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Scientists identify brain waves that define the limits of 'you'

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Re: Scientists identify brain waves that define the limits of 'you'

#51
post #22

The idea of "ownership of a body" made me think about a quote I heard a long time ago, while talking amongst musicians while waiting to get up and perform. It felt like some secret knowledge that I gained privilege to, while somewhat inebriated and it hasn't left me since. > I _have_ a body, I _am_ a soul. Maybe what they're identifying is the first half of that statement, how we interpret the former, through the pre…

Dualism is almost always unhelpful as a model. Your soul is a process your body runs, they are indistinguishable.

It's useful to have a word for cumulonimbus and models based on that even if you know it's just a particular configuration of the wave function.

Whether personality is entirely based on laws of physics or not - is a separate question.

Re: Scientists identify brain waves that define the limits of 'you'

#52
post #3

FTA: > With a third group of participants, they used a non-invasive technique called transcranial alternating current stimulation to speed up or slow down the frequency of a person's alpha waves. And sure enough, this seemed to correlate with how real a fake hand felt. I know this is largely orthogonal to the article, and I know what “non-invasive” means and why it’s used in this sentence, but it made me chuckle - “t…

“...it's not out of the question that you might have a very minor case of serious brain damage. But don't be alarmed all right...[it’s non-invasive]”

Yes, the good old minor majority.

Re: Scientists identify brain waves that define the limits of 'you'

#54
post #4

The manipulation part is what fascinates me. They didn't just correlate alpha wave frequency with ownership perception. They used transcranial stimulation to artificially speed up or slow down the waves, and the subjective experience changed accordingly. That's a pretty direct causal link between a measurable brain state and something as fundamental as "where does my body end?"

It also makes the self feel uncomfortably fragile

Re: Scientists identify brain waves that define the limits of 'you'

#55

Could possibly be applied to enhance performance in sports. You always hear about how something is an extension of the body to the best athletes.

On the flip side, the paper also suggests a tradeoff - slower alpha made people less sensitive to timing mismatches

Re: Scientists identify brain waves that define the limits of 'you'

#56
post #35

I wonder how those with multiple identities (DID), would affect this measurement. I know there are direct biomarkers in folk with it having to do with the frontal cortex and amygdala, and some neuroimaging being able to note vast differences in processing: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9045405/

I have DID and am also curious how it would affect the measurement. I'm just waking up so I've only skimmed the paper so far, but I suspect the results would differ depending on which of us was fronting.

We've noticed that each of us integrates not just sensory information differently, but we also seem to be "wired" differently.

For instance, we are AuDHD, and I, the primary host, lean strongly to the autism behavioral side, my co-host is somewhere between, and a secondary host leans strongly to the ADHD behavioral side. Things that are easy for me can be hard for another.

We also experience senses very differently. There have been many times where one of us can smell something strongly, switch, and the other can't smell it at all.

This affects other senses as well. When I watch a 24 fps movie at a theater, for about the first 10 minutes, all I see is a strobing of still images before I finally adapt and see motion. My co-host sees continuous motion right from the start. This may relate to the temporal binding window discussed in the paper as a motivation for their research.

Our working hypothesis since we were finally diagnosed has been that identity is, at least in part, an integration of both sensory information as well as how strongly various brain regions are activated by whichever identity or identities are most active at a particular time.

Lastly, we have the ability to "take control" over just part of the body. For example, for whatever reason, the motion of stirring a sauce is difficult to me, but it's trivial for another, so sometimes they'll take control of our arms to stir the pot while cooking. To me it feels like my arms have disappeared and someone else's arms are now attached and stirring the pot. This may be temporal binding window related because we do seem to experience sensory information at different speeds and this might cause us to get that alien hand feeling, which is sort of opposite of the rubber hand illusion.

So, I suspect that each of us would react differently to the rubber hand illusion test.

Re: Scientists identify brain waves that define the limits of 'you'

#59
post #35

I wonder how those with multiple identities (DID), would affect this measurement. I know there are direct biomarkers in folk with it having to do with the frontal cortex and amygdala, and some neuroimaging being able to note vast differences in processing: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9045405/

I have DID and am also curious how it would affect the measurement. I'm just waking up so I've only skimmed the paper so far, but I suspect the results would differ depending on which of us was fronting. We've noticed that each of us integrates not just sensory information differently, but we also seem to be "wired" differently. For instance, we are AuDHD, and I, the primary host, lean strongly to the autism behavior…

I don't have words for how fascinating your post is. Thanks for sharing!

Re: Scientists identify brain waves that define the limits of 'you'

#60
post #54
post #4

The manipulation part is what fascinates me. They didn't just correlate alpha wave frequency with ownership perception. They used transcranial stimulation to artificially speed up or slow down the waves, and the subjective experience changed accordingly. That's a pretty direct causal link between a measurable brain state and something as fundamental as "where does my body end?"

It also makes the self feel uncomfortably fragile

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