The Illusion of the Self

[hiyymer]

I don't see anything to disagree with there, Jim.

By the way, just to reiterate something I mentioned earlier, and was also mentioned in the video on the previous page, saying that the Self is 'illusion' doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Only that its existence is different from what we (behaviorally) conceive it to be. A movie projected onto a theatre screen gives the illusion of 3-dimensional space and beings, but it's actually light on a 2-dimensional surface. Something exists/is going on there, but when we let our minds participate in the story, we participate in the illusion. On one level, we know that it's a movie projected onto a screen, but we suspend that knowledge and get into the movie.

Wrt the Self, seems that a lot of people resist the idea that the physical reality is the body and its activity (analogous to the projection on the 2-D screen) and take the characters in the movie (Self) as real in ways that can't actually be demonstrated. Or, at least, haven't yet been. To my knowledge.

Illusions definitley exist. As illusions.

The hard part is to figure out how the brain/body uses the illusion. The illusion is clearly there because it works as a part of the mechanism. So if the body is creating it, it must be part of the mechanism. Consciousness did not evolve the way it did because its contents are a true representation of physical reality, but rather because it works. So it is not an illusion in the sense that it is frivolous or doesn't matter. Our conscious world is all an illusion; a creation of the brain, and it is all there because it works. It is an illusion that is part of the mechanism by which the body/brain exists in material reality. The self exists in the same way all of our immaterial consciousness exists, but nothing in our experience is exactly the material reality in which it works. In what ways is the immaterial self different from the material body/brain it somehow represents? And if it works, why do we care?

[FBM]

Newtonian physics worked, so why did we keep looking into physics?

[JimC]

It certainly works, but maybe it works too well...

For everyday situations, it usually provides us with a useful stance for making decisions, but if we become wedded to it as an immortal soul, or (non-religiously) as the only valid mental entity we have, it provides a distorted and selfish view of the universe we operate in...

[FBM]

Yeah, I agree, Jim. I see value in working to demolish any illusion that fuels religious fervor to the point of violence. OTOH, if it's just an illusion that gives a sense of comfort, I wouldn't go out of my way to deprive someone of their right to participate in that.

[hiyymer]

It certainly works, but maybe it works too well...

For everyday situations, it usually provides us with a useful stance for making decisions, but if we become wedded to it as an immortal soul, or (non-religiously) as the only valid mental entity we have, it provides a distorted and selfish view of the universe we operate in...

My real point was that our entire conscious experience is an illusion, not just the self. Life teaches us that the self is not the autonomous decider that it at first appears to be. Some protest and turn to rationalism, while others tune into the "higher power". But from outside the mechanism it is all invention that works and not what really materially exists.

[JimC]

It certainly works, but maybe it works too well...

For everyday situations, it usually provides us with a useful stance for making decisions, but if we become wedded to it as an immortal soul, or (non-religiously) as the only valid mental entity we have, it provides a distorted and selfish view of the universe we operate in...

My real point was that our entire conscious experience is an illusion, not just the self. Life teaches us that the self is not the autonomous decider that it at first appears to be. Some protest and turn to rationalism, while others tune into the "higher power". But from outside the mechanism it is all invention that works and not what really materially exists.

"from outside" illustrates the difficulty of choosing a position that is a useful stance for perception (of some sort) to operate from when commenting on human cognition. I don't necessarily have a better phrase, but the choice influences the message...

cognitive mechanism as "invention that works" usefully makes the point that our cognition, just as our cellular arrangement, derives from a process that cobbles together solutions on the fly, from whatever prior bits and pieces were handy.

"not what really materially exists"...

I suspect you mean this phrase as antidote to the concept of a soul, or reified Mind, that can be treated as a thing-in-itself, riding like a jockey in its chariot of meat...

If so, naturally I agree. However, at base, there is nothing but the material action of cells, albeit arranged in a complex manner, whose organisation carries the imprint of information echoing down the years. (Years in their millions, as a gift from the tree of life, and years as in a lifetime, our own...)

If anything could be said to result from this material action, can we view the consequence (from the "outside") as an ever-shifting dynamic pattern of information? If so, the fascinating thing is that "we" can create a relatively permanent internal stance, an ego, from within the ebb and flow...

[GrahamH]

It certainly works, but maybe it works too well...

For everyday situations, it usually provides us with a useful stance for making decisions, but if we become wedded to it as an immortal soul, or (non-religiously) as the only valid mental entity we have, it provides a distorted and selfish view of the universe we operate in...

My real point was that our entire conscious experience is an illusion, not just the self. Life teaches us that the self is not the autonomous decider that it at first appears to be. Some protest and turn to rationalism, while others tune into the "higher power". But from outside the mechanism it is all invention that works and not what really materially exists.

"from outside" illustrates the difficulty of choosing a position that is a useful stance for perception (of some sort) to operate from when commenting on human cognition. I don't necessarily have a better phrase, but the choice influences the message...

cognitive mechanism as "invention that works" usefully makes the point that our cognition, just as our cellular arrangement, derives from a process that cobbles together solutions on the fly, from whatever prior bits and pieces were handy.

"not what really materially exists"...

I suspect you mean this phrase as antidote to the concept of a soul, or reified Mind, that can be treated as a thing-in-itself, riding like a jockey in its chariot of meat...

If so, naturally I agree. However, at base, there is nothing but the material action of cells, albeit arranged in a complex manner, whose organisation carries the imprint of information echoing down the years. (Years in their millions, as a gift from the tree of life, and years as in a lifetime, our own...)

If anything could be said to result from this material action, can we view the consequence (from the "outside") as an ever-shifting dynamic pattern of information? If so, the fascinating thing is that "we" can create a relatively permanent internal stance, an ego, from within the ebb and flow...

An anticyclone on Jupiter has been an ever-shifting pattern for centuries.. There are many,many examples of long-term stability in dynamic patterns. Brains have a much more stable structure at cellar level than a storm. I don't see a fundamental problem with decades-long stability - an eye of the storm. Also, consider that this pattern has a life-long anchor - the body - that ties the senses together to a perceptual centre and provides various stable cycles of stimulation (e.g. pulse, sleep/wake, digestion etc, etc).

[JimC]

Very important point, Graham - the body as anchor. Some interesting SF has been written (e.g. by Greg Egan) about human consciousness manifested in a computer, and the differences that ensue...

And I agree that long-term stability within a dynamic pattern is a reasonably common phenomena - the interesting thing is that it clearly emerges, without "purpose"... However, whether the "whirlpool" exemplar in fluid dynamics ia a truly useful analogy to consciousness is a moot point...

[hiyymer]

"from outside" illustrates the difficulty of choosing a position that is a useful stance for perception (of some sort) to operate from when commenting on human cognition. I don't necessarily have a better phrase, but the choice influences the message...

"From outside" to me simply means the scientific perspective; what we can know from inductive reason separate from our subjective "perception". A Buddhist would say all is perception, but I think the success of science speaks for itself. We can't know for sure that there is a material reality out there which if the ground of all existence, but it seems like a good bet. I have cited many times the Hawking/Mlodinow way of putting it. The evidence supports the view that our actions are determined by the body/brain following the known laws of science, and not by some agent in the mind acting outside of those laws. They mention awake brain surgery, where a physical stimulation of a point in the brain produces in the patient the perception of "I want" to do something; the moment of creation of the agent. The problem is our tendency to drag science, our knowledge of material reality, into the immaterial world in which we live without maintaining the distinction between the two. The real reasons we do anything, the causes, are buried in a mechanism of incredible complexity. I would say that "our" life inside the mechanism is thereby irrational. We may be able to use the analogy of a computer for the brain, but our actions are determined by the whole mechanism; actual physical events called emotions and our perception of them called feelings. The interface to the evolutionary agenda of the mechanism is NOT reason. As Damasio pointed out in his first book, "Descarte's Error", life responses are based on the biological value placed on conscious patterns by the ancient unconscious limbic loop. Our motivations are not our own. You may deny that God materially exists, but you cannot deny that God is as real and useful as anything else in our actual conscious lives inside the mechanism.

[JimC]

"from outside" illustrates the difficulty of choosing a position that is a useful stance for perception (of some sort) to operate from when commenting on human cognition. I don't necessarily have a better phrase, but the choice influences the message...

"From outside" to me simply means the scientific perspective; what we can know from inductive reason separate from our subjective "perception". A Buddhist would say all is perception, but I think the success of science speaks for itself. We can't know for sure that there is a material reality out there which if the ground of all existence, but it seems like a good bet. I have cited many times the Hawking/Mlodinow way of putting it. The evidence supports the view that our actions are determined by the body/brain following the known laws of science, and not by some agent in the mind acting outside of those laws. They mention awake brain surgery, where a physical stimulation of a point in the brain produces in the patient the perception of "I want" to do something; the moment of creation of the agent. The problem is our tendency to drag science, our knowledge of material reality, into the immaterial world in which we live without maintaining the distinction between the two. The real reasons we do anything, the causes, are buried in a mechanism of incredible complexity. I would say that "our" life inside the mechanism is thereby irrational. We may be able to use the analogy of a computer for the brain, but our actions are determined by the whole mechanism; actual physical events called emotions and our perception of them called feelings. The interface to the evolutionary agenda of the mechanism is NOT reason. As Damasio pointed out in his first book, "Descarte's Error", life responses are based on the biological value placed on conscious patterns by the ancient unconscious limbic loop. Our motivations are not our own. You may deny that God materially exists, but you cannot deny that God is as real and useful as anything else in our actual conscious lives inside the mechanism.

Some of what you say here I tend to agree with, but I have some quibbles...

To me, this: "The evidence supports the view that our actions are determined by the body/brain following the known laws of science, and not by some agent in the mind acting outside of those laws."
(which I certainly agree with) is potentially add odds with this:
"The problem is our tendency to drag science, our knowledge of material reality, into the immaterial world in which we live without maintaining the distinction between the two."
Describing our mental life as an "immaterial world" does not really fit with the earlier statement. In practice, it has the same effect as a "ghost in the machine". The fact that thoughts are not actual matter doesn't mean they form a separate category of existence. Our mental life could simply be an epiphenonenom of matter when organised in a particular way.

"You may deny that God materially exists, but you cannot deny that God is as real and useful as anything else in our actual conscious lives inside the mechanism."

Thinking about god is, in principle, not different to thinking about democracy, or the theory of relativity. That, however, is a long way from god being "real" in our conscious lives.

However, the "useful" part is highly debatable. It has no use as an explanation of how the material universe works. It may provide some people with a measure of emotional security or moral guidance (both of which can be sourced elsewhere), but it is equally likely to plunge people into guilt, or a pattern of dependence on a church and its leaders.

[hiyymer]

However, the "useful" part is highly debatable. It has no use as an explanation of how the material universe works. It may provide some people with a measure of emotional security or moral guidance (both of which can be sourced elsewhere), but it is equally likely to plunge people into guilt, or a pattern of dependence on a church and its leaders.

This is what I would call failing to distinguish between what we know about material reality from inductive reasoning, and the lives we live inside the mechanism. You resist that God is not a concept or idea, but rather an experience. That is how anyone who has a God in their consciousness will describe it. God is another agent, like you or me or the dog fido, who represents some part of the mechanism; one could say the part that is beyond the immaterial self in the mind, the "higher power". A color blind person has a different "belief" in colors than I do, because of the fact that the colors their brain creates are different than most other peoples'. Colors are less "real". I would say that even an atheist, like myself, who has trouble experiencing God as an agent, intuitively understands what the agent is.

That is the second place that I would disagree with you. From inside the mechanism I can be emotionally repelled by the brutality in which God is implicated, but I cannot deny that from outside the mechanism brutal behavior is part of the mechanism. As Jane Goodall discovered to her dismay, the Chimpanzee living in the bliss of their natural habitat, is capable of incredible brutality; tearing each other limb from limb to be left dying in pain; the enforcement of the territorial mechanism. From inside the mechanism we resist, we delude ourselves that we can change who we are, either by force of reason or by getting closer to God; the part, that like all life, propels us towards homeostasis. We insist that our way is the only way and "they" don't get it. And it all melts into the existential conundrum; making the other guy wrong. It is what it is. This is what puzzles me about the rationalist stance; the Sam Harris "Moral Landscape". It requires a leap of faith that is not supported by reason; the Dawkins slight of hand, that overrides the "selfish genes" and renders the "us" in our minds autonomous deciders. I don't object to their stand for tolerance, but I can't imagine why they think it is supported by reason or science.

[GrahamH]

However, the "useful" part is highly debatable. It has no use as an explanation of how the material universe works. It may provide some people with a measure of emotional security or moral guidance (both of which can be sourced elsewhere), but it is equally likely to plunge people into guilt, or a pattern of dependence on a church and its leaders.

This is what I would call failing to distinguish between what we know about material reality from inductive reasoning, and the lives we live inside the mechanism. You resist that God is not a concept or idea, but rather an experience. That is how anyone who has a God in their consciousness will describe it. God is another agent, like you or me or the dog fido, who represents some part of the mechanism; one could say the part that is beyond the immaterial self in the mind, the "higher power". A color blind person has a different "belief" in colors than I do, because of the fact that the colors their brain creates are different than most other peoples'. Colors are less "real". I would say that even an atheist, like myself, who has trouble experiencing God as an agent, intuitively understands what the agent is.

That is the second place that I would disagree with you. From inside the mechanism I can be emotionally repelled by the brutality in which God is implicated, but I cannot deny that from outside the mechanism brutal behavior is part of the mechanism. As Jane Goodall discovered to her dismay, the Chimpanzee living in the bliss of their natural habitat, is capable of incredible brutality; tearing each other limb from limb to be left dying in pain; the enforcement of the territorial mechanism. From inside the mechanism we resist, we delude ourselves that we can change who we are, either by force of reason or by getting closer to God; the part, that like all life, propels us towards homeostasis. We insist that our way is the only way and "they" don't get it. And it all melts into the existential conundrum; making the other guy wrong. It is what it is. This is what puzzles me about the rationalist stance; the Sam Harris "Moral Landscape". It requires a leap of faith that is not supported by reason; the Dawkins slight of hand, that overrides the "selfish genes" and renders the "us" in our minds autonomous deciders. I don't object to their stand for tolerance, but I can't imagine why they think it is supported by reason or science.

God is an experienced agent? It seems that is rather rare. How many people actually have experiences of god, rather than experiences all of us have they they attribute to god? For the vast majority I think god is an idea that they map to ordinary experiences. Your own inner dialog attributed to god is the application of an idea, not an experience of god.

Can you say some more about what you mean by "God is not a concept or idea, but rather an experience."

Using an idea of what someone else would think about your behaviour is a tool for social living. The idea of god is a way of using that tool.

[hiyymer]

Can you say some more about what you mean by "God is not a concept or idea, but rather an experience."

All I'm say is that people experience God the same way they experience themselves or other people. God talks to them, tells them what to do, has a plan for them, is in control, acts in mysterious ways. Well of course. The real reasons for our actions are totally "mysterious". God is the agent for the mechanism. God is "us". Is your "self" an idea?

[GrahamH]

Can you say some more about what you mean by "God is not a concept or idea, but rather an experience."

All I'm say is that people experience God the same way they experience themselves or other people. God talks to them, tells them what to do, has a plan for them, is in control, acts in mysterious ways. Well of course. The real reasons for our actions are totally "mysterious". God is the agent for the mechanism. God is "us". Is your "self" an idea?

This doesn;t seem to be the case for the vas majority of people. In a few rare exceptions people may have exceptional experiences, see lights, hear voices as if out loud etc.
I think most religious people merely have an inner dialogue and identify the thoughts on one side of the dialogue as god ("still small voice" is a phrase sometimes used).
How many people get clear "messages from god" telling them what to do? My impression is that most people turn to the Bible or the priest, or thier own conscience to formulate what they think they ought to do. They may well attribute that process to god, but that is not experiencing god telling them what to do.

I very much doubt that "god is the agent".

"Is your "self" an idea?"
Not quite, because an idea is something we are aware of having. However, in a slightly different sense, yes, I think my "self" is an idea. I think my brain recognises (responds to or maps out) events relative to reference point that us normaly located spatially, temporally and semantically in the body that is also maps in the world. Some events are rated as more salient than others, especially those taking most neural resources, and these are interpreted cognitively as what the "self" is aware of right now.

[hiyymer]

I would still say that an agent is not anything in material reality, is not an "idea" or a "thought", but is in the plumbing; is how the brain makes sense of material reality. I remember years ago seeing a tv documentary showing a robot experiment where some rather simple robots were programmed to respond in certain ways to stimuli, and then put in a room together. The "emergent" behavior was very life like. In watching it, the impression was inescapable that the robots were living agents, watching out for their individual well-being. At the time it was puzzling to me. I would say now that the emergent property of agency had nothing to do with the robots or their material reality. It is entirely something going on in the head of the observer. The agent doesn't have to talk to you directly, but it is still an agent; an invention of consciousness. What it refers to is like the robots.