Is There A Real You?

[Rayaan]

In this short talk, philosopher Julian Baggini, author of The Ego Trick, enlightens the audience about one of the most fundamental of philosophical questions: What is the self? Is it something stable and unitary as we think it is? Is it even real?

Julian believes that the sense of self emerges in us without any essential or permanent self actually existing. So the sense of the self is just an idea, an idea which is created in us by the summation of our countless thoughts, emotions, desires, intentions, memories, etc. Although I don't agree with this view (since I believe in the existence of "souls" which are thought to be something permanent), I've been pondering on this. Where does my sense of self come from exactly?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jny68mFF8k

[Whateverist]

Would have liked more but fun nonetheless. Thanks for sharing the video.

Haven't seen you around a lot lately, Rayaan. Hope you're okay.

[Confused Ape]

Julian believes that the sense of self emerges in us without any essential or permanent self actually existing. So the sense of the self is just an idea, an idea which is created in us by the summation of our countless thoughts, emotions, desires, intentions, memories, etc. Although I don't agree with this view (since I believe in the existence of "souls" which are thought to be something permanent), I've been pondering on this. Where does my sense of self come from exactly?

1: What is a soul? Is it the same as the sense of self which Julian Baggini is talking about?

2: Do Muslims never change throughout their lives? For example, would you say you're exactly the same as you were when you were two years old?

3: If souls exist, how do they operate in the physical world? What if souls create a sense of self because of how the human brain works? I don't believe in souls but I've sometimes wondered how my soul would operate in the physical world if I had one.

[KUSA]

If a soul defines who you are and not the brain then why do people act differently when the brain is damaged?

[pocaracas]

Back to the software analogy, must we?

Is the OS running on my computer a real thing?

[Cato]

I haven't had an opportunity to watch the video, so my reply may be a little misplaced for now.

In my experience, the fact that nobody else involuntarily hit the deck in agony when my balls got racked ends speculation on the matter.

[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.)

[Whateverist]

If a soul defines who you are and not the brain then why do people act differently when the brain is damaged?

Oh, I think I could put the word "soul" to good use. It would take some finessing of course. I surely wouldn't imagine it being anything at all apart from the brain/organism of a living animal though. When it comes to the taxonomy of the self/mind we don't have a lot of terms to choose from. Perhaps we could salvage this one.

[bennyboy]

All our ideas about people are essentially mythologies. A mother is a biological entity: organs, genetics, instincts, etc. However, our ideas about Mom are not of this nature. They are about remembered moments and abstract qualities: beauty, kindness, temperance, etc. Mom is (for most of us) a kind of Greek goddess-- a personifcation of those qualities.

The essence of human reality is that we live in a world of ideas, not of things. A "tree" is not the same as a tree when examined under a microscope. It includes ideas like roughness and smoothness, branching shapes, shade in summer, etc. A "desk" isn't just a planed board sitting on top of four legs: it is a working surface, associated with school and work; it is a member of the "furniture" class of ideas; it is an association with a memory of stubbed toes, or of having to clean dripping ice cream off of it.

We are so immersed in this complex web of ideas and memories that we take them as representative of an asbolute reality. But they aren't.

So now to the self. There are two selves. One is thee mythological good guy/smart guy/diamond-in-the-rough/struggling misunderstood soul, connected to memories and abstractions. The other is the biological entity.

[Marsellus Wallace]

Back to the software analogy, must we?

Is the OS running on my computer a real thing?

Exactly, You can't see the OS by looking at the hardware, its just a few 0's and 1's on a hard drive .
I think the same concept goes between the mind and the brain .