The Illusion of the Self

[GrahamH]

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.

What's the difference between an idea/thought and "entirely something going on in the head of the observer"?

[rasetsu]

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.

The neuroscience is tending to confirm this view. To try to clarify for Graham, presuming I understand you correctly, our brains use the same circuits in "experiencing God" that they use in attributing mind in other circumstances and stimuli. When I'm talking to someone, I attribute the words as coming from a mind which belongs to the body which is speaking the words. But I never see the mind, nor infer it through a chain of reasoning. It's just an automatic assumption of our brain that is necessary for us to function as a social being in a social species. If we had to determine if mind was present and where mind was located every time we hear a voice, we wouldn't survive long. A similar thing is apparently happening with God, in the sense that our "mind attributing" machinery is "seeing" mind where it doesn't exist, but it is experienced the same way, as an immediate, tangible aspect of experience. It has also been found that when people reason about the thoughts of others, a specific part of the brain lights up. When they reason about their own thoughts, a different part lights up. Yet when they reason about God's thoughts, the part that lights up is the same as when they are reasoning about their own thoughts. But both perceptions differ from ideas in that ideas are something present to the conscious mind as belonging to the conscious mind; these "projections," for lack of a better word, appear as external to the mind in the same way that external stimuli do. If we look at an apple and see that it has a bite out of it, we don't call the brute perception of the apple an "idea" (unless you're a Humean). And if we discover the apple to be a holographic projection, we still don't lump it in the category of idea (I'm tempted to use the phrase "mere idea," as that appears to be Graham's point, that the appearance has no reality; however that's going beyond the data — the mind experiences it as real in the same way it experiences other "real" phenomena, and in that sense it is real). Now if we suddenly wake up, and realize the apple was just part of a dream, is the apple then just an idea? I'm not altogether sure, myself, but that may reflect my skepticism that the distinction between "real" and "not real, but idea," such as Graham appears to be arguing is unsustainable. I doubt that distinction can be rationally maintained.

[GrahamH]

My point was that normal people "experiencing god" do not experience anything external communicating with them. If you see an apple with bite out of it you may think your friend bit it, or that the apple fairy materialised anf took a bite, or that Goad Almighty has a thing for apples and he bit it. These are all ideas. What you don;t have is any experience of fairies or gods eating apples in front of you. It is easy to tell the difference between sensory experience and "the still small voice of god" or the idea while flicking through your Bible your hand is imperceptibly guided by the Holy Ghost to get you to read what God wants you to know.

No doubt some people have full-on sensory hallucinations of gods etc, but I think that is very rare.

The idea of gods agency in guiding your life is an idea, not a sensory experience. You have to read it into mundane events. You have to tell yourself that "everything happens for a reason" and make up a vaguely plausible reason to justify that idea.

I'm not suggesting that "the appearance has no reality". Rather, I'm suggesting there is not usually anything special about the experiences attributed to god. They are not experiences of a god agent, they are assumptions of agency unseen.

Now, I'm not speaking from experience. Maybe you have "heard the voice of God" and maybe it seemed to be a sensory experience external to you.

The idea that there might be an agent behind an experience does not justify the statement that "god is an agent", unless you want to redefine "agent" to mean any idea that influences your behaviour. There are line of thought that go this way - memes and temes, for example.

[hiyymer]

The distinction of a "sensory experience" is from inside the mechanism. There are no direct experiences of what exists. Our experiences are entirely created by the brain; patterns of neurons firing that "work" in material reality; but are not material reality. The only way we can presume to know material reality is indirectly through science; inductive reasoning. And that is even a little dicey. Any physicist will tell you that the color blue does not "exist" in the sky. All that's out there is a pile of molecules and energy waves/particles; or at least something like that is the current version of the best scientific explanation we have of what's out there. "Some people" does not exist. Their bodies do not exist except as a billion cells that interact in ways that are explainable in principle but not in real time. There is no control center out there in a body. It is not a scientific or rational train of "thought" to refer to ideas and thoughts as if the agent is their source.

http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/artic ... eID=101921

I am always fascinated by this article. Turn off the limbic loop, disrupt the mechanism, and it all goes away. There are material causes for the brain creating "I wanting" and "I thinking". But we can't talk rationally about it if we insist that "I" is what is creating the thoughts.

[GrahamH]

The distinction of a "sensory experience" is from inside the mechanism. There are no direct experiences of what exists. Our experiences are entirely created by the brain; patterns of neurons firing that "work" in material reality; but are not material reality. The only way we can presume to know material reality is indirectly through science; inductive reasoning. And that is even a little dicey. Any physicist will tell you that the color blue does not "exist" in the sky. All that's out there is a pile of molecules and energy waves/particles; or at least something like that is the current version of the best scientific explanation we have of what's out there. "Some people" does not exist. Their bodies do not exist except as a billion cells that interact in ways that are explainable in principle but not in real time. There is no control center out there in a body. It is not a scientific or rational train of "thought" to refer to ideas and thoughts as if the agent is their source.

http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/artic ... eID=101921

I am always fascinated by this article. Turn off the limbic loop, disrupt the mechanism, and it all goes away. There are material causes for the brain creating "I wanting" and "I thinking". But we can't talk rationally about it if we insist that "I" is what is creating the thoughts.

This is all fair enough, but he conclusion is that "there are no agents", not that "god is an agent".

If I am buzzing energy doing quantum things then there is no equivalent cluster of buzzing energy to label "god doing things". God is an idea like "justice", fantasy like "a child's dolly", not something like a human or a tree, however ephemeral you want to say those things are.

Of course believers think of god as an agent, but god can't bend a spoon.

To the extent that human actions are influenced by ideas then it could be said that the idea of god, or the idea of justice result in human actions in the world. We could say that ideas take on lives of their own and the people act to preserve and spread some ideas by acting on those ideas. Would you agree with that? Would you call such an idea an agent?

[hiyymer]

"Of course believers think of god as an agent, but god can't bend a spoon"

I think we agree that the "I think", the "I want", the "I decide" are creations of the brain, and are only part of the mechanism which determines our actions. If the "I" is not an autonomous cause, then there must be a "higher power", and the "higher power" must be MATERIAL. IMHO that is the spoon bender to which God the agent refers. As rasetsu pointed out, an idea is perceived as owned by an I, rather than something beyond the I which exists with or without the I.

When I was a kid I attended the traditional Unitarian church. God was the watchmaker in the sky; set it all in motion, made the rules, and then took a long vacation. The trouble with that view is that it ignores that the whole mechanism is operating in my life in the here and now, not just the autonomous self, but also that which is beyond the autonomous self.

[GrahamH]

"Of course believers think of god as an agent, but god can't bend a spoon"

I think we agree that the "I think", the "I want", the "I decide" are creations of the brain, and are only part of the mechanism which determines our actions. If the "I" is not an autonomous cause, then there must be a "higher power", and the "higher power" must be MATERIAL. IMHO that is the spoon bender to which God the agent refers. As rasetsu pointed out, an idea is perceived as owned by an I, rather than something beyond the I which exists with or without the I.

When I was a kid I attended the traditional Unitarian church. God was the watchmaker in the sky; set it all in motion, made the rules, and then took a long vacation. The trouble with that view is that it ignores that the whole mechanism is operating in my life in the here and now, not just the autonomous self, but also that which is beyond the autonomous self.

And perhaps that "mechanism" "perceives the I". The ghost in the machine being a more attached idea, and god and other minds being similar but more remote.

[mistermack]

I don't think I have any illusions about self.
An illusion being a false belief, if there was something I was getting wrong, I'd be interested, but I haven't seen any likely candidates.
I may kid myself that I'm slim, or fit, I guess. But I know the truth, if I choose to confront it.

But what my identity is, what I AM, I'm pretty confident of.
Maybe not at quantum level, but from molecular level upwards.

My mental identity I just see as like a more complicated flame. It starts, it burns, it's never the same from one second to the next, and eventually it dies, possibly sparking off one or two others, before it goes.

The self is where we differ from a flame. It's is the individual nature, which is much the same each morning, when you wake up.
So you have memories, and an individual character, fashioned by your genes and experiences.
All of which can disappear with one bang on the head, if you're not careful

So that's me, an event. A chemical, electrical and physical event that starts, runs and dies. And possibly reproduces.
The I in that is just the running processer, evolved to make the whole thing survive and reproduce.

[FBM]

Are memories and character constant throughout a single lifetime, mistermack?

[Svartalf]

Are memories and character constant throughout a single lifetime, mistermack?

Some memories remain with me since I was 2 or 3

[FBM]

Are memories and character constant throughout a single lifetime, mistermack?

Some memories remain with me since I was 2 or 3

Were you yourself before you were 2 or 3?

[Svartalf]

The sselfish core of ME was already there, yes, as was my consciousness, if not my full experience and understanding.

[FBM]

The sselfish core of ME was already there, yes, as was my consciousness, if not my full experience and understanding.

Can you identify this core as something concrete?

[Svartalf]

come and touch my balls, those are concrete enough I was already thinking with them

[FBM]

come and touch my balls, those are concrete enough I was already thinking with them

I'll gladly concede the point if I don't have to do that.