This is one of the better explanations of the illusory nature of the self. The closer I get to understanding this, the more impossible it becomes for me to share it. This video might be as close as I’ll get. Watch on YouTube
Tag Archives: Self
Two of my favorite “-isms”
Anyone who knows me knows of my interest in consciousness and reality (see tags below for more). When it comes to understanding reality, I’m gonna go with one of the following. (or some combination.)
Monism is the view that all reality is fundamentally one substance or principle. Everything in the universe is ultimately the same kind of thing. This can be physical (everything is matter) or mental (everything is mind), or something else entirely.
Panpsychism, on the other hand, is the idea that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the universe. According to panpsychism, all things have some form of consciousness or experience, even if it’s very basic, down to the smallest particles.
So, while both can be viewed as “unifying” theories, monism is about the nature of reality being one substance, whereas panpsychism is about consciousness being fundamental and present everywhere.
How the brain computes the self
I seem to keep coming across areas where neuroscience and philosophy overlap on the subject of the self. PS: The “I” at the beginning of that sentence? Just an illusion.
Why Do Your 30 Trillion Cells Feel Like a Self?
I first became aware of David Eagleman in 2011 as the author of a little book titled Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives. Which led me to his book Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain As luck would have it, he gave a lecture later that year at nearby Westminster College (How the Internet Will Save the World: Six Easy Steps to Avert the Collapse of Civilizations) which I found fascinating. So when I discovered his weekly podcast I was quick to check it out and discovered he has done a deep dive into one of my favorite topics: the illusion of the self. (73 blog posts) Why Do Your 30 Trillion Cells Feel Like a Self? Part 1 & Part 2
WARNING: These are long. Part 1 is 30 min, Part 2 one hour.
“Truth exists; only lies are invented”
“Few people can say: I am here. They look for themselves in the past and see themselves in the future.” — Georges Braque (1882–1963)
I knew him well
If a person were to read my ~6,000 blog posts, spanning 20 years, he/she would know me better than anyone who has ever met me. That person does not exist and I suspect never will.
Perhaps one day an AI (“I prefer the term ‘artificial person‘”) will read them and want to discuss what I wrote/shared.
I won’t be around but perhaps this future AP will be able to create a synthetic version of me, using everything I’ve shared (YouTube, etc) and we’ll have a nice chat.
Stillness
Reply
Thoughts think themselves
For those of us who subscribe to the theory there is no self — that me “I” thought is just a persistent illusion — a frequent question is where do thoughts come from if there is no “me” to think them?
They come from the subconscious whose name happens to be Jeff. Jeff sits in the refrigerator that is your consciousness. He has one of those horseshoe magnets he uses to arrange tiny word magnets on the outside of the refrigerator. Jeff is working backward and in the dark (trust me on that point) so the ideas he strings together are often random and arbitrary. He can sense when there is an awareness on the other side of the door and this makes him uncomfortable so he slows down the magnet work. When he feels the awareness depart he gets busy again.
Experience Self vs. Memory Self (Daniel Kahneman)
- Being happy “in” you life, vs. being happy “about” your life
- We don’t choose between experiences, we choose between memories of experiences
- We don’t think of the future as experience, we think of the future as anticipated memories
- Why do we give so much weight to memories, relative to the weight we give experiences?
- We do not attend to the same things when we think about life and when we actually live.
A passing thought
“The noticing of a passing thought and the explosion of an ancient star are not unrelated phenomenon: both the product of a self-creating, self-destroying ubiquitous capability.”
— Living Nonduality