You're not yours, who's are you?

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Permalink Reply by Jason on December 10, 2008 at 6:38am

I think your mind is the only thing you truly own. You can change the way you think, no-one else can. You may be influenced but ultimately its in your 'own' hands.

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Permalink Reply by Oliver Gibbons on December 10, 2008 at 10:19am

I think your body belongs to you, because it is you. It should belong to you by default. That's why I think drugs should be legal, because you should be able to do whatever you want to your own body.

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Permalink Reply by Opus V on December 10, 2008 at 2:19pm

If we control our bodies, why can't we choose not to die. "Ownership" of your body is temporary(death) now isn't temporary ownership borrowing? hmm..

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Permalink Reply by Jason on December 11, 2008 at 5:46am

When writing my reply I thought about owning our own bodies but I decided against it because people can control where our bodies go. As a kid your parents control where you go and a big part of what you do. When in a job, people can tell you what to do, and you have to do it to stay in the job. When a country is at war and decides it needs to introduce a conscription, you get drafted and you go off to war.

So I felt in a sense, your body is not totally yours as other people can control it to an extent.

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Permalink Reply by isabella on December 12, 2008 at 6:19pm

I agree with Jason.
What about if you get very old, and people basicaly control your entire life because of your inability to live on your own? When it gets to that point, other people have a bit too much control over a person by my standards to say that their body belongs to them anymore.

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Permalink Reply by tubejay on December 10, 2008 at 9:53pm

property is theft. the premise that we own our bodies and minds is a valuable logical construct when formulating an ethical system of justice, but as a general philosophy it sucks ass because a. it still compares a sentient being to property (and that always sucks,) and b. it ignores and contradicts the reality that are minds and bodies are so relatively insignificant except when we share them. without that sharing we're the tree that falls in the woods and no one hears.

imagine a world with no books, that is a perfect example of a society in which the mind is not shared. or imagine going to a friend's house and not being allowed to watch anything or eat anything with your friend on tv without paying an admission fee. so there may be limited merit in property, and yet the more property there is, the more theft there is. we'd live in a better world if we took more care in that regard, and the best people on earth give as much of themselves as they can while still enjoying their labor.

"whose are you?" therefore is a loaded question. it presupposes that we can be owned, and the premise that property itself is a legitimate and just concept (that much we take for granted as an aspect of modern culture, but not the sum of human culture.)

so it's not "whose," but "whom." and as popeye so eloquently put it, i yam what i yam.

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Permalink Reply by Opus V on December 12, 2008 at 10:03pm

I'm usually careful not to give my point of view when making a post, I feel like i'll end up puting the thread on "tracks" that others feel the need to stay within, I guess I'd rather listen to opinions than share my own. That being said, you basically pointed out the major flaw with the idea of ownership, I agree, the idea of ownership is just that, an idea, one we created, it doesn't truly exist in the way we would like it to.

Ownership is in the same category as time(in my opinion) they are both concepts created by man, they are nothing but a bunch of rules and definitions, but neither one truly exists. I think this is something I had a hard time accepting for a while, but in the end, popeye was right, it's really that simple.

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