Annemarie asked:

Is movement and having a body essential for self consciousness?

Well for me as a first year philosophy student with very little reading under my belt it sounds to me
like the question is asking can a mind exist without a body, but I may well be and probably am way of
the mark. I am thinking along the lines of computers or machines.

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No, you aren't way off the mark.

Though as I see it the question also applies to disembodied existence and whether this is possible.
We can conceive of a mind without a body which allows many people to believe in a soul. We can say
it is possible in the sense that people can believe in the soul, but when you look into the nature of the
mental it doesn't look like a natural possibility. Thought is now taken to be affective, not a purely
rational process. If it was a purely rational process it couldn't give rise to an idea of "self" which
perhaps arises from body awareness and emotionally charged thought. Whether thought can be
affective, or emotionally charged, when a being is disembodied is physically doubtful.

Factually, the biological nature of an organic being and neural activity in the brain are known to give
rise to both thought and emotion.

You could look at Damasio's Looking for Spinoza. Damasio thinks that body imaging is essential for
self-consciousness. In particular it is necessary for feeling. Feeling, for Damasio, is a conscious or
mental state, whereas emotion is physical. How could the emotion associated with fear — a sudden
bodily rigidity and hastening of the heart beat be replicated in a computer so that it could give rise to
feeling?

For Damasio, it is through feeling that we learn to go for things or avoid them. But you can't have
feeling without bodily emotion. Can you imagine a disembodied being having feelings? What would a
purely mental fear be or a mental love? Conceptually, fear implies being rooted to the spot or running
away. Love implies physical movement towards that which is loved.

Consciousness is about mental states, but self-consciousness brings the idea of an individual.
Self-consciousness is only possible if there is consciousness, but goes beyond it. A series of
perceptions might amount to consciousness, but the concept of self-consciousness implies continuity:
Memory and planning for the future in the light of the past which in turn suggests caring about the
future and being in some subjective way related to one's own past.

It is unlikely that computers and machines could achieve this. Most people don't ascribe
consciousness to machines. We don't suppose they have subjective experience, consciousness or a
self.

On movement, you might consider perception and whether visual sensory experiences are sufficient
for perception of spatiality. As a first year student it might be appropriate to look at Berkeley's New
Theory of Vision. Also you might look at a modern paper published on the internet such as Rick
Grush's "Skill and spatial content". This can be found through
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/online2.html. You will be able to find out about Searle's Chinese
Room argument at this site too. Searle believes that nothing other than something built along the
lines of an organic being can think. If you think otherwise, you will find support in arguments against
him.

Rachel Browne

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