A Quantifiable Self

[Ana the Ist]

The guy who has problems answering loaded questions.

I disagree.

 

[Ana the Ist]

What do you count as tangible? As I see it, what is tangible is not only the physical "stuff" out there, but also the dynamic relationships that stuff has to other stuff. Our dynamic selves are such relationships between tangible entities.

So, the self is very much tangible. It isn't something that exists in some intangible realm parallel to our universe. It is an emergent property of the tangible.


eudaimonia,

Mark

You know, I was wondering when you'd weigh-in...

You'll have to forgive my wording, tangible isn't really the best,...maybe illusory?

"Our dynamic selves are such relationships between tangible entities."

Can't be, I'm afraid. That would imply that without said relationships, there would be no "self".

 

[Ana the Ist]

I dont think the way we change over time negates a self. The self is a sort of project. But in that respect it still IS.

When you thought of it, you probably had a firm grip on what you called your "self". After you answered the question, that notion of you was gone. That is to say, it isn't present, it doesn't guide your actions, you let go of it entirely.

Truthfully speaking, it wasn't really there correctly anyhow. If it were in any way there, we could say things like, "he wasn't himself today" and it would mean something. You're always yourself...which is to say you think, you have desires, you do things, but that's it really...that's all you are.

 

[durangodawood]

When you thought of it, you probably had a firm grip on what you called your "self". After you answered the question, that notion of you was gone. That is to say, it isn't present, it doesn't guide your actions, you let go of it entirely.

Truthfully speaking, it wasn't really there correctly anyhow. If it were in any way there, we could say things like, "he wasn't himself today" and it would mean something. You're always yourself...which is to say you think, you have desires, you do things, but that's it really...that's all you are.

Why should all aspects of self be held in conscious awareness all the time for the self to be a legit phenom?

 

[Ana the Ist]

Why should all aspects of self be held in conscious awareness all the time for the self to be a legit phenom?

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that...

But I wouldn't say it exists for the more than the moment you consider it, then it's gone...

And unlike other ideas, you can't get it right.

 

[quatona]

I disagree.

Who??

 

[Ana the Ist]

Who??

Exactly.

 

[Eudaimonist]

"Our dynamic selves are such relationships between tangible entities."

Can't be, I'm afraid. That would imply that without said relationships, there would be no "self".

Yes, without those relationships, there would be no self. With those relationships, there is no illusion present. Think of dynamic ecological relationships -- they are no illusion either.

I note the scare quotes you place around the word self. It's entirely possibly that I mean something different by the word than you do. Perhaps you should get into that.

I'm talking about a dynamic causal pattern of activity in accord with human nature. It's not something static or permanent, like the "self" that the Buddhists criticize. One's self is something that involves change over time. I'm not identical to the child I was at age four -- I'm not the "same" person in that sense -- but I am the same person in the sense that I am the causal product of that child over the past few decades. It is not possible to understand who I am without understanding that I was once that four year old child.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[TillICollapse]

Yes, without those relationships, there would be no self. With those relationships, there is no illusion present. Think of dynamic ecological relationships -- they are no illusion either.

This reminds me of the no private language argument, that basically states a language understood by only one person is meaningless and not even possible: language is the result of being a social phenomenon. In other words, without a social need, there is no meaning to language.

 

[Eudaimonist]

This reminds me of the no private language argument, that basically states a language understood by only one person is meaningless and not even possible: language is the result of being a social phenomenon. In other words, without a social need, there is no meaning to language.

I'm not certain, but I may have been misunderstood.

I don't mean that we have to have relationships with other persons in order to have selves, but that selves involve relationships not just to entities external to ourselves (through the senses, for instance), but with those biological and psychological relationships that exist internally to our bodies.

For instance, life itself is a dynamic activity involving many different biological processes. We start off as zygotes and grow and mature to our adult forms. We may hope to psychologically mature as well. We don't control our environments perfectly, but whatever our circumstances we change according to a recognizably human pattern. This process of change involves many sorts of internal relationships.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Ana the Ist]

Yes, without those relationships, there would be no self. With those relationships, there is no illusion present. Think of dynamic ecological relationships -- they are no illusion either.

I note the scare quotes you place around the word self. It's entirely possibly that I mean something different by the word than you do. Perhaps you should get into that.

I'm talking about a dynamic causal pattern of activity in accord with human nature. It's not something static or permanent, like the "self" that the Buddhists criticize. One's self is something that involves change over time. I'm not identical to the child I was at age four -- I'm not the "same" person in that sense -- but I am the same person in the sense that I am the causal product of that child over the past few decades. It is not possible to understand who I am without understanding that I was once that four year old child.


eudaimonia,

Mark

It's interesting to think of having a relationship with a physiological/psychological process. I certainly wouldn't think of it that way. I really don't have a frame of reference for any Buddhist "self". But anyways...

I suppose before I thought of posting the OP, I considered the notion of "self" a sort of constant, ever-present, idea with which I'm always interacting. I considered it possible there could be something in oneself that is unique to them.

Now I don't think I do. Self as an idea seems fleeting at best, indulgent at worst. I think if we could go back in time, swap minds, and I grew up a eudiamonist...and you grew up an ana...then I would be you and you would be me.

 

[Paradoxum]

Interesting ... so for the time being, you assume something needs to be more human to be conscious ? Is that fair to say ?

Sorry I'm only replying now, I've been working.

I'm not sure I assume that something needs to be more human to be conscious. I just know I am conscious, and this seems to be in the brain. So it is fair to think creatures with brains could be conscious. The grey area comes with much less complex creatures, like insects.

And I'm actually with you on the Turing test, although I don't think it has to do with physical makeup. Even if we could "grow" a fully synthetic homo sapien from start to finish, I don't know that I could say it was conscious.

So does believing in consciousness ... or the "self" I should say ... require "faith" in some fashion your opinion ?

Consciousness is self-evident. If we know anything at all, it is that we are conscious, since it is through consciousness that we experience everything else. ie: It is more certain that I have experienced the colour blue, than that the Sun exists.

I disagree with you on the status of a synthetic human. We seem humans grow from embryos (lumps of matter), and we see that damage to the brain damages the mind.

The mind is part of the brain in some sense, but clearly the brain isn't a lump of stuff just like a rock then. The conscious experience of the mind is vastly different from currently conceive of matter.

 

[TillICollapse]

I'm not certain, but I may have been misunderstood.

I don't mean that we have to have relationships with other persons in order to have selves, but that selves involve relationships not just to entities external to ourselves (through the senses, for instance), but with those biological and psychological relationships that exist internally to our bodies.

For instance, life itself is a dynamic activity involving many different biological processes. We start off as zygotes and grow and mature to our adult forms. We may hope to psychologically mature as well. We don't control our environments perfectly, but whatever our circumstances we change according to a recognizably human pattern. This process of change involves many sorts of internal relationships.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Oh I gotcha ... yeah I misunderstood what you were saying then. I thought you were speaking of it as though it were a socially emergent phenomenon. I think you're talking more ... "circle of life" here. Our self is shaped by the external environment, as well as the internal biological systems interacting with each other and "working", etc. Yes ?

It's interesting to think of having a relationship with a physiological/psychological process. I certainly wouldn't think of it that way. I really don't have a frame of reference for any Buddhist "self". But anyways...

I suppose before I thought of posting the OP, I considered the notion of "self" a sort of constant, ever-present, idea with which I'm always interacting. I considered it possible there could be something in oneself that is unique to them.

Now I don't think I do. Self as an idea seems fleeting at best, indulgent at worst. I think if we could go back in time, swap minds, and I grew up a eudiamonist...and you grew up an ana...then I would be you and you would be me.

One thing I think people often take for granted, is that they assume the activity of "being aware" and focussing on something ... is one of the highest functions of the brain. IOW, when I choose to focus on how to make a pizza, or I choose to focus on solving a problem, or I choose to focus on philosophical questions, or I choose to "get in the zone" and play the basketball game like a champ, or solve equations ... we think that some how our ability to do such things is the pinnacle of the brain, and the part of "us" that uses the most brain resources, etc. Thus, our ability to even focus on "self" is us operating at top level in some fashion.

However studies on areas of the brain which are typically "at rest" when we are not focussed on something, such as the Default Mode Network, have shown that perhaps areas of our brain is constantly focussed on the environment, planning ahead, thinking of solutions to problems, etc .... that we are not even aware of, which effect our spontaneous thoughts, creative process, and focussed awareness.

I remember reading an article on this topic a few years ago .... here it is ...

The Brain's Dark Energy - Scientific American

Well, there's part of it at least. Anyways, one of the experiments (and I'm drawing from memory here) involved having a group of students take exams, and introducing controlled stimuli at different times during their exams in order to see if it changed the behavior of the students. They began to see patterns, and realized they could more or less predict when a student was going to miss an answer to a question, due to distracting their brains ... and they could predict this like 2-3 questions down the line. IOW, it wasn't instantaneous. They attributed this to areas of the brain "focussing" on aspects in the environment and influencing decision making, completely separate from the focussed students who were unawares of what their brains were doing lol. I'd have to read the article again to get the exact details, as I don't have access to the complete article on that website

But the concept is intriguing ... it would almost be like having a TEAM, in your brain, that is "thinking" for your body. It's not just your "self", IOW ... it's a team. And it's not just controlling processes like breathing, blood flow, etc that I'm talking about ... it's actually *thinking* about the environment, input, making decisions, etc.

This was my armchair understanding of what I was reading ... but it's a fascinating concept. Not only when we consider "self" do we consider, "Who am I ?" .... but should we view ourselves as *multiple* "selves" which even have degrees of separation within our own "self" ?

 

[Eudaimonist]

Oh I gotcha ... yeah I misunderstood what you were saying then. I thought you were speaking of it as though it were a socially emergent phenomenon.

A sense of self might be socially emergent, but that's not really what I was talking about.

I think you're talking more ... "circle of life" here. Our self is shaped by the external environment, as well as the internal biological systems interacting with each other and "working", etc. Yes ?

Yes, that's pretty much correct.

But the concept is intriguing ... it would almost be like having a TEAM, in your brain, that is "thinking" for your body. It's not just your "self", IOW ... it's a team.

As I see it, that "team" and their interactions are one's self. The self is a system that emerges from smaller systems.

This was my armchair understanding of what I was reading ... but it's a fascinating concept. Not only when we consider "self" do we consider, "Who am I ?" .... but should we view ourselves as *multiple* "selves" which even have degrees of separation within our own "self" ?

Yeah, something like that. We don't have CPUs that are at the center of everything, controlling everything else. It's more like being a parallel processing network that nevertheless functions together to form a overall pattern. This pattern may be more or less coherent, depending on the integration of one's psychology. People can be conflicted, and may seem like "different people" at times, though I would say simply that that individual is conflicted instead of attempting some multiple personality interpretation.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Eudaimonist]

Now I don't think I do. Self as an idea seems fleeting at best, indulgent at worst. I think if we could go back in time, swap minds, and I grew up a eudiamonist...and you grew up an ana...then I would be you and you would be me.

How would we "swap minds"? We'd have to swap brains, but that wouldn't change any differences in natural temperament, talent, etc.

But, sure, I could have grown up with different beliefs under different circumstances. I would still be "me", but different in some ways. I don't think that I would be a different "self", any more than I would reject the four year old "me" as some kind of stranger.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Ana the Ist]

How would we "swap minds"? We'd have to swap brains, but that wouldn't change any differences in natural temperament, talent, etc.

But, sure, I could have grown up with different beliefs under different circumstances. I would still be "me", but different in some ways. I don't think that I would be a different "self", any more than I would reject the four year old "me" as some kind of stranger.


eudaimonia,

Mark

It's an entirely fictional scenario where all environmental factors, internal and external, were accounted for. So, if we were to go back and swap under such circumstances...would I be you? Would you be me? Or do you think that something else is there, unaccounted for?

 

[Eudaimonist]

It's an entirely fictional scenario where all environmental factors, internal and external, were accounted for. So, if we were to go back and swap under such circumstances...would I be you? Would you be me? Or do you think that something else is there, unaccounted for?

I can accept science fiction scenarios, but swap how?


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Ana the Ist]

I can accept science fiction scenarios, but swap how?


eudaimonia,

Mark

Sorry, Mark...I'm trying to think of another way to say this.

 

[Ana the Ist]

I can accept science fiction scenarios, but swap how?


eudaimonia,

Mark

I have a feeling I already know how you'd answer this...but here we go!

Let's say we can identify a "moment of mind's creation" and we could reduce your mind back to that moment...blanking out everything after that moment. Then through some tricky dna manipulation, we change the organic structure of your brain to become the organic structure of my brain, slap it inside an Ana clone, which is then inserted into a perfectly recreated perfectly realistic simulation of my entire life (this a terrifying prospect, even for me ).

Would you then be me? (My guess is that you'll say at the moment of reduction back to creation, nothing of you will remain...or shortly thereafter)

So maybe a more interesting question would be, do you think you would do everything as I had? Is that a little too deterministic?

 

[TillICollapse]

As I see it, that "team" and their interactions are one's self. The self is a system that emerges from smaller systems.

Yeah, something like that. We don't have CPUs that are at the center of everything, controlling everything else. It's more like being a parallel processing network that nevertheless functions together to form a overall pattern. This pattern may be more or less coherent, depending on the integration of one's psychology. People can be conflicted, and may seem like "different people" at times, though I would say simply that that individual is conflicted instead of attempting some multiple personality interpretation.

eudaimonia,

Mark

Are you familiar with the "bicameral mind" theory ? Fascinating, imo. This somewhat reminds me of it, a little bit.