"You are what you touch"

[Don Coyote]

 

Ok after the childish giggling has subsided.

Looks like that old cliche about treating the sword/pen/car as an extension of your body might have some scientific evidence behind it.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=you-are-what-you-touch

Studies of monkeys learning to use a rake to obtain distant objects show that this may be more than a mere metaphor. Multisensory brain cells respond both to touch on the hand or visual objects appearing near the hand. When the monkeys used the rake, these cells began to respond to objects appearing anywhere along the length of the tool, suggesting the brain represented the rake as actually being part of the hand.

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/21/7/1000

Our experiments provide empirical support for the notion that objects can be integrated into an extended sense of the body.

[Jasper]

I've suspected as much for years, but never had proof I could point to.  Still, if you pay attention to the subtle sense of familiar objects, you can prove it to yourself.

[Telarus]

The Universe is an extension from my center, in the same way that books/media are 'offsite data storage' for my mind.

I remember reading a blurb about them investigating this recently. Good to see some results. I've not only experienced this, but it has improved my martial arts techniques as the mental state became easier to access. One of the primary points of Chi exercises with weapons is to incorporate the new "appendage" into the total coordination of the neuro-somatic system. I.E. accomplishing the nerve activation consciously, instead of unconsciously.

[Rumckle]

All that stuff seems like semantics really, there are just many different boundaries you can draw between yourself and the outside world, it really just depends on what is useful for the situation.

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

I think it's more than just semantics.  I've noticed that often when I am using a device or tool, it really feels like it is a natural part of myself, but it only happens with things that I am proficient enough in its use that I don't have to consciously think about how to use it.

Cool to see some science behind this phenomenon.

[LMNO]

I feel something like this when I play the drums.  The sticks feel like natural extensions of my hands.

[Jasper]

Yes. 

Anything I'm really familiar with, like my chef knife, or a pencil, I have really visceral recognition of it.  When someone else is spinning a pencil in their hands the way I do, I can nearly feel the thing in my hand.  When someone misuses my knife or god forbid drops it, I feel a deep pang of discomfort in my guts, but that is possibly only tangentially related.

[Xooxe]

My arms would vanish while spinning nunchaku.

[Jasper]

How so?  You mean you'd stop sensing/controlling them consciously?

[Rumckle]

I think it's more than just semantics.  I've noticed that often when I am using a device or tool, it really feels like it is a natural part of myself, but it only happens with things that I am proficient enough in its use that I don't have to consciously think about how to use it.

I'm not saying that it doesn't work, I was more thinking along the lines of you can draw the line between person and universe in many places.

ie You can have a pain in your arm, but not in your drum stick. By the same token, you can have your arm removed without adverse effects on your mental self, but not half your brain.

[Xooxe]

How so?  You mean you'd stop sensing/controlling them consciously?

Yes, but still aware of the actual nunchaku. I figured that when you're passing them between hands in a fluid motion, the awareness of having separate limbs starts to make less sense.

[Jasper]

I think it's more than just semantics.  I've noticed that often when I am using a device or tool, it really feels like it is a natural part of myself, but it only happens with things that I am proficient enough in its use that I don't have to consciously think about how to use it.

I'm not saying that it doesn't work, I was more thinking along the lines of you can draw the line between person and universe in many places.

ie You can have a pain in your arm, but not in your drum stick. By the same token, you can have your arm removed without adverse effects on your mental self, but not half your brain.

Phantom limbs.

Body image is more fluid than you may suppose.  Ramachandran's "Phantoms in the Brain" is an interesting book for this sort of thing.

[Rumckle]

Phantom limbs.

Body image is more fluid than you may suppose.  Ramachandran's "Phantoms in the Brain" is an interesting book for this sort of thing.

Perhaps I'm not making myself clear. I agree with what you're saying (I think), the way we define ourselves is fluid, and any distinction we make between ourselves and our environment can change depending on context.

[Telarus]

Phantom limbs.

Body image is more fluid than you may suppose.  Ramachandran's "Phantoms in the Brain" is an interesting book for this sort of thing.

Perhaps I'm not making myself clear. I agree with what you're saying (I think), the way we define ourselves is fluid, and any distinction we make between ourselves and our environment can change depending on context.

With the caveat that we rarely have conscious control of drawing that line.

[Kai]

This is awesome. I love psychosomatics so much.

This sounds like a normal case of sensory synesthesia, normal in the sense that it's something most everyone experiences, rather than the extraordinary kinds.