The Illusion of the Self

[rasetsu]

Moar like.....

[rasetsu]

Or...

Balls!

[rasetsu]

But definitely not......

[rasetsu]

But mostly.....

[rasetsu]

A year in a Buddhist monastery made big changes in my personality, character, behavior, etc. Daily mediation was a big part of that, but not all of it. My friends recognized my body and voice after I came out, but my behavior and affect were radically different.

[FBM]

[rasetsu]

Ras Cares.

[FBM]

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the "General Serious Discussion & Philosophy" portion of our program. Please enjoy the rest of the show.

[FBM]

This was pretty interesting:

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/ ... nobe-self/

The Nature of the Self: Experimental Philosopher Joshua Knobe on How We Know Who We Are
by Maria Popova

A mind-bending new understanding of our basic existential anchor.

“The fate of the world depends on the Selves of human beings,” pioneering educator Annemarie Roeper wrote in her meditation on how poorly we understand the self. Indeed, while philosophers may argue that the self is a toxic illusion and psychologists may insist that it’s forever changing, we tend to float through life anchored by a firm conviction that the self is our sole constant companion. But when psychologist David DeSteno asks “Can the present you trust the future you?” in his fantastic exploration of the psychology of trust, the question leaves us — at least, leaves me — suddenly paralyzed with the realization that the future self is in many ways fundamentally different from the present self. Our emotions and beliefs and ideals are constantly evolving — Anaïs Nin put it perfectly: “I am a series of moods and sensations. I play a thousand roles… My real self is unknown.” — and even biologically, most cells in the our bodies are completely renewed every seven years. How, then, do we know how “we” are? How do we hold the “self” with any sense of firmness?

Over the past decade, the emerging field of experimental philosophy — a discipline that pursues inquiries about the human condition traditionally from the realm of philosophy with the empirical methods of psychology — has tackled this paradox, along with its many fringe concerns spanning morality, happiness, love, and how to live. In this fascinating video from the 2013 HeadCon seminar shot by TED Talks film director Jason Wishnow, Yale University professor and experimental philosopher Joshua Knobe, editor of the anthology Experimental Philosophy (public library), takes us through some mind-bending, soul-deconstructing thought experiments that push our notions of the self to the limit and past it, into a new understanding of our basic existential anchor....

[GrahamH]

Consciousness is a self-model. The official version.

http://brainsciencepodcast.com/bsp/108- ... 0-80062477

[FBM]

Consciousness is a self-model. The official version.

http://brainsciencepodcast.com/bsp/108- ... 0-80062477

To be fair, they do point out that it is one person's tentative hypothesis, but it does sound very compelling to me:

...Perception is something our brains do constantly and which we can not consciously control. In considering awareness (and by extension consciousness) perception-like Graziano is emphasizing several important features. The most important is probably the fact that it is only “quick and dirty model” of what is really going on, which means that our intuitions about consciousness are not necessarily reliable. In fact, humans have a strong tendency to over-attribute awareness to the world around us. This is part of the social circuitry that has made us the most successful species in the earth’s history - See more at: http://brainsciencepodcast.com/bsp/108- ... 49qfx.dpuf

[GrahamH]

By 'official version' I only meant it was a published work by a qualified professional, rather than posts people on the internet, but Graziano's ideas are very similar to some we have discussed earlier on this thread and elsewhere about self model, virtual or simulated subject and socicial evolution.

It is certainly a tentative hypothesis but, Intriguingly, Graziano says it is testable. I haven't found any details on how it can be tested, but that would really be progress.

[FBM]

Same here. I would be very interested in learning more about how it's testable. As far as I'm concerned, if it's not testable, it's probably just speculation or modeling.

[GrahamH]

http://neuroblog.stanford.edu/?p=4513

Attention Schema Theory isn’t entirely satisfying, though. It’s the outline of an interesting line of reasoning but not a complete thought. No actual brain mechanisms or areas are identified or even hypothesized. How is consciousness computed in the brain? I agree with Daniel Dennett that there’s no “Cartesian theater,” but there must be some identifiable principle of human brain circuit organization that allows consciousness. To move any theory of consciousness forward scientifically, we need a concrete hypothesis. But we don’t just need a hypothesis: we need a testable hypothesis. Without a way of experimentally measuring consciousness, the scientific method cannot be applied. Currently, our concept of consciousness stems only from our own self-reporting and, as mentioned above, the only consciousness you can really truly be sure of is your own.

Given the suppositions of Attention Schema Theory, though, there may be some proxies of consciousness we can study that would help us flesh out our understanding and piece together reasonable hypotheses. First, attention. Attention is by no means consciousness (I can tune a radio to a certain frequency but that doesn’t mean it’s conscious), but if consciousness evolved from attention then they should share some common mechanisms. Many neuroscientists already study attention, but they may not have considered their research findings in light of Attention Schema Theory. Perhaps there are already some principles of how brain circuits support selective attention that could be adapted and incorporated into Graziano’s schema. If consciousness really evolved from attention, then there should exist some “missing links,” organisms that display (or displayed) transitional states of consciousness somewhere between rudimentary top-down mechanisms for directing attention and the capacity for existential crises. Can we describe these links?

[GrahamH]

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ikjk ... is&f=false

Graziano and Kastner offer three testable predictions. First, damage to areas associated with social processing (i.e. constructing perceptual models of others) should cause problems with conscious awareness. Second, the same areas should correlate with activity in brain structures associated with attentional control. And third, the same areas involved in building models of others should also be involved in sustaining models of the self. The authors review current evidence in favour of these predictions, and offer insight on further investigation that would support them.