The Illusion of the Self

[FBM]

Let's take as a given that I is a useful fiction.

Where does the ability to generate and control the concept/image of I come from? How is the story being told, without a storyteller?

A few lobes of the brain collaborating, as far as I can tell. And the sense of agency (free will) seems to be an ongoing ad hoc behavior, if those experiments are accurate.

[hadespussercats]

Let's take as a given that I is a useful fiction.

Where does the ability to generate and control the concept/image of I come from? How is the story being told, without a storyteller?

A few lobes of the brain collaborating, as far as I can tell. And the sense of agency (free will) seems to be an ongoing ad hoc behavior, if those experiments are accurate.

Have you ever lucid dreamed? (dreamed lucidly?)

I have, few times-- realized I was dreaming and started to shape the events on the dreamscape.

I don't know if microcosm is the word I want...
Is this phenomenon a sort of smaller Russian stacking doll within a larger one called Personal Experience?

[FBM]

Let's take as a given that I is a useful fiction.

Where does the ability to generate and control the concept/image of I come from? How is the story being told, without a storyteller?

A few lobes of the brain collaborating, as far as I can tell. And the sense of agency (free will) seems to be an ongoing ad hoc behavior, if those experiments are accurate.

Have you ever lucid dreamed? (dreamed lucidly?)

I have, few times-- realized I was dreaming and started to shape the events on the dreamscape.

I don't know if microcosm is the word I want...
Is this phenomenon a sort of smaller Russian stacking doll within a larger one called Personal Experience?

When I was in college I focused on lucid dreaming and did it a fair number of times. Since then, I've thought about it and realized that it doesn't actually say much about free will or the existence of an inherent Self. It's just a rarer way that the various parts of the brain can interact with each other, as far as I can tell so far. Not sure that the Russian stacking doll (egg?) analogy is as good as the river analogy. We call a river by the same name, even though its contents are always changing. We do this so routinely that we reify the name of a river into a discrete, enduring entity, but the empirical data say that it's not the same thing from moment to moment. That's also a pretty good analogy of what a human is. Material is flowing in and out constantly, and there is nothing that fits the description of a Self that endures from birth to death. As far as I can tell so far, anyway.

[Jason]

This sounds a heck of a lot like Buddhism, Former Buddhist Monk.

[FBM]

This sounds a heck of a lot like Buddhism, Former Buddhist Monk.

I'm not pushing Buddhism, if that's what you're getting at. The OP asks that posts be substantive with regards to the nature of the Self, not to the history of the person who wrote the OP. Please keep in mind that this isn't the Pub. I don't mean to be unfriendly, but there's a spin-off thread for thoughts about this thread that don't contribute to the investigation of the question put forth in the OP. If you have thoughts about the nature of the Self, please share them.

[Tero]

I guess I am the right person to be an atheist. I find these things to be boring. Emotions are fine, reactions to things are something to enjoy and move on. Being a scientist, I need stuff to observe. Chewing gum for my brain.

If my body or brain did not function properly, that would be somewhat interesting. But too distracting and frustrating.

I can't meditate.

[hadespussercats]

Let's take as a given that I is a useful fiction.

Where does the ability to generate and control the concept/image of I come from? How is the story being told, without a storyteller?

A few lobes of the brain collaborating, as far as I can tell. And the sense of agency (free will) seems to be an ongoing ad hoc behavior, if those experiments are accurate.

Have you ever lucid dreamed? (dreamed lucidly?)

I have, few times-- realized I was dreaming and started to shape the events on the dreamscape.

I don't know if microcosm is the word I want...
Is this phenomenon a sort of smaller Russian stacking doll within a larger one called Personal Experience?

When I was in college I focused on lucid dreaming and did it a fair number of times. Since then, I've thought about it and realized that it doesn't actually say much about free will or the existence of an inherent Self. It's just a rarer way that the various parts of the brain can interact with each other, as far as I can tell so far. Not sure that the Russian stacking doll (egg?) analogy is as good as the river analogy. We call a river by the same name, even though its contents are always changing. We do this so routinely that we reify the name of a river into a discrete, enduring entity, but the empirical data say that it's not the same thing from moment to moment. That's also a pretty good analogy of what a human is. Material is flowing in and out constantly, and there is nothing that fits the description of a Self that endures from birth to death. As far as I can tell so far, anyway.

I get the river analogy-- the idea that the actual materials involved are constantly moving and shifting, and that the containment of the banks and the current are the elements that give us the idea it's the same river (would that be akin to the body and memories?)

I'm going to ditch the river analogy for a moment. What I'd like to know is-- if "I" is an illusion, created as you posited earlier by a collaboration between several different lobes in the brain, what force makes it coherent? What force makes "I" seem like something whole? What gives random events a sense of plot, and how does it happen?

[JimC]

hadespussercat wrote:

I'm going to ditch the river analogy for a moment. What I'd like to know is-- if "I" is an illusion, created as you posited earlier by a collaboration between several different lobes in the brain, what force makes it coherent? What force makes "I" seem like something whole? What gives random events a sense of plot, and how does it happen?

These are very interesting questions, though I think the term "force" is possibly misleading. Accepting that there are a multitude of brain processes going on at any one time in terms of processing sensory data and comparing it to stored information in memory, this will lead in most cases, when awake, to some form of decision to act, or even simply to pursue a particular train of thought.

A consistent theme in cognitive science is the way our thought processes make internal models of the salient parts of the world around us; they derive from sensory experience, but are also structured by previous experience and a range of in-built tendencies deriving from natural selection.

The conscious self might simply simply be a way to include the "decision making" program as a recognisable part of a dynamic model of the world with us within it.

[Pappa]

Let's take as a given that I is a useful fiction.

Where does the ability to generate and control the concept/image of I come from? How is the story being told, without a storyteller?

A few lobes of the brain collaborating, as far as I can tell. And the sense of agency (free will) seems to be an ongoing ad hoc behavior, if those experiments are accurate.

Have you ever lucid dreamed? (dreamed lucidly?)

I have, few times-- realized I was dreaming and started to shape the events on the dreamscape.

I don't know if microcosm is the word I want...
Is this phenomenon a sort of smaller Russian stacking doll within a larger one called Personal Experience?

I had many lucid dreams for about 2 years in my early 20s. It was amazing.

[hadespussercats]

hadespussercat wrote:

I'm going to ditch the river analogy for a moment. What I'd like to know is-- if "I" is an illusion, created as you posited earlier by a collaboration between several different lobes in the brain, what force makes it coherent? What force makes "I" seem like something whole? What gives random events a sense of plot, and how does it happen?

These are very interesting questions, though I think the term "force" is possibly misleading. Accepting that there are a multitude of brain processes going on at any one time in terms of processing sensory data and comparing it to stored information in memory, this will lead in most cases, when awake, to some form of decision to act, or even simply to pursue a particular train of thought.

A consistent theme in cognitive science is the way our thought processes make internal models of the salient parts of the world around us; they derive from sensory experience, but are also structured by previous experience and a range of in-built tendencies deriving from natural selection.

The conscious self might simply simply be a way to include the "decision making" program as a recognisable part of a dynamic model of the world with us within it.

You know, I felt iffy about my choice of the word "force" there, but used it for expedience. Entity? But that starts sounding like a homunculus.

You talk about a decision-making apparatus. How does that work? How are choices made, if nobody's driving? And what organizes the elements that come together to form a model of the experienced world? What makes sense? I mean that last bit literally and figuratively.

When you talk about tendencies deriving from natural selection within the context of decision-making, do you mean that a gajillion options are laid out and the ones that don't work get ditched, over and over until you're left with a choice? I think to some extent that might be true (based on reading The User Illusion many years ago, so I'm hazy on details), but-- doesn't that seem weighty? Is that really what's happening every time we make a choice, conscious or not? Or has it become streamlined somehow? And still-- what determines criteria? How does the brain go about ditching some stuff and keeping others? And why might one bit of information be preferred over another?

Sorry. Asking many more questions that I'm answering!

[hadespussercats]

Let's take as a given that I is a useful fiction.

Where does the ability to generate and control the concept/image of I come from? How is the story being told, without a storyteller?

A few lobes of the brain collaborating, as far as I can tell. And the sense of agency (free will) seems to be an ongoing ad hoc behavior, if those experiments are accurate.

Have you ever lucid dreamed? (dreamed lucidly?)

I have, few times-- realized I was dreaming and started to shape the events on the dreamscape.

I don't know if microcosm is the word I want...
Is this phenomenon a sort of smaller Russian stacking doll within a larger one called Personal Experience?

I had many lucid dreams for about 2 years in my early 20s. It was amazing.

Wow, that's a long stretch. Mine as I remember them were individual events.

Were you semi-sleep-deprived at the time? I think that can bring them on.

[FBM]

Those are some tough questions, hades, and way beyond the limits of my knowledge. I dug around and found this Functional Anatomy of the Sense of agency: Past Evidence and Future Directions by Nicole David. It's pretty recent.

More in depth work here: http://books.google.co.kr/books?id=4OPY ... ns&f=false

[hadespussercats]

I don't think I'm together enough to tackle that tonight, but hopefully soon. Thanks for the link, FBM!

[FBM]

I don't think I'm together enough to tackle that tonight, but hopefully soon. Thanks for the link, FBM!

Wish I could find something that explains it without all the technical jargon, but no luck so far. I've got finals coming up this week, so I probably won't have much time to devote to this for a little while...

[JimC]

It is certainly very hard to find the right words in discussing these concepts, and very hard to avoid explanations which are not self-referring, or that don't lead, lemming-like, to some form of infinite regression...