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EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 4 days agoWouldn’t the typical conception of self being centered around the head be due to the fact that that’s where all of our memories are stored, bodily signals are sent to instructions to the body are sent from, where emotions are processed, and cognition is generated?
Windex007@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I could be wrong, but I don’t think awareness that the brain being “where memories are stored” is innate. I think that’s something we are told. If I’m recalling correctly, a surprising amount of what we perceive as cognition is offloaded to other distributed parts of our nervous system, so it’s maybe not even quite as true as we think it is.
Rhaedas@fedia.io 4 days ago
If you're playing a 1st person game and it's very immersive, your "self" migrates to the screen point, i.e. right behind the character's eyes location. So I think your statement is right. A good test would be to ask someone blind from birth (to avoid previous experience with sight) where their sense of being is. Maybe it's a bit back, between the ears?
Windex007@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I haven’t had the chance to ask someone blind from birth (or blind at all), but I strongly suspect you’re right. I’d guess it’d be right between the ears.
In my bizarre life, I was basically blind in one eye for about a year when I was in my mid 20s. There was a perceptible and jarring difference in my perception of self, towards (but not directly to) my good eye. It didn’t happen right away, happened about a week in. This makes me wonder if even someone blind after birth would actually maintain the same sense of center vs someone blind at birth.
Blind and deaf at birth for me is the real head scratcher. Part of wonders if it would be somewhere on thier dominant hand, or maybe closer to thier center of mass?
Rhaedas@fedia.io 4 days ago
Aka Helen Keller universe. That's mind blowing to think about, I think you may be onto something. Maybe their perspective would be much more open, as they can feel their body and understand its reference points, so the stronger stimuli would shift their POV to the place receiving it briefly?