Is There A Real You?

[Confused Ape]

Taking ecstasy for the first time, one minute you're stood thinking about the hum drum general thoughts you normally have then the next second your pupils are actually dilated with pleasure and you feel you can punch down walls but you don't want to because you just want to talk to and love everyone.

So, you were aware of the before and after brain states when you took ecstasy. What part of you was aware? This question brings me to what is known as the Observing Self.

There's no need for people following this topic to run away screaming "Mystical woo!!!" because it's something which everyone can test out for themselves. It doesn't require adopting a spiritual path or believing in any kind of deity because it's just another aspect of how our brains operate. Unfortunately, any attempt to describe it comes out as sounding mystical.

I found a short article about the Observing Self on the Human Givens Institute website which shows that the puzzle of what it is turns up in psychotherapy and psychology.

The most important fact about the observing self is that it is incapable of being objectified. When you try to locate it to establish its boundaries, the task is impossible; whatever you can notice or conceptualise is already an object of awareness, not awareness itself, which seems to jump a step back when we experience an object. Unlike every other object of experience — thoughts, emotions, desires and functions — the observing self can be known but not located, not ‘seen'.

I see the Observing Self as the conscious awareness of existing or the awareness of being here. A newborn baby is biologically programmed to cry for attention and suck etc. but is he/she consciously aware of being alive? Hands up anyone who can remember what it's like to be a new born baby. Once our brains have developed enough we start getting a conscious awareness of existing. This isn't the same thing at all as what we tend to think of as Me if amnesia is anything to go by.

Self and Identity as Memory

K.C. is especially interesting because he may be the most densely amnesic patient ever studied: while most other amnesics have at least some premorbid memory, K.C. has both a complete anterograde amnesia covering events since his accident, and a complete retrograde amnesia covering his life before that time. Put another way, K.C. has no autobiographical memory at all. Moreover, the same accident that caused his amnesia also resulted in a profound personality change, from quite extraverted to rather introverted. Because of his amnesia, K.C. has no idea what he used to be like, as described by his mother; nor does he have any idea how he has changed. Nevertheless, he possesses a self-concept that accurately reflects his changed personality, and comports fairly well with his mother�s description of him. K.C. has acquired new semantic knowledge about himself, but he has not retained the experiences on which this self-knowledge is based; and his newly acquired self-knowledge has effectively replaced the one he possessed before the accident.

He lost everything which we regard as identity but there is no indication that he lost awareness of existing. This awareness of existing isn't solely dependent on being awake, either. When I dream I'm aware of being in the dream. Well, only in the dreams I remember, of course - I have no idea what was going on in the dreams I don't remember.

Maybe this is where people got the idea of eternal souls from. I honestly don't think there's any evidence that this awareness of existing wings its way to an afterlife once the brain dies, though.

[paulpablo]

Taking ecstasy for the first time, one minute you're stood thinking about the hum drum general thoughts you normally have then the next second your pupils are actually dilated with pleasure and you feel you can punch down walls but you don't want to because you just want to talk to and love everyone.

So, you were aware of the before and after brain states when you took ecstasy. What part of you was aware? This question brings me to what is known as the Observing Self.

There's no need for people following this topic to run away screaming "Mystical woo!!!" because it's something which everyone can test out for themselves. It doesn't require adopting a spiritual path or believing in any kind of deity because it's just another aspect of how our brains operate. Unfortunately, any attempt to describe it comes out as sounding mystical.

I found a short article about the Observing Self on the Human Givens Institute website which shows that the puzzle of what it is turns up in psychotherapy and psychology.

The most important fact about the observing self is that it is incapable of being objectified. When you try to locate it to establish its boundaries, the task is impossible; whatever you can notice or conceptualise is already an object of awareness, not awareness itself, which seems to jump a step back when we experience an object. Unlike every other object of experience — thoughts, emotions, desires and functions — the observing self can be known but not located, not ‘seen'.

I see the Observing Self as the conscious awareness of existing or the awareness of being here. A newborn baby is biologically programmed to cry for attention and suck etc. but is he/she consciously aware of being alive? Hands up anyone who can remember what it's like to be a new born baby. Once our brains have developed enough we start getting a conscious awareness of existing. This isn't the same thing at all as what we tend to think of as Me if amnesia is anything to go by.

Self and Identity as Memory

K.C. is especially interesting because he may be the most densely amnesic patient ever studied: while most other amnesics have at least some premorbid memory, K.C. has both a complete anterograde amnesia covering events since his accident, and a complete retrograde amnesia covering his life before that time. Put another way, K.C. has no autobiographical memory at all. Moreover, the same accident that caused his amnesia also resulted in a profound personality change, from quite extraverted to rather introverted. Because of his amnesia, K.C. has no idea what he used to be like, as described by his mother; nor does he have any idea how he has changed. Nevertheless, he possesses a self-concept that accurately reflects his changed personality, and comports fairly well with his mother�s description of him. K.C. has acquired new semantic knowledge about himself, but he has not retained the experiences on which this self-knowledge is based; and his newly acquired self-knowledge has effectively replaced the one he possessed before the accident.

He lost everything which we regard as identity but there is no indication that he lost awareness of existing. This awareness of existing isn't solely dependent on being awake, either. When I dream I'm aware of being in the dream. Well, only in the dreams I remember, of course - I have no idea what was going on in the dreams I don't remember.

Maybe this is where people got the idea of eternal souls from. I honestly don't think there's any evidence that this awareness of existing wings its way to an afterlife once the brain dies, though.

My memory would be the part of me which was aware of what taking the pill was like.

[Confused Ape]

My memory would be the part of me which was aware of what taking the pill was like.

If I waved my hand so you lost all your memories like K.C., would you stop being aware that you existed?

There's nothing mystical about all this because it's something we take for granted in everyday life. Say you're caught up in being angry about something. All of a sudden you're aware of an emotion which you then attach the label "anger" to. The awareness isn't the emotion or the label you attach to the emotion. It isn't a memory of what it was like to be angry before, either.

So what is this awareness? You can have thoughts about it but it's not the thoughts because you can become aware of having thoughts about it.