When discussing Damasio earlier this semester the body seemed present in the understanding of the self, Damasio’s first two levels of self seemed in more direct relation with the body than the autobiographical self. In some sense Noë also kept the body in his rhetoric with the environmental factors of the self. Now the body becomes the protagonist and the rhetoric turns out to be statistical and machine like. This in my opinion links perfectly with the identity and varying personalities of self standpoint, which was viewed mostly throughout October.

I have been an athlete all my life so I’ve been close to all this kind of body monitoring to keep track of progress, and this has brought close to understanding how different emotions affect body performance and vice versa. Different body states respond to different changes in the environment. Different identities and different personalities, respond to different environmental aspects. Where am I going with all this? Yes primarily that the self is greatly influenced by its surroundings, but also trying to point out the fact that our whole organism is what compromises the self. This is what I have mostly made out of Inventing the Self, the self in not in the mind, or in the brain, or in any specific place. Every single particle and molecule in our bodies, in some way or another contributes to selfness. And for some reason viewing it with that sense, makes it impossible to find.