Phantom Limbs
When we ask ourselves what is knowledge (as we do when we are engaged in the process of philosophy) we are effectively asking what is our relationship with the world. V.S. Ramachandran - as is the norm for philosophers - asks the question about our relationship to the world by using what at first might seem to be a relatively trivial issue, or at least one that very few of us shall ever actually have to worry about, which is the question of phantom limbs, the subject of both Ramachandran's interest and our own.
The desire to know and the desire to discover are essentially active, even aggressive actions taken on the part of consciousness to acquire pieces or aspects of the world. When we seek knowledge, we seek to take into our minds (and so to take into our bodies physically) something that exists in the world. We seek through knowledge to dismantle the world and so to come to possess it.
This is of course an ongoing concern of philosophical discourse. Jean-Paul Sartre, for example, argues for this model of knowledge, arguing that it is a sort of black hole, something that uses the primordial forces of cognition and reason to draw the world into the self. We construct ourselves out of bits of the real world; thus we cannot in any sense argue that knowledge and self are different entities since we actively create who we are through our active acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge is the process of choosing which pieces of the world to incorporate. Thus knowledge is the process of making ourselves responsible for the world around us. In other words - or at least this is the Sartrean position, and Ramachandran would not necessarily disagree - is not merely a collection of facts. It is the active way in which we interact with the world around us. It is linked to our state of being.
Related to this question of the nature of knowledge is of course the question of what is the nature of the self. The question of self is one often expressed in philosophy as the question of "being" (as opposed to, or in addition to) "knowing" and has been of primary concern for many if not most philosophers, who have argued that whatever certainties may be possible in our world must come from an understanding of our authentic self, the core of our individuality.
But questions of the self are not so simple as they first seem - and they are hardly seemingly simple even at first glance. And it is to suggest at the complexity of one of the most seemingly simple ontological questions (Who are we in the sense of we do our bodies begin and end) that Ramachandran takes up the issue of phantom limbs.
We should first here define the concepts of phantom limb and phantom pain:
Imagine having your arm cut off and still being able to feel where your arm used to be. That is what it is like to have a phantom limb. People with this condition feel that the limb (an arm or leg) that was removed is still present and they often feel pain, and sometimes pleasure. Usually the pain is mild and is only a small distraction. However, some people describe the pain and other symptoms of phantom limb as totally unbearable. When a person experiences pain from phantom limb, this is often referred to as phantom pain.
More commonly, people with phantom limb feel other abnormal sensations in the missing limb besides pain. The pain and abnormal sensations are typically in the form of stabbing, cramping, burning, or crushing sensations. Warmth, itchiness, and squeezing sensations are other symptoms that are commonly reported. These sensations can occur continuously or they can occur only some of the time. Stress usually makes the symptoms of phantom limb worse
People with phantom limb usually perceive the arm or leg to be in a certain position, and sometimes, the arm or leg is perceived to move. They may also feel that when a different body part is touched (such as the face) that a limb is being touched (such as an arm). Some people with phantom limb experience a symptom known as telescoping, in which the imagined limb slowly shrinks ((http://www.medfriendly.com/phantomlimb.html).
There are clearly purely medical (i.e. therapeutic) issues to be dealt with in terms of phantom pain. But the idea of phantom limbs is a more salubrious one and allows us - or rather allows Ramachandran to examine how it is that our interior sense of self matches some objective measure of that self. We think that...
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