) and both contain their own sensory memory.
[5] All primary sensation occurs within the field of personal time, albeit one's sense of personal time does not get stored in memory. Thus personal time is not a primary sensation. Rather it is a secondary sensation, arising only from observing the sequential differences between and among primary sensations.
[6] All primary sensations can potentially generate thoughts and emotions, albeit thoughts and emotions do not get stored in memory either. Thus thoughts and emotions are not primary sensations either. Rather, like personal time, they are secondary sensations.
[7] The rate at which one experiences sensation determines whether this something is perceived as thought, emotion, or both. The faster the experience, the more the sensation is observed as thought. The slower one's perception of sensation, the more this sensation is perceived as emotion. Thus all differences between thought and emotion arise from differences in the rate at which we observe sensation.
[8] All three secondary sensations (thoughts, emotions, and time) arise from noticing sensation. In effect, this means thoughts, emotions, and personal time are all sensations converted into observations.
[9] An important question is "who is doing this observing?" The answer? While both the mind and body process primary sensation, most times, only one observes. Whichever this is then becomes subjective self (the watcher), while the others becomes the objective self (what is being watched).

Words and Phrases to Pay Attention To

Quick List With Examples

[1] The basic currency of all human consciousness, including all thought and emotion, is the five senses. All awareness arises from a personal interaction with them.

• Empiricists have, for thousands of years, tried to convince us that physical sensation is the only authentic source of truth. And they are right. However, to limit the source of this physical sensation to our body's experiences of our external world is to deny we have an internal world, a mind which can, by envisioning the physical body, physically stimulate the physical body.
• Rationalists have, for thousands of years, tried to convince us that reason and logic are the only trustworthy sources for truth, to wit, that we cannot trust our senses as they can too readily be deceived. And they can. However, to limit what we trust to what we can explain with logic and reason is to deny the value of much of what our fives senses do find.
• Ultimately then, while both groups are have accurately described parts of the truth, neither has defined the actual source of personal truth, let alone, of human consciousness. At the same time, seeing the sum and synthesis of these two view points as the whole source of our five senses begins to describe the literal origin point of personal truth and human consciousness

[2] The five senses derive from two sources, (1) the physiological body (the body's experience of five senses) and (2) the psychological body (the mind's experience of the five senses). Sensation itself thus arises directly from the two bodies' experiences of life.

• The first source of the five senses is obvious; we physically interact with the external world. An equally important source of the five senses though is our internal world, in essence, what we picture in our minds. In effect, our minds create visual simulations of past, present, and future events wherein we experience a simulated physical body. Moreover these simulations stimulate our actual physical body. Thus we literally feel much of what our five senses would feel if the event was literally happening to us.
• The point here is, when we picture ourselves in these simulations, our minds literally create a second source of the five senses; a simulated physical body. Moreover, both bodies function as source material for the five physical senses, including that our simulated body stimulates all the physical sensations our actual physiological body would feel.
• Obviously there are differences between these two "physical' bodies. Despite this being obvious though, most times we function as if we do have two literal physical bodies, each constantly vying for the upper hand.
• Trying to separate the experiences we sense from direct contact with the physical world from those our mind creates is futile.

[3]The sum of the body and mind's experiences of the five senses is called, "primary sensation." Primary sensation is the root and essence of one's personality.

• To see the five senses as the root of personality is to see us as psychophysical beings. This means the laws which govern both bodys are more than analogous. They are the same. This is true because the experiences of both the mind and body are rooted in primary sensation. Thus the laws of physics which goven sensation ulitmately govern even the mind.
• At times, this can seem impossible. We can dream of doing things which break the laws of physics. The thing to remember then is that even in these dreams, our experiences are rooted in primary sensation. Thus while our minds may indeed imagine we can violate the laws of physics, as far as how we experience these violations, we cannot. Even when imagining things like flying then, without effort, primary sensation, and the laws which govern it, still apply.

[4] All primary sensations get recorded in the body as fractal patterns of experience. These patterns then function as the starting point for all experience, both physiological and psychological alike. In addition, our minds create non physical image of our physical body and these images includes these memories. This means we literally have two bodies, a physiological body (a literal physical body) and a psychological body (a mental image of a literal physical body). Moreover both contain their own sensory memory, and both sensory memories interact with each other constantly.

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[5] All primary sensation occurs within the field of personal time, albeit one's sense of personal time does not get stored in memory. Thus personal time is not a primary sensation. Rather it is a secondary sensation, arising only from observing the sequential differences between and among primary sensations.

• Our sense of personal time derives from our estimates of the differences between observed sensory events.
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[6] All primary sensation can potentially generate thoughts and emotions, albeit thoughts and emotions do not get stored in memory either. Thus thoughts and emotions are not primary sensations either. Rather like personal time, they are secondary sensations, our reactions to our primary sensations.

• Before we proceed, we must first define thoughts and emotions. A good way to begin to do this is to see thoughts and emotions as being analogous to the rods and cones in our our eyes. Thus thoughts are like the rods which supply the lines and grays, while emotions are like the cones which supply the colors.
• A second way to see thoughts and emotions is as the two languages of primary sensation. Here thoughts are the language of the mind, and emotions are the language of the body. Again, rather than mere metaphor, this assertion is rooted in physiological fact. Human beings have two physiological brains, the cranial brain and the enteric brain, and while the frequencies at which these two brains sample sensation differ, they both sample the same thing; primary sensation.

[7] The rate at which we perceive an event determines whether our sensations of this event are perceived as thought, emotion, or both. The faster we experience primary sensation, the more we perceive this sensation as thought. The slower we perceive primary sensation, the more we experience this sensation as emotion. Thus all differences between thought and emotion arise from the rate at which we perceive primary sensation.

• Here we see one of the most basic examples of psychophysical analogy at work; the briefer the vibration, the higher it is appears. For example, heated objects vibrate faster than cold ones. Thus hot air rises and cold air sinks. Likewise hot and cold water, and boiling water and steam.
• Applied to the way human beings sense the world, this means the faster we experience data coming at us, the higher on our spine we sense it. For example, the more rapidly we hear words spoken, the more we experience these words as spoken "thoughts." Conversely, the more slowly we hear words spoken, the more we feel them in our gut, emotional sounds rather than as thoughts.
• Similar to how we differentiate between hot and cold air then, we differentiate between sensory data based primarily on the speed at which we sense it. The more rapid the data, the more we call it thought. The slower, the more we feel it as emotion.

[8] All three categories of secondary sensation (thoughts, emotions, and time) arise from our noticing sensation. In effect, this means thoughts, emotions, and personal time are all sensations converted into observations.

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[9] An important question is "who is doing this observing?" The answer? While both the mind and body process primary sensation, normally only one observes. Whichever this is then becomes the subjective self (the watcher), while the other becomes the objective self (what is being watched).

• Philosophers, mystics, psychologists, and researchers have been positing the origin of the self for thousands of years. Oddly, no one has realized that the origin of the self is simply the difference in timing between when the mind and body observe primary sensation.
• More odd still is how most people react when this concept is explained to them. Most people find this explanation so obviously true that they make little of it, this despite some of the world's greatest minds having ben unable to explain this. To see it as true though, just ask yourself this simply question: whose is reading what I have written? Most people will say without hesitation, they are. But ask these same people when they have a headache what the problem is and they will say things like "my head hurts" or "I have head ache." "My" head and I "have" both imply ownership.
• At the same time, some people, when asked who is