Free Will, Decision making and religion

[Mudhammam]

I don't think the idea of an unchanging self is compatible with the knowledge we have about the brain or its contents, especially the personal experience of growing conscious of your surroundings and the mechanics that comprise any semblance of understanding them.

It could be argued that even if everything, every atom, wave and relevant parameter but one were to remain fixed, that the self was changed because it now exists at a later time.
Yet I identify myself as the same person I was 20,30 or more years ago. This could be mostly illusion and false memory, but at least the experience is of continuity.

I like the river analogy. One much like that is the example of a lenticular cloud stationary over a mountaintop. The cloud stays in one place despite the fact that there is a wind of perhaps 100kt blowing through it. Every particle in the cloud is replaced over a period of seconds yet the cloud remains in place, unchanged.

I like your analogy. I think the illusion is persistently upheld due to the bridge between each moment that 'we' (or the biochemical system that is the brain) call 'memory.'

[watchamadoodle]

Probably somebody already mentioned this, but my explanation for why we feel we are making choices is pretty simple.
Our brains rationalize and predict the behavior of our bodies, the emotions we feel, etc. and our brains often fail due to the complexity. Why did I buy chocolate instead of vanilla today when I sometimes buy either flavor? The idea of a soul with free will piloting the body develops to fill the gap.

Anyway, that is my theory. I know that is only a small part of the question asked in the OP.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I analogize the conscious self to a river, in that both change, and yet remain selfsame.

I find the idea of an unchanging self to be frighteningly static, myself.

I don't think the idea of an unchanging self is compatible with the knowledge we have about the brain or its contents, especially the personal experience of growing conscious of your surroundings and the mechanics that comprise any semblance of understanding them. I look at the brain as hardware that is pliable to whatever software gets uploaded, though the hardware itself is hardly static. The self is in some sense the thought or awareness of memories that are retained in the hardware; storage is probably unconsciously filtered so that some memories are permanently forgotten, others are filed away for convenience, and still yet others are perpetually recalled due to the structure of language, one such memory being this "person" experiencing "event X" at time "Y" that the dynamic system categorizes and defines as "I."

I agree. This is why Platonic ideals bother me, not just with human conceptions of self, but in so many other areas of life -- they ignore the fact that "changes aren't permanent, but change is."

The idea of a discrete self which inhabits the body until the body's demise, after which it goes to (heaven? hell? repository? a spiritual sperm bank? who knows?) ignores so much of what makes life beautiful -- the change, the learning, the challenge of adjusting to new parameters on the fly.

As a boy, I used to try to plan so much, like composing a piece of music to take me where I wanted to go. Now I find a deep joy in living a life that has strong elements of jazz improv, because I am more comfortable riding the wave than I am treading water, if you'll pardon the mixed metaphor (But jazz is like surfing, it really is.)

[Mudhammam]

I agree. This is why Platonic ideals bother me, not just with human conceptions of self, but in so many other areas of life -- they ignore the fact that "changes aren't permanent, but change is."

I think there is a context in which it is sensible to talk about Platonic ideals, just not one wholly applicable to the world of sense perception---a point Plato stresses. For him there were unchanging forms from which perceptions derived their order. If we think of something like abstract truths being static (2+2=4, for example) then I think his forms are to that extent valid. Another important function of them is to help us extricate what element it is in two distinct objects that allows us to classify them under a single term, say, such as the idea "bed." One must have an idea of a bed before he seeks to craft one into being, and the resulting product may be quite unlike any other bed-like object yet conceived, but it is called a "bed" due to the likeness of some ideal conception of bed that it shares, i.e. the form common to all beds. On a conceptual level his forms have a lot of application. The problem is when people take the "little agitations in the brain called 'thought'" too far and start inventing realities rather than defining the one presented before us for purposes of clarity.

[Ignorant]

Is the self necessarily unchanging? The Buddhists make a lot of arguments that there is no unchanging thing in consciousness which would serve as the self. But I wonder why the self has to be considered unchanging; why can't it change along with everything else about us?

Well you can certainly say that, but then what you mean by the "self" is something that is never identifiable. The moment you "identify" the "self" it has already changed into something else entirely. The "self" which was identified no longer exists, in which case, the illusory nature of the "self" is amplified.

However, if what you mean is that the "self" changes constantly under some aspects, and yet stays the same under different aspects, then there is no problem but the one that tries to understand what those unchanging aspects are.

[Whateverist]

Is the self necessarily unchanging? The Buddhists make a lot of arguments that there is no unchanging thing in consciousness which would serve as the self. But I wonder why the self has to be considered unchanging; why can't it change along with everything else about us?

Well you can certainly say that, but then what you mean by the "self" is something that is never identifiable. The moment you "identify" the "self" it has already changed into something else entirely. The "self" which was identified no longer exists, in which case, the illusory nature of the "self" is amplified.

However, if what you mean is that the "self" changes constantly under some aspects, and yet stays the same under different aspects, then there is no problem but the one that tries to understand what those unchanging aspects are.

That is why there is a different verb in the French language for "knowing" complex things like people and places than the one used for knowing simpler things. The self is not a simple, static thing to know. It is interactive and can either thrive of wither in response to the conscious choices you make.

[robvalue]

The "self" is probably the most ridiculously weird concept for me to get my head around. Every time I try and think about it, it's like my brain freezes up and everything seems peculiar.

Almost like it's telling me to leave it son...

[Thumpalumpacus]

Is the self necessarily unchanging? The Buddhists make a lot of arguments that there is no unchanging thing in consciousness which would serve as the self. But I wonder why the self has to be considered unchanging; why can't it change along with everything else about us?

Well you can certainly say that, but then what you mean by the "self" is something that is never identifiable. The moment you "identify" the "self" it has already changed into something else entirely.

The adjective "entirely" is, in my opinion, inapt. Change in a person does happen from moment to moment, but the change that happens each moment does not change to the entire personality or sense of selfhood, in my experience. Given enough time, you may, or may not, see a change so general as to be labeled "entire."

As a result, a person's selfhood is indeed identifiable, based on things like their views or outlooks, I think.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I think there is a context in which it is sensible to talk about Platonic ideals, just not one wholly applicable to the world of sense perception---a point Plato stresses. For him there were unchanging forms from which perceptions derived their order. If we think of something like abstract truths being static (2+2=4, for example) then I think his forms are to that extent valid. Another important function of them is to help us extricate what element it is in two distinct objects that allows us to classify them under a single term, say, such as the idea "bed." One must have an idea of a bed before he seeks to craft one into being, and the resulting product may be quite unlike any other bed-like object yet conceived, but it is called a "bed" due to the likeness of some ideal conception of bed that it shares, i.e. the form common to all beds. On a conceptual level his forms have a lot of application. The problem is when people take the "little agitations in the brain called 'thought'" too far and start inventing realities rather than defining the one presented before us for purposes of clarity.

Yeah, they have a use, but they're so often fetishized that I think they can in that manner be pretty stifling.

I see self as a process, anyway -- it's a sum of your experiences, sure, but it's also the way you address the world and the little tricks it has up its sleeve. I read just enough Carl Rogers in college psych to get into the idea of life as a flow. I'm not a very spiritual person, but I find my most ineffable moments are those when I'm so inside the flow of things that self-awareness falls away; and I think that that is a damned good goal to have: to be so part of a process that you own it even as it owns you.

[Mystic]

Wow you guys seriously don't believe in freewill. If there is no freewill, there is no goodness either and no praiseworthy actions.