I would counter that with a paraphrase of a quote from Buckminster Fuller:I lost 50 pounds in the last 2 years. What part of me was those 50 pounds? Am I any less of a person without those 50 pounds?
Your body is not "you" in any significant sense, because the changes in your body and the changes in "you" are not always tied together. Or happen the other way 'round -- you don't change because of your body, you change and that changes your body. Yes there are degrees with which we are slaves to them, the hormones especially, but there is the nature of willpower one can exert (if one chooses, many don't and blame the hormones for things -- i blame them for not fighting the hormones). One has a choice to not be a slave to the addictions of the body, or the chemicals one uses to hide the fact that they're having difficulties controlling them.
(Christian philosphising follows) Our bodies exist to give us a degree of existence not known by others in God's realm of things. The angels don't have them in our sense. We have been given these bodies as a gift, with all the potential for pleasure and pain and all sort of other experiences, and a consciousness to be aware of them and make choices about them that is higher and more complex than the other animals. But the body itself is not "us" to any degree of excluding the conscious mind that can exert control over this body and say "you are not all that I am, I won't let you diminish me like that."
Body is NOT "you"
Your body is not "you" in any significant sense, because the changes in your
body and the changes in "you" are not always tied together. Or happen the other way 'round -- you don't change because of your body, you change and that changes your body. Yes there are degrees with which we are slaves to them, the hormones especially, but there is the nature of willpower one can exert (if one chooses, many don't and blame the hormones for things -- i blame them for not fighting the hormones). One has a choice to not be a slave to the addictions
of the body, or the chemicals one uses to hide the fact that they're having difficulties controlling them.
(Christian philosphising follows) Our bodies exist to give us a degree of existence not known by others in God's realm of things. The angels don't have them in our sense. We have been given these bodies as a gift, with all the potential for pleasure and pain and all sort of other experiences, and a consciousness to be aware of them and make choices about them that is higher and more complex than the other animals. But the body itself is not "us" to any degree of excluding the conscious mind that can exert control over this body and say "you are not all that I am, I won't let you diminish me like that."