Who is I? The possessor of my body, mind, and spirit?

[Spectrum]

If the body, as the op suggests, does not belong to us, is that not mystical in itself? When is something day-to-day things and when is something not a day-to-day thing, that seems to be the question here. If my body is a day-to-day thing, it is ordinary, not extraordinary and it belongs to me; if it does not belong to me it is a mystical notion. Do you agree?

The main question of the OP is the typical 'Who Am I?"

"if it does not belong to me it is a mystical notion."
It is only a mystical notion if "me" [the self] is taken to be an entity that is independent of the external world and survives physical death.
Note Hume and many others [e.g. Kant, Eastern philosophies] has argued the self do not exists independently.

If the self is viewed as a psychological entity, i.e. an emergent self, then there is no issue when we view the "me" as owner of the empirical physical body and mental mind.

There are many perspectives to view the "I" in their relevant context and they are relatively true as long the "I" is not regarded an entity that is independent of the external world and survives physical death.

[-1-]

If the body, as the op suggests, does not belong to us,

I haven't suggested that our body does not belong to us. I suggested that there is an elusive "I" that it belongs to. That the "I" is not our body, not our soul, not our spirit. Two totally different concepts.

The main question of the OP is the typical 'Who Am I?"

There are many perspectives to view the "I" in their relevant context and they are relatively true as long the "I" is not regarded an entity that is independent of the external world and survives physical death.

What's excrete, i.e. independent of the discrete world, is possibly the soul.

The "I" I am looking for does not have characteristics, does not have an extent, does not have dimensions, does not have anything, except it owns (has ownership) of the body, mind and soul. It exists only as an owner; once the body, mind and soul are separated from the "I", the "I" dismantles its own existence.

You can call this mystical. I guess. I would not call it mystical, because it's part of hard, current reality. It is as far removed from reality as a dolphin or his obsession with Immanuel Kant's "Demagogia".

[Spectrum]

What's excrete, i.e. independent of the discrete world, is possibly the soul.

I have no issue if you say it is relatively independent but not absolutely independent like a soul that survives physical death.

The "I" I am looking for does not have characteristics, does not have an extent, does not have dimensions, does not have anything, except it owns (has ownership) of the body, mind and soul. It exists only as an owner; once the body, mind and soul are separated from the "I", the "I" dismantles its own existence.

"the "I" dismantles its own existence" sounds very odd.

What we have is the emergence of self-awareness and therefrom the "I" or ego-consciousness.
The higher primates and other animals with self-consciousness do not have an "I," ego or me-consciousness and an independent individuality.

The "I" do not dismantles its own existence. Rather the sense of self or "I-ness" is dependent on the specific neural algorithm that generate this "I-ness".
If there are changes to the various elements of the specific neural alogorithm for I-ness, then the degree of I-ness changes.
This degree of I-ness can be altered by drugs, hallucinogens, meditations, various conditioning, damage to the neurons, atrophy due to aging, etc.

[Ranvier]

-1-
What am I?... This is a question that must be viewed from a full range of different perspectives. Although, I must point out that it might be somewhat strange to describe “I” as the “owner” of the body or the “spirit”. One is in command and control of own body but one is not in the relationship of “ownership” of the body. The body would then be as much in ownership of “I” as I’m in the ownership of the body. It becomes one and the same “I”. Of course we can take a reductionist approach in asking how many body parts can be removed and still retain self? Naturally, what can be described as self is still there but it will no longer be the same as before. It’s the brain that houses a collection of memories and experiences that the body had perceived through senses giving rise to the mind that distinguishes self from the external environment in context of such mind. Yet there is one more aspect of self that can only be claimed by sentient humans in holding the consciousness of such mind. It’s that consciousness that is most puzzling to us. Consciousness becomes an integration of higher brain functions in own description of mind through language and the perception of such mind by others. One can be convinced of own rationality but when repeatedly confronted by disagreement of others, one may begin to question their own sanity. On the flip side, one couldn’t be certain of sanity even when most people engage in similar behavior, as heard from mother… “if all your friends where jumping off of the cliff, would you jump as well?” However, we do need others to gain insight into self. Not only to learn about our own individuality of unique thinking but the nature of subjective thought. I think it was Greta, who mentioned that we can Google any concept only to find that there were already thousands of people that thought about such concept. That being true I haven’t found yet a single person that would share my values. Therefore, you can’t learn the answer to such question from others, who can at best only help you to draw your own conclusions.

[Razblo]

-1-
What am I?... This is a question that must be viewed from a full range of different perspectives. Although, I must point out that it might be somewhat strange to describe “I” as the “owner” of the body or the “spirit”. One is in command and control of own body....

Really? Are you beating your heart or drawing air?

[Socrateaze]

If the body, as the op suggests, does not belong to us, is that not mystical in itself? When is something day-to-day things and when is something not a day-to-day thing, that seems to be the question here. If my body is a day-to-day thing, it is ordinary, not extraordinary and it belongs to me; if it does not belong to me it is a mystical notion. Do you agree?

The main question of the OP is the typical 'Who Am I?"

"if it does not belong to me it is a mystical notion."
It is only a mystical notion if "me" [the self] is taken to be an entity that is independent of the external world and survives physical death.
Note Hume and many others [e.g. Kant, Eastern philosophies] has argued the self do not exists independently.

If the self is viewed as a psychological entity, i.e. an emergent self, then there is no issue when we view the "me" as owner of the empirical physical body and mental mind.

There are many perspectives to view the "I" in their relevant context and they are relatively true as long the "I" is not regarded an entity that is independent of the external world and survives physical death.

Yes, I don't believe we survive physical death, all we can leave is a legacy.

[Ranvier]

-1-
What am I?... This is a question that must be viewed from a full range of different perspectives. Although, I must point out that it might be somewhat strange to describe “I” as the “owner” of the body or the “spirit”. One is in command and control of own body....

Really? Are you beating your heart or drawing air?

Pons and medulla oblongata of my brain stem controls the heart rate and breathing, although I can consciously take a breath or increase my heart rate by jumping up and down...I don't quite get the question in context of quoting me.

-- Updated August 6th, 2017, 6:01 am to add the following --

The reason I stated..."viewed from a full range of different perspectives"... was to say that if you describe what you see, then this is indicative of who you are.

[Razblo]

(Nested quote removed.)

Really? Are you beating your heart or drawing air?

Pons and medulla oblongata of my brain stem controls the heart rate and breathing, although I can consciously take a breath or increase my heart rate by jumping up and down...I don't quite get the question in context of quoting me.

My point was that you are not in fact controlling the functions of your body. Do you think my statement is somehow controversial or 100% untrue? Should we not mention or discuss such facts? Am I out of order in the context that is this topic? By all means feel free to let me know.

[Ranvier]

I see, well I will never tell anyone that they are "out of order" on any topic or their method of expressing their mind. Although, it's best to share thoughts rather than enter into contention about one's statement. It was I after all who alluded to an observation that the body, mind, and "spirit" is rather an integrated system of self. In other words mind influences the body and in turn the body influences the mind. Was I out of order?

[Razblo]

I see, well I will never tell anyone that they are "out of order" on any topic or their method of expressing their mind. Although, it's best to share thoughts rather than enter into contention about one's statement. It was I after all who alluded to an observation that the body, mind, and "spirit" is rather an integrated system of self. In other words mind influences the body and in turn the body influences the mind. Was I out of order?

Sure, but it was the "control" term you used that I was questioning.

I should speak for this body, I suppose. I admit to not controlling the heart function. For that matter I am not controlling thought function. The degree of control with regard to thoughts that I experience would be whether to pay particular attention to them, as I would if I was sitting an exam, for instance, or choosing to express them publicly or not.

I don't feel I control what thoughts arise because I am not generally in charge or in control of every event that arises for there to BE a thought about any particular spontaneously arising event.

On breathing, I could hold my breath for a little while but eventually and inevitably my body takes back charge again and continues breathing without any control by me. If I try to limit breathing it will force itself back to it's own rhythm.

Am I making sense? Am I wrong?

[Ranvier]

You're not wrong, I get you completely. It's just lately I'm under impression that whenever I speak my mind, people don't try to understand what I wish to convey but latch on to a single word (quite obvious in my mind) that I must explain. The reason I stated that I'm in control of my body is that if I decided to put a bullet in my head, then that would essentially result as end of my mind as well as the body.

-- Updated August 6th, 2017, 7:04 am to add the following --

People are so narrow minded that it's like talking to radical Theists in blind mindless faith or reductionist automaton entity of mindless regurgitation of facts. Sorry, I just had to share that impression...

[Razblo]

You're not wrong, I get you completely. It's just lately I'm under impression that whenever I speak my mind, people don't try to understand what I wish to convey but latch on to a single word (quite obvious in my mind) that I must explain. The reason I stated that I'm in control of my body is that if I decided to put a bullet in my head, then that would essentially result as end of my mind as well as the body.

-- Updated August 6th, 2017, 7:04 am to add the following --

People are so narrow minded that it's like talking to radical Theists in blind mindless faith or reductionist automaton entity of mindless regurgitation of facts. Sorry, I just had to share that impression...

Although the bodily-mind resistance encountered to pulling that trigger is almost immeasurably immense. So I think that example of "I control my body" doesn't really stack up well as an argument that we do control our bodies.

It seems to me that environment, including social environment, has greater control over our body's apparent decisions than this presumed "I". It seems more like we are cogs in a wheel.

[Ranvier]

The body is quite complaint with the decisions of my mind, although I must say that I don't always get "bulls eye" when playing darts. It's the consciousness that would put up the resistance to made up mind... Does environment, society, government etc have control over my body? Of course... but it's not a greater control than my mind and definitely not the control of my body decisions or bodily functions. I do understand though what you are referring to as "cogs in the wheel".

[Eduk]

You can control your body yes. Of course it takes considerable effort. For example it is possible to douse yourself with oil and set yourself on fire. This is by no means a simple or easy task but it is possible.

[Gertie]

The way I see it, the term 'I' denotes an experiencing Subject with a sense of being a unified self. And as far as we've observed, such Subjects only exist in material packages/bodies, with identifiable correlates between bodily and mental processes ('neural correlation' for shorthand). However, we don't understand the nature of the relationship between the 'mental experience' and the ' physical body'., which is pretty fundamental need-to-know stuff when discussing things like this

There are some things we can observe, aside from neural correlation. We know we experience mental states as a discrete and unified field of consciousness, with a specific pov moving through time and space, apparently located in a discrete physical working body surrounded by other physical stuff it interacts with. We also construct models and narratives about the exterior world, and about 'ourselves', including having a memory and the ability to introspect, project 'ourselves' into imaginary scenarios, etc. , which contributes to seeing ourselves as having a continuous discrete identity.

I think all this adds up to a sense of being a unified 'I'.

Despite the fact that when we look at brains, the neuronal activity our experiences seem to correlate with, there doesn't appear to be a central command and control centre, a mini-me homunculus watching the cartesian theatre play out and issuing instructions. Rather the brain is more like a highly integrated system of various over-lapping sub-systems. Which suggests the sense of self is a useful construction which helps bring coherence to our models and narratives.

But who knows, maybe the physical world giving rise to subjective experience in particular configurations isn't the real starting place upon which to formulate our ideas, just the way which we find easier to grasp. Without a fundamental understanding of the relationship between the mental and physical, experience and stuff, nobody can say.

But my own feeling is that the evidence we do have strongly suggests each sense of 'I' is irreducibly linked to each lump of physical stuff (body) to which it is correlated, I am my body in that sense. And if I download my neural patterns to a different substrate like a computer and a new identically experiencing Subject is created, that's no longer this 'I', but a different one is created - and I will never step into a Star Trek transporter!

-- Updated August 7th, 2017, 12:40 am to add the following --

tldr - my guess is 'I' is whatever experiences associated with this body here is 'having' at any given moment.