[split] PORN

[Purple Rabbit]

Don't know with what you're exactly disagreeing but I didn't say you cannot replace the feedback from the body with electronic stubs. Only that what constitutes 'you' isn't located in the brain alone.

So to be clear about it, you disagree with: that what constitutes 'you' isn't located in the brain alone.

Since 'you' includes the whole nervous system, how can it be otherwise? Can I chop of the brain stem too? Where exactly is you located in your nervous system?

That is what I am disagreeing with. And this:

Part of the neural basis for emotions lies outside the brain.

Proprioperception would be achieved with internal sensors. Another piece of hardware to install.

And of course these arms in their infancy cannot do what a real arm can do, yet.

I agree the response of the robot arm to commands from the brain (downward stimulation) is not relevant for the argument being made. But as long as a robot arm cannot give back nervous stimuli (upward stimulation) that accurately replace the feedback of the original arm, the awareness of the limb would be different and therefore you would be different.

You would have to provide me with more evidence of any emotion being generated outside the brain. Anything your body does is in reaction to the emotion.

Well, I think you're making the claim that a brain without body contains all of the 'self', so actually I think the burden of proof lies with you. But I will nevertheless meet you halfway with positive evidence for the so called Somatic Marker Hypothesis formulated by Damasio. A somatic marker is a representation in the brain of the state of bodily functions outside the brain. These markers areas have been positively identified in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. They act as a kind of aggregated snapshot of the state of the body. IOW if there is some sort impairment or dysfunction in the body this will be reflected in the somatic markers. If the blood sugar level falls below a level of comfort for instance this will be represented in the somatic markers. These are the basis for emotions of physiological origin. Damasio's hypothesis says that these somatic markers influence decision-making in the brain. Bechara, Damasio et al showed in this paper that damage of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex influences conscious decision making. Thus showing that the somatic markers contribute to traits of the self.