From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ames!agate!purina.berkeley.edu!epfaith Wed Sep 16 21:22:19 EDT 1992
Article 6826 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ames!agate!purina.berkeley.edu!epfaith
>From: epfaith@purina.berkeley.edu (Edward Paul Faith)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Consciousness
Date: 9 Sep 1992 00:01:41 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Math. Department.
Lines: 30
Message-ID: <18jet5INNl2h@agate.berkeley.edu>
References: <1992Sep6.010048.1@watt.ccs.tuns.ca> <18eh2uINNt6v@agate.berkeley.edu> <BILL.92Sep7191546@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu>
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Writes bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs) in article
<BILL.92Sep7191546@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu>:

>epfaith@sunkist.berkeley.edu (Edward Paul Faith) writes:
>
>   > Here I want to question whether subjective experience actually
>   > occurs in the brain.
>       [. . .]
>
>What do you think about phantom limb experiences?  (These are very
>common in amputees; they are sensations -- often including severe pain
>-- that seem subjectively to come from the amputated limb.)
>
>	-- Bill


The "phantom limb" demonstrates that the self can be deceived into
thinking that it has a limb.  Of course, the self can be deceived about
many things.  But now what if instead of having his arm chopped off,
a person had part of his brain cut out?  He has no concepts by which
he can say, "I still feel that this part of my brain is in."  But he
might be under the illusion that he is a whole person, just as he
would be under this illusion in the case of a phantom limb.

I am under the impression that the two cases are essentially the same.
As a result, I still do not see why the self must reside in the brain,
and not in the brain plus limb.  For, cut out any sufficiently small
part of the brain and the self continues.  So the self is not located
in any sufficiently small part.  Rather, it would seem it is located
in "the holistic whole".  And why should this not include the arm?


