Me 201me that legs and arms link together in the human body.
Because our bodies are only objects, we sometimes feel that me is also
nothing more than an object. In response, we generally downplay the
connection between me and my body: The man likes to feel that he is more
than a walking wallet; likewise, the woman does not want to be treated as a
sex object. Obviously, the relationship between me and our bodies must be
quite strong, or we would not feel so driven to assert that we are more than
just our physical bodies.
So, in what way is me more than my body? Let us see if we can piece
together an answer from what we know thus far. First of all, object
recognition, we learned previously, is carried out by an interaction between
automatic Mercy thought and automatic Perceiver strategy. We also
discovered that the internal worlds of Mercy and Perceiver thought use the
same type of processing as automatic Mercy and Perceiver strategies. If the
human body is an object, and if automatic Mercy and Perceiver thought
work with objects, then maybe the „more than just my body‟ part of me
involves the internal worlds of Mercy and Perceiver thought.
Now we know that we must be getting warm, for haven‟t we said that
experiences are pulled into the internal world of Mercy strategy through
the step of identification, and this definitely is related to me. But, we have
learned that the interaction between the internal world of Mercy strategy
and the internal world of Perceiver thought involves all sorts of messy
factors such as confidence, emotion, 'facts,' belief, conscience, and guilt. In
other words, as soon as me moves beyond my physical body and enters the
internal world of Mercy thought, then me encounters all of these weird and
wondrous effects. You can see why we find it so easy to equate me with
our physical bodies? That way we don‟t have to worry about hard
questions such as self-image, identity, and the interaction of me with belief
and conscience. On the other hand, maybe we can beat the philosophers at
their own game and come up with some solid answers. So, if we feel
sufficiently brave, let us take our trusty map of the mind and plunge now
into the caverns of the ego.
ME and Mercy Identification
We begin with another look at identification. When I identify with
some experience or situation, I am acting, I suggest, as if it is me. A child,
for instance, will identify with certain toys and clothes. Whatever you do to
those objects, the child feels that you are doing to him. As adults, we often
identify with our work. If the company suffers, then we feel that we are
hurting. Similarly, if the company does well, me also feels good. The
sports fan identifies with his favorite team. He agonizes over its defeats; he
exults over its victories. He feels as if it is actually him who is down on the
field playing in the game. The movie viewer often identifies with the