The Illusion of the Self

[Warren Dew]

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.

Ignoring the issue of the sense of self for the moment, the rest of it is just the nonrandom wiring and firing of neurons. There isn't an actual actor making a single coherent choice; the choice is an emergent property from the coordination of millions of neurons.

You might ask how those millions of neurons coordinate in such a seemingly coherent way. That is where trillions of creature years of evolution come into play: the solutions which facilitate the fairly coherent objective of preserving the gene line are those that have survived, and those solutions involve neural organization that behaves in a way that makes coherent choices. The many other options for organizing the neurons have been pruned away by natural selection.

This, of course, only explains why we act as if we had a sense of self. In principle, it seems we could act that way even if we were really automata - p-zombies that act as if they are self aware, but lack the actual self awareness. The interesting part - why we have an actual conscious awareness of self, or more specifically why we have a consciousness to be aware of self - it doesn't answer. It does, however, illustrate that the unanswered part of the question, the question of consciousness, is distinct from the part with the boring mechanical answer.

I personally don't have a good answer to the question of consciousness yet; I can conjecture that in fact p-zombies do not exist, and that consciousness exists wherever it can supervene on a computing system that behaves in a coherent way, which would have some interesting implications for inanimate computation, and for ethics - but there really isn't any more evidence for that answer than there is for the religious answer that consciousness is associated with an eternal soul.

I do think that recent research into quantum decoherence, which provides a mechanism for deterministic quantum level superpositions to appear to collapse probabilistically into macroscopic classically behaving systems, may provide the beginnings of some hints about an abstraction mechanism - or perhaps I should say abstraction mathematics - that may eventually shed light on the supervention of consciousness on physical systems.

I can offer, second hand, one other piece of information that may be illuminating, the a brain researcher describing the experience of suffering and observing a stroke:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTrJqmKo ... ure=colike[/youtube]

I had some insights during a breakdown about the nature of self. Now I'm realizing that rasetsu had a good point earlier about needing to keep some ideas close to the chest (or words to that effect.)

Now, how are we going to make progress in understanding this stuff if the people with the most relevant experience don't share it? Can you provide the relevant information in some safe form, perhaps as your view of how some hypothetical person would experience things?

[FBM]

Wow. Thanks for the insights, Warren, and especially thanks for that TED talk. I really hope others take the time to watch that.

[JimC]

Warren Dew wrote:

Ignoring the issue of the sense of self for the moment, the rest of it is just the nonrandom wiring and firing of neurons. There isn't an actual actor making a single coherent choice; the choice is an emergent property from the coordination of millions of neurons.

You might ask how those millions of neurons coordinate in such a seemingly coherent way. That is where trillions of creature years of evolution come into play: the solutions which facilitate the fairly coherent objective of preserving the gene line are those that have survived, and those solutions involve neural organization that behaves in a way that makes coherent choices. The many other options for organizing the neurons have been pruned away by natural selection.

This, of course, only explains why we act as if we had a sense of self. In principle, it seems we could act that way even if we were really automata - p-zombies that act as if they are self aware, but lack the actual self awareness. The interesting part - why we have an actual conscious awareness of self, or more specifically why we have a consciousness to be aware of self - it doesn't answer. It does, however, illustrate that the unanswered part of the question, the question of consciousness, is distinct from the part with the boring mechanical answer.

Certainly resonates with my thinking. I doubt whether any quantum-level effects are required to achieve our current state of consciousness; my take is simply that the illusion of a discrete self that views itself as the active, decision-making agent is an efficient mental state from the point of view of natural selection.

[FBM]

I read a while back that the sense of smell relies on a quantum effect. If that's the case, it does affect consciousness and, therefore, events on a macroscopic scale.

Edit: Looked it up. It's not confirmed yet.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... tions.html

[Warren Dew]

Certainly resonates with my thinking. I doubt whether any quantum-level effects are required to achieve our current state of consciousness; my take is simply that the illusion of a discrete self that views itself as the active, decision-making agent is an efficient mental state from the point of view of natural selection.

Acting as if we have a sense of self is no doubt an evolutionarily efficient mental state.

To my mind, though, we still need to provide a physical explanation for why the mental state can exist. Why isn't evolution satisfied with our being p-zombies, who act exactly as if they have mental states, even though they don't actually have consciousness?

[FBM]

Certainly resonates with my thinking. I doubt whether any quantum-level effects are required to achieve our current state of consciousness; my take is simply that the illusion of a discrete self that views itself as the active, decision-making agent is an efficient mental state from the point of view of natural selection.

Acting as if we have a sense of self is no doubt an evolutionarily efficient mental state.

To my mind, though, we still need to provide a physical explanation for why the mental state can exist. Why isn't evolution satisfied with our being p-zombies, who act exactly as if they have mental states, even though they don't actually have consciousness?

It seems to me that the phrase 'mental state' is a misnomer we inherited from early psychology. It implies stasis, and research in recent decades shows that there's nothing static about consciousness. Maybe 'flow' or 'activity' would more accurately connote the dynamic nature of what's happening up there. In the same way, if you reify that activity into a noun (consciousness), it's easy to think about it as a static entity instead of an ongoing behavior. Saying 'conscious processes' or 'conscious activities' may help overcome the static connotations of the older terms.

[hadespussercats]

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.

Ignoring the issue of the sense of self for the moment, the rest of it is just the nonrandom wiring and firing of neurons. There isn't an actual actor making a single coherent choice; the choice is an emergent property from the coordination of millions of neurons.

You might ask how those millions of neurons coordinate in such a seemingly coherent way. That is where trillions of creature years of evolution come into play: the solutions which facilitate the fairly coherent objective of preserving the gene line are those that have survived, and those solutions involve neural organization that behaves in a way that makes coherent choices. The many other options for organizing the neurons have been pruned away by natural selection.

This, of course, only explains why we act as if we had a sense of self. In principle, it seems we could act that way even if we were really automata - p-zombies that act as if they are self aware, but lack the actual self awareness. The interesting part - why we have an actual conscious awareness of self, or more specifically why we have a consciousness to be aware of self - it doesn't answer. It does, however, illustrate that the unanswered part of the question, the question of consciousness, is distinct from the part with the boring mechanical answer.

I personally don't have a good answer to the question of consciousness yet; I can conjecture that in fact p-zombies do not exist, and that consciousness exists wherever it can supervene on a computing system that behaves in a coherent way, which would have some interesting implications for inanimate computation, and for ethics - but there really isn't any more evidence for that answer than there is for the religious answer that consciousness is associated with an eternal soul.

I do think that recent research into quantum decoherence, which provides a mechanism for deterministic quantum level superpositions to appear to collapse probabilistically into macroscopic classically behaving systems, may provide the beginnings of some hints about an abstraction mechanism - or perhaps I should say abstraction mathematics - that may eventually shed light on the supervention of consciousness on physical systems.

I can offer, second hand, one other piece of information that may be illuminating, the a brain researcher describing the experience of suffering and observing a stroke:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTrJqmKo ... ure=colike[/youtube]

I had some insights during a breakdown about the nature of self. Now I'm realizing that rasetsu had a good point earlier about needing to keep some ideas close to the chest (or words to that effect.)

Now, how are we going to make progress in understanding this stuff if the people with the most relevant experience don't share it? Can you provide the relevant information in some safe form, perhaps as your view of how some hypothetical person would experience things?

I watched that TED talk back in the day. Really a good one, IIRC. If I get a chance later, I'll watch it again.

RE- your comments about natural selection leading to consciousness: Well, yes, consciousness must have been developed via natural selection, since that's how everything about us seems to have come about. But there are so many life forms that survive just fine without any need for a "self"-- so why do we have one?

I realize you explicitly stated you don't have an answer. I'm trying to keep my questions clear and focused, for my own ends as much as for anyone else.

As for the personal experiences-- I'm working on sharing them. Actually, I did a big, strange project a while back which explored some of these issues. But I'm trying to write them up. And it can be really disastrous creatively speaking to spill beans before you're ready.

Soon, I hope!

[FBM]

Hades, it seems to me that there is no inherent Self and never has been, only a conventional one. A convenient fiction that helps us survive, but can't be found in the physical world. Since it's conventional, it's no different from saying that a certain, unique puppy-entity was born and that same entity will die at some point. Or a grasshopper. Or a prion. Or, for that matter, a proton. Or a consciousness. If we treat consciousness as a 'thing', we are making that fundamental error of reification. It's not a 'thing'; it's an ongoing behavior, not so different from breathing or heartbeating (?). As far as I can tell so far.

[hadespussercats]

Hades, it seems to me that there is no inherent Self and never has been, only a conventional one. A convenient fiction that helps us survive, but can't be found in the physical world. Since it's conventional, it's no different from saying that a certain, unique puppy-entity was born and that same entity will die at some point. Or a grasshopper. Or a prion. Or, for that matter, a proton. Or a consciousness. If we treat consciousness as a 'thing', we are making that fundamental error of reification. It's not a 'thing'; it's an ongoing behavior, not so different from breathing or heartbeating (?). As far as I can tell so far.

Do you think a puppy or a prion or a grasshopper experiences the illusion of a self?

[Rum]

I'm late to this as I don't go for 'serious' stuff these days for the most part. However as an ex-Buddhist myself, as FBM will remember, I am with him on this..up to a point.

It is a long thread and I haven't read it all, but what may not have been mentioned is the evolutionary advantage of this illusion we call 'self'. It seems to me to be the focus of our sense of survival, of experiencing pain and pleasure and of need, want, hunger and satiation. For all of that to have a centre; a thing that will survive, a thing to struggle to help survive is perhaps what the illusion is for.

I suspect it is present in many animal species even at quite a simple level.

[GrahamH]

You may find this interesting...
http://www.virginiacampbellmd.com/blog/ ... rview.html

[JimC]

I'm late to this as I don't go for 'serious' stuff these days for the most part. However as an ex-Buddhist myself, as FBM will remember, I am with him on this..up to a point.

It is a long thread and I haven't read it all, but what may not have been mentioned is the evolutionary advantage of this illusion we call 'self'. It seems to me to be the focus of our sense of survival, of experiencing pain and pleasure and of need, want, hunger and satiation. For all of that to have a centre; a thing that will survive, a thing to struggle to help survive is perhaps what the illusion is for.

I suspect it is present in many animal species even at quite a simple level.

Agreed, Rum, but I think the point is that we are so used to operating in that way that we easily develop a false view of self, one that sees it as having an objective, singular, soul-like existence.

As far as other animals, at least those with a reasonably developed central nervous system, I suspect their is something acting as a central decision-maker; the difference would be that they can't reflect on it, or attempt to analyse it, they just are it...

[FBM]

Hades, it seems to me that there is no inherent Self and never has been, only a conventional one. A convenient fiction that helps us survive, but can't be found in the physical world. Since it's conventional, it's no different from saying that a certain, unique puppy-entity was born and that same entity will die at some point. Or a grasshopper. Or a prion. Or, for that matter, a proton. Or a consciousness. If we treat consciousness as a 'thing', we are making that fundamental error of reification. It's not a 'thing'; it's an ongoing behavior, not so different from breathing or heartbeating (?). As far as I can tell so far.

Do you think a puppy or a prion or a grasshopper experiences the illusion of a self?

In that post, I was talking about Self, not sense of self, but anyway, probably not the prion so much, seeing as how it doesn't have a nervous system, but the puppy and grasshopper? Probably. I would expect that the complexity of the sense of self would be on a sliding scale proportional to the complexity of the nervous system. I don't think "lower" animals have no sense of self, then suddenly a small group of primates have it all. I think if we observed animal behavior closely enough, we could probably see something like this. But I admit that this is just speculation on my part. Wish I were in a position to do the research myself.

[hadespussercats]

How is personality different from or the same as Self, as we've been discussing it?

[FBM]

How is personality different from or the same as Self, as we've been discussing it?

Hmm. Well, I think personality is behavior, not identity. When you go to sleep or go under general anesthesia or whatever, your behavior stops. You don't have a personality during that time. But people don't consider themselves as ceasing to be a Self during that time. You're still identified as the same person, both socially and legally. Since scientific investigation into the reality of the Self is an empirical investigation, observable behavior or substance would be the subject. (I'm glad science is taking this investigation from philosophers who just sit around swapping opinions and making metaphysical claims without empirical evidence to support them.)

Or, let me put it another way. In that TED Talk, the scientist described how her personality changed dramatically as the stroke progressed, switching from right-brain dominated thought-behavior to left-brain thought-behavior. She said it was like she had two Selves inside her. But she's just one person. People with multiple personality disorders and whatnot aren't really multiple people, are they? If personality = Self, we'd have no choice but to regard them as multiple people, I think. Until they got cured maybe.