Mind: emergent property or "Ghost in the machine"?

[TricksterWolf]

I am currently reading "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance". In the book the main personage has received shock therapy and, because of this, lost all memory of his former "self" and also some of his personality traits. Throughout the whole book, he speaks about the ideas of his former self and what he thinks of them, as well as on what he has recollected, through reading, talking with friends of that past life and bits and pieces of memory. He refers to his former "self" as Phaedrus, as a completely different person. Since the book is highly autobiographic, are there any other known cases where something like this has happened?

There are plenty of legitimate cases like this, but I don't have reference off the top of my head. Most dissociative cases I regard with skepticism, as they can be from a manifestation of a different class of disorders which would cause someone to "fake" having another personality.

There are famous cases of retrograde amnesia that I can recall offhand, though, like H.M. This patient recieved brain surgery in 1953 and lost all long-term memory in the process. He's eternally surprised to see an old man in the mirror, because he always thinks it's 1953, and that he's 27 years old. It's much like the movie Memento (great movie).

There are also similar disorders where someone remembers being a previous "self" but feels wholly detached from the memory. Dissociative fugues are often associated with inescapable trauma in childhood.

Trickster

 

[Oncedeceived]

[/size][/color][/font]But if the "self" is contained outside the body, how is it affected by damage to the body?

Well I never claimed it was outside the body per se but I don't think that the soul is damaged when the body is damaged.

 

[Oncedeceived]

I do. But this is an essentialistic discussion (based on labels, definitions, and "essenses" of things, rather than facts).

Very true.

What if the "I" is only recognized by the other, as in the case of someone with severe dementia--where only you can see the self when they cannot?

Here again is a problem. Many of the people that don't recognize themselves are remembering themselves at a younger age, or other people at a younger age. So it is difficult if not impossible to say they cannot see themselves.

Some people certainly have less self awareness than even an insect.

Certainly? No one really understands what happens when these patients are "lost" within themselves.

Is it the outsider's perspective that creates the impression of self? If you see a convincingly constructed wax dummy and think it is a person, does that give it a self? If a person is completely unconscious, does it lose its self, then regain it when revived? What about cryogenically frozen animals, who are frozen--technically dead, but able to be revived to consciousness? How can we know if Terri Schaivo had, post vegetative state, a self or not?

It is well known that those patients that have been in a deep dementia can and do have moments of clarity. In those moments they know others and themselves. They remember past experiences. They remember them as themselves in tact.

I don't think any of these questions are easily answered. The evidences of "selfhood", such as personality and awareness, can certainly change. This alone makes skepticism a logical conjecture.

I disagree. Personality is only an attribute of self and it can and does change either by experiences and awareness is only known by the person themselves so we are unable to hold any real assessment on that.

There isn't a logical way to show consistency of self in the way that we'd like it to exist. The whole notion of "self" probably originates from the fact that many ways of acting, which we call personality, are fixed over a person's life...most of the time.

Again I disagree. Self acts, self thinks of itself as the person doing the thinking and acting whether or not that acting out has changed or whether or not the personality triats have been altered.

 

[Chalnoth]

How, oncedeceived, do you explain alien hand syndrome, where a person appears to develop two completely separate personalities? Does that person suddenly have two souls?

 

[Oncedeceived]

How, oncedeceived, do you explain alien hand syndrome, where a person appears to develop two completely separate personalities? Does that person suddenly have two souls?

As I have tried to explain, I think that personality is only an attribute of the self. Personality does not equate to soul.

 

[Tomk80]

As I have tried to explain, I think that personality is only an attribute of the self. Personality does not equate to soul.

But the problem of something like alien hand syndrom, or the thing I described in an earlier post on Zen and the art of Motorcycle maintenance, and an even earlier post on operations where the brain is split, is not just personality. It is the whole 'continuity of existence' which it discounts. It describes situations where people have the feeling of either body parts reacting in a way they never in any way wanted, outside of their control, or even whole parts of their life seem to have been led by someone else instead of them.

 

[Oncedeceived]

But the problem of something like alien hand syndrom, or the thing I described in an earlier post on Zen and the art of Motorcycle maintenance, and an even earlier post on operations where the brain is split, is not just personality. It is the whole 'continuity of existence' which it discounts. It describes situations where people have the feeling of either body parts reacting in a way they never in any way wanted, outside of their control, or even whole parts of their life seem to have been led by someone else instead of them.

Your entire comment supports what I am saying here:

feeling of either body parts reacting in a way they never in any way wanted, outside of their control,

And:

r even whole parts of their life seem to have been led by someone else instead of them.


As this shows, they are the self that someone else instead of themselves is reacting or controling their body or life.

 

[Chalnoth]

I'm sorry, I think I've lost what point you're trying to get across here, Oncedeceived.

 

[Oncedeceived]

I'm sorry, I think I've lost what point you're trying to get across here, Oncedeceived.

The point I was making to you was that personality does not equate soul.

 

[Chalnoth]

The point I was making to you was that personality does not equate soul.

Then what do you believe you take on to the afterlife, if not your personality and memories?

 

[Tomk80]

Your entire comment supports what I am saying here:

feeling of either body parts reacting in a way they never in any way wanted, outside of their control,

And:

r even whole parts of their life seem to have been led by someone else instead of them.


As this shows, they are the self that someone else instead of themselves is reacting or controling their body or life.

Sorry, but I have no idea what you are trying to say here.

Take the example of our friend Pirsig, author of Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

Now, he underwent shock therapy. After shock therapy, he did not remember anything about his former life. In his mind, the person who existed before he underwent shock therapy has ceased to exist and is now dead. He is not.

The same with phantom limbs. There is a second 'self' introduced into the body, that did not exist before.

I'm not talking about personality here, I'm talking about 'self' and I'm talking about how events can split it up, throw it around and introduce new ones of that.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Sorry, but I have no idea what you are trying to say here.

Take the example of our friend Pirsig, author of Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

Now, he underwent shock therapy. After shock therapy, he did not remember anything about his former life. In his mind, the person who existed before he underwent shock therapy has ceased to exist and is now dead. He is not.

His "new" self is actually the old self in new circumstances. His new experiences are the only ones that he knows. It seems perfectly logical to me that he would feel disconnected to the earlier life he led if his memory is completely wiped out.

The same with phantom limbs. There is a second 'self' introduced into the body, that did not exist before.

Phantom limbs as I understand are "feelings or pain" in the missing limb after amputation. So I don't know exactly what you are discussing here.

I'm not talking about personality here, I'm talking about 'self' and I'm talking about how events can split it up, throw it around and introduce new ones of that.

I know what you are saying. I am just not convinced that it means what you feel it does.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Then what do you believe you take on to the afterlife, if not your personality and memories?

I do believe that you take your personality and memories and should those have been altered by disease or damage to the brain, they will be intact in the afterlife.

 

[Grummpy]

Oncedeceived

I do believe that you take your personality and memories and should those have been altered by disease or damage to the brain, they will be intact in the afterlife.

Have you got any evidence of an afterlife?

Because I have a lot of evidence that brain damage=mind damage.

Grumpy

 

[Kahalachan]

I don't see why there is a reason to believe in a soul.

We don't see the soul working when the brain fails. For example in prosopagnosia, a neurological disorder where the victim can't see faces, someone's soul doesn't help them to recognize their wife. In Alzheimer's patients, we don't see a soul taking over.

If the soul does not make its existence obvious when the brain has problems, why should we assume a soul exists?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Have you got any evidence of an afterlife?

Not personally.

Because I have a lot of evidence that brain damage=mind damage.

Grumpy

What is a mind?

 

[Oncedeceived]

I don't see why there is a reason to believe in a soul.

We don't see the soul working when the brain fails. For example in prosopagnosia, a neurological disorder where the victim can't see faces, someone's soul doesn't help them to recognize their wife. In Alzheimer's patients, we don't see a soul taking over.

If the soul does not make its existence obvious when the brain has problems, why should we assume a soul exists?

I don't think that anyone should assume anything without any sort of reason or logic behind an opinion.

I have been saying repeatedly that I do not believe a brain equals a soul.

 

[Chalnoth]

I don't think that anyone should assume anything without any sort of reason or logic behind an opinion.

That's good. So why do you think a soul exists?

 

[Kahalachan]

I don't think that anyone should assume anything without any sort of reason or logic behind an opinion.

I have been saying repeatedly that I do not believe a brain equals a soul.

But what reason is there to think a soul exists? It does not give information to the brain, as demonstrated with neurological disorders or damage.

 

[Oncedeceived]

That's good. So why do you think a soul exists?

I think a soul exists based on a spiritual basis. I believe that "self" is always self and that is an attribute to the soul. I believe that the soul exists in its own enity. This is totally my opinion based upon different areas of information. There is evidence to support this opinion.

There have been examples of patients being pronounced dead..i.e. no heart rate, no brain activity and so forth; when a patient can tell what transpired during the time of death.