Is There A Real You?

[Angrboda]

Where does my sense of self come from exactly?

I'm of the opinion that much of the problem of trying to pin down the self comes from assuming that it need have an objective existence, either as a thing or a process. What if the self is just an idea in the mind, an idea that we have no control over, a model of something that the mind creates for us? If we imagine a pony in our mind, we can turn that image around, stand the pony on its head, put its head where its feet should be and vice versa — the image of the pony that exists in the mind's eye is nonetheless "real" to the mind.

In the same way, I think the self is "real" to the mind, being a model of who and what we are, generated by the subconscious. In some ways, we can analogize it to the phenomenon of blindsight. In some people with damage to certain cortical pathways or centers associated with sight, the patient no longer has conscious awareness of visual perception; yet these same patients, when tested, can demonstrate considerable knowledge of what occurs in their visual field, despite having no conscious awareness of sight. It's theorized that visual perception is handled by two separate systems in the brain, and in the blindsight patient, the visual system that leads to conscious experience of sight is damaged, but the other system is intact.

My suggestion is that our self is a model generated by the brain, like an invisible mental image of a pony, and it ties together things like intangible resources (character traits like patience or smarts), our history (recent projects, activities and goals), and the other aspects of self/control (like our body and its state) to form a cohesive model that the brain can use to manage and predict its own behavior. Like the models of the solar system in which you turn the crank and the planets revolve around the sun, the self is a continually updated model of those resources we have control over, generated by the subconscious, and presented to the conscious mind, similar to blindsight, in an "invisible way" — the conscious mind isn't aware of where the information is coming from, but it can access aspects of this model to determine things like, "Do I have a smart brain?" and "Do I have a limb which can grasp this apple?" and "Do I have the skill to play the violin?" It's an invisible model of who we are, combining both durable objects (like our bodies) with intangible traits (like our skills) into a whole that the brain can use for planning and coordination.

(To be precise, I suspect the brain has several of these models, each being used for different types of planning and coordination activities.)