RE: Can People Share Ownership of the Same Body?
I recall an awareness or imprinting exercise, in which a person can be tricked into mapping a table as part of his sensory network and "feel" pain when the table is struck (with a hammer). It is not far-fetched to imagine that man can extend his awareness to map another as a part of his sensory-motor network. In this conceptual frame, the complaints of feminists, and feminism itself, would be narrowing and compartmentalizing human awareness to achieve separateness. In their search for feminist "rights," they mutilate their union with men, causing division and strife. Individualism also would be an attempt to narrow human awareness to achieve separateness from the group and community.
A baby's awareness encompasses that of the mother's body. Only the painful (traumatic?) realization that a part of his body does not readily answer to his call, does a child finally recognize the separateness of mother and child. Perhaps, group-think, group-identity, group-rule are not such negative concepts; it is only the nefarious individualists who want to divide and separate man from man by narrowing our awareness and shrinking our cognitive map.
Wow, you put it really well!
We live in a world governed by specific laws and traditions etc., and obviously in practical terms every person owns his own body etc. But at least we can ask people to be more compassionate, or responsible with the way they 'lease out' their body. It might seem counterintuitive, but yes when you allow a person access to your body for a long time, that person will feel entitled to it: psychologically that's just the way it works. The law acknowledges that to a degree when a woman gets part of the man's wealth that he earned while they were together. And there are other legal examples. The situation is rather similar to someone who builds a property on land that he doesn't own, merely rents. The right way to go about it would be to take the Buddhist approach of non-attachment. But then human relationships, at least as they currently are, become impossible. I don't know if people realize, but the current culture of "I own my body and can do whatever I want with it" actually makes non-attachment to other people the only rational approach! This is inescapable! No two ways about it! But people wouldn't like that kind of world, in which I practice Zen indifference with all my friends and lovers and relatives! So I think there's a contradiction there somewhere in people's desires.
If I had remembered of that experiment while I was writing the post, I would've included it probably! I don't recall tables, I think it was rather a fake gloved hand placed opposite your real hand, or something.