True Self and amputees

The creation of the true self by amputees is almost a paradox. What they are before amputees is not any less TRUE per se. However, the creation of what is the real self then changes what the true self is or needs to be. An amputee doesn't feel right in their original true self, so the amputation provides them with a new, true identity.


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Likewise, for antidepressants (which change brain chemistry), the drugs make some of the people feel "like their true self" and others much more like zombies or not themselves at all. The true self here is not than necessarily produced by medical science, but the desire to control or not control the brain. Especially with pills to "control" a person or "even them out", the issue of where and how it is ok for medical science to intervene becomes fuzzy. Do the people really want to be altered, and why do they feel like it takes the pills to make them feel real?

"In each case, the true self is the one produced by the medical science" (Amputees by Choice; p 111)


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