my bones keep trying to j u m p

out of my skin

i reign them in

and they start again

can you hear the rattling?

should i let them go

will they walk or fly

an ivory kite

i watch float by

can you hear the knocking?

they’re trying to escape

begging to be free

if i let them go

will there be no more me?

Are we (only) our brains?

I love this type of thought exercise. They’re fun. It’s one of those that nobody can really prove or disprove. Which makes answering them (or attempting to) that much more fun.

My knee-jerk answer is, of course we are our brains! We are our thoughts and our minds. Our bodies just mere hardware to our software -- a clunky one at that. But wait, what are our brains really, but electrified hunks of flesh, able to construct and execute (predictable) algorithms?

So I guess our brains are simply just hardware too. Running what kind of software, now that is the question.

Answer me this: what happens when the brain becomes damaged? Through illness, erosion of time, or broken by injury? Now the software cannot execute as well, the electricity cannot travel through oxygen-starved pieces of flesh, cannot access data from damaged memory banks, cannot form the right words due to a break in the wiring.

What does that mean for these people? Are they no longer the same people they were?

Are they less?

Like an outdated cell phone, with a cracked screen and a faulty battery, no longer able to install updates to keep up with the latest applications. Sorry! You need version 13.0 or later! No, you do not have enough memory to install the latest version. Guess you’re out of luck then. Goodbye.

I refuse to believe we are simply the sum of our thoughts, the weight of our bodies, the sound of our voices. We can’t be, right? Otherwise, what’s the difference between us and machines with replaceable operating systems and upgradeable memories?

Here’s another thought: We are only who other people think we are. Think about it, if we disappear tomorrow, and nobody notices, then one could argue we didn’t actually exist.

We kind of need that acknowledgment, don’t we? After all, it doesn't matter what we tell ourselves in our minds, if nobody else could hear it.

Like Schrodinger’s cat: if nobody opens the box to look inside, then does it really matter if the darn cat is dead or alive?

I think what I’m getting at, is that we can’t possibly be so easily explained like individual pieces of software. We’re more. We are also part of a larger, vastly intricate, interconnected information system. That sounds beautiful, doesn’t it? We are all connected, therefore, we all matter, in one way or another. Our “selves” cannot be defined in isolation without first acknowledging its connection to each other.

Forgive me! I believe I have gone on a tangent now. Also, I think I am changing my original answer to the question.

We are (not) our brains.

I have no idea.

Yep, thats the end of my philosophical wanderings for the day.

Humans are the animals that cross the nature and do extra things .

If we relate ourselves to other animals we'll see that our only work is surviving and reproducing to prevent our extinction but as we all know we do lot of extra things and in these extra things we created the world of internet where our other self exist where we can be anything or anyone and here we are only the mind and not the body we all are virtual here.

So we are body+brain in real life and we are only brain on the internet and the problem is we are giving importance to our internet life more so we are becoming just brain and we are creating most of things for the Muse of our brain like movies, music, virtual games or worlds just for the brain.

So we can say we are becoming more of the brain now a days.

my brain is the fallout

of a nuclear holocaust

in which I destroyed

every iota of mental health

vodka sodas for everyone

would you like one?

my body is a temple

until the party

involves beer pong and shots

my body and brain

are one

making decisions that for sure

lead to self-sabotage and hangover cures

We are neither the body nor the brain. We are the glue that holds the neuroglia, platelets and assorted subchondral osseous tissues from oozing into the vacuous void of the universe, a pink mist of a translucent and truculent goo, just some humanoid cell droppings for an alien spacecraft to clean off his windscreen. I imagine the aliens would have a wash button on the dash that sprays a special windscreen cleaning solution to clean this unmentionable mixture off their shiny spacecraft windscreen.

The glue is not a physical or mental thing, it’s more of an attitude, like the childhood insult about 'I am rubber and you are glue'. Glue is the thing that bonds us together. And by bond, I don’t mean those financial instruments we use to invest that work counter to equities, or that secret agent who drinks things that are shaken and not stirred, I mean those things that help us to hold it all together. For when we choose to give up and no longer hold ourselves together, we might just dissolve into a truculent goo that drifts into space and plops onto the windscreen of a passing alien spaceship and nobody wants that to happen, at least I don’t.

The question has been asked

“Are we the whole body or just the brain?”

My thoughts on this subject are that we are NOT the physical self. Rather we are a Soul wearing a human suit.

Maybe that sounds a little simple but why muck it all up with a lot of fancy words to explain the same thing?

I observed my mother minutes after she died and I can honestly say there is quite a difference between a living body inhabited by a Soul, and a dead body that is Soulless.

An inhabited Soul filled body, has a glow about it. Especially if the soul is a good one and lives to do good.

A body that is uninhabited (Dead) somehow has no glow, has a darkness, or shade over it. It’s not scary, just empty.

So my friend, in my opinion, look not to the body for it is a finite thing, instead look to the ethereal for there you will find infinity and wisdom of eternity.

How can we be so sure that we are only the brain? Or only the body? Or better yet how do we even know that we weren't something else before that?

Just because we are human beings and we have brain and a body, doesn't mean that it is something we had before!

I tend to think that we existed even before that! Like before having bones, brain, hands, body etc, we might have been in the air waiting to evolve into something else. Like butterflies before becoming that, they were something else and then they evolved.

Like technology, like weapons, like everything!

Nothing of those were existing but there were only an idea away or problem solved away.

Were I to disappear tomorrow, what would be left?

Some baubles or trinkets.

Silly scribblings about a life incomplete.

Some lucky people's fond memories, or some unlucky ones with less.

Am I greater than the sum of my parts, or just one of many, that doesn't matter?

Cogito, Ergo sum or Vini Vidi Vici.

I'd love to say I am because I came, saw and conquered,

But I've done none of those.

Is my child my legacy?

Or my dreams unfulfilled?

Are the lives I've touched better because of me?

Have I touched many at all?

I ask myself these questions a lot.

The body is finite, as is the mind that inhabits it.

Does the spirit in the mind, the spark that is us, transcend to some other place?

It's a fine thought, or not. Heaven or hell not withstanding.

I believe the spirit is as finite as the body and mind.

All wink out of existence at the same time, when the last breath is drawn.

When the last thought is had.

So what is left?

What we've built? Or written? or Sung?

What if there are no statues in our honor when the body has long turned to dust?

I believe that in the end, we are the sum total of people's misconceptions of us.

And as those memories fade, have I made enough of an impression,

For anyone to remember me?

Our brain is in a way, the central processing unit to a system that needs every part of its being in order to function. Our brain, our bodies, and our spirit (i.e personality) play a large role in the universe in the terms of instinct, creation, and expression. Once can find purpose simply by realizing that humanity and all that composes it is but a mere expression and awareness of the universe itself. We create just as the universe has done, and we are self aware so that the universe has a being to know of its events and its existence.

That being said, we are composed of not just brain or body, but both and all else. We are people composed of parts that assist each other in life, all of which hold equal and vital importance in life