> What's the connection between my perspective and my body?
Your body is doing the experiencing. It is what's perceiving.
Your mind is just your body's UI for the world and your body is the user.
Your body is doing the experiencing. It is what's perceiving.
Your mind is just your body's UI for the world and your body is the user.
Because it expresses your thoughts. Your mind has access to them in a way that it does not have access to anyone else's thoughts.
In particular, that access includes memories of having them and taking the actions necessary to post them. If you lost those memories, and your words were not identified as being yours, you would no longer regard them any differently than you do anyone else's (it is not even certain that you would agree with them.)
Note that the above statements involve no presupposition of materialism, but they are consistent with it. In particular, from a physical point of view, it is obvious why one would only have privileged access to one's own thoughts and experiences.
edit: I can use a computer to remind me to use a computer to remind me about something. I can lose the use of my hands and eyes by severing biological wires. I can't pinpoint a distinction between me and the computer. I can't pinpoint a distinction between me and you, other than distance and mechanical connection (which we currently have, with some latency and signal distortion.)
The car is a thing, like your body. The speed is what the car is doing, like your mind is something your brain is doing. No problem, nothing to accept.
My own mind is something I am doing, just as I am typing just now. It should be obvious enough that neither is something you are doing.
"Causation" is purely interpretation; the universe has nothing to do with that. People invented causation to help understand the universe, but there is nothing fundamental about it. So long as you think you need causation of any kind to understand consciousness, you will get nowhere.
No, you cannot deduce dualism from what I said. You filled in assumptions that aren't present and which I don't assert. It's just physicalism (materialism is an outdated term[1]) but would also work for neutral monism[2].
> I can't pinpoint a distinction between me and the computer. I can't pinpoint a distinction between me and you, other than distance and mechanical connection (which we currently have, with some latency and signal distortion.)
What? Maybe you need a psychiatrist now? This sounds like dpersonalization or derealization.
The fun question is, what exactly is connected to those sensors and experiences them and where is the location of that thing?
It's like we're sitting with a VR headset in our brain, playing that game we call life. But, where exactly are we and how is that headset connected to our sensors?
Again, your body.
Think about it. Your body is experiencing what your brain has generated out of your sensory input.
You don't need a homunculus, you are a body. You are your body and there's nothing else to you.
It's like you're asking why is this computer that I generated this data visualization from this data on this computer displaying this data visualization on this computer. Umm, because that's what you asked it to do and that's the default? For anything else to have happened, you would have had to redirect the output to a network and then go receive it on a different computer.
> What does it mean for a body to be "mine?"
You are your body.
> So - does water flowing down a hill have a perspective? Where is it located?
Why would it? Does it sense and produce a mind? Not that I'm aware of. You could go the pansychism route if you want though. See David Chalmers or something.
> can I say that I'm any less the water as I am my hands, even though I'm controlling the water, getting feedback from the water, subjecting the water as much to my nervous system as I am subjecting my hand itself?
According to enactivism, no. [1] In general, see embodied minds theory. [2]
> Why would it? Does it sense and produce a mind?
I don't know what a mind is supposed to be in this context, or its importance. I don't identify my perspective with my thoughts. My thoughts are something a body does. My perspective is just my location. After death, my thoughts will cease. My location will not change.
If you are going to ask questions, you should at least be able to justify their relevance, if asked.
You're obliterated, then perfectly reassembled on the other side. Is that still "you", "subjectively"? Should you or others even care about that question? And, if not, damn, that's ego-killing af.
But you go to sleep every night. Is the person who wakes up "you"? Many of the atoms in the person who woke up were in that person's stomach, and many of the atoms in the person who went to sleep are in the air. Does the difference from the transporter thing matter? No reason it should. The person who went to sleep is not here. The one who woke up can spend that person's money, wear that person's clothes, remember passwords. Close enough is close enough.
You might choose not to spend that person's money, next day. But they won't be needing it, and you do. So, no problem.
If you perceive a problem, you are just tying yourself in knots, and are guaranteed to make no progress.
Of course, I, the original, will not be the copy, but if I go in knowing I'm not the copy, the the copy will come out knowing he's not the copy. Thus, you should go in believing there's a 50% chance you are the copy, and then both the original and the copy will come out with a logically consistent belief.