So, is the self an entity the way a soul is an entity that can be resurrected or reincarnated?

I didn't say that you will agree with me if you read the book. I expect people to make up their own minds about everything. I have never asked anyone to agree with me about anything.

If anyone wants to discuss the book with me, chapter by chapter, I am happy to do so.

In an earlier post, I quoted ChatGPT 4 - if you want to discuss that I am happy to do that, too.

I can't really summarise the book in a few words. I read the book almost five years ago. I still have the book and would be happy to go through it again if anyone wants to discuss it with me.

What do you mean by "So the OP is not the actual case."?

I said "It's possible that my body, the Earth, the universe, and all the other living things including you, are all part of a simulation or a hallucination or dream or illusion that I am experiencing." The key words here are "It's possible." I didn't say that it actually was the case.

I did answer the second question by editing my initial answer as I had initially forgotten to answer the second question.

Do you have a religion?

This is what I originally said:

It's possible that my body, the Earth, the universe, and all the other living things including you, are all part of a simulation or a hallucination or dream or illusion that I am experiencing.

I didn't say it was actually the case. How could I possibly know what the actual case is? There is no way for me to test the idea that what appears to be real is part of a simulation/hallucination/dream/illusion.

No, I am not a Hindu. I am an agnostic atheist materialist monist.

It is impossible to test the simulation/hallucination/dream/illusion hypothesis. Just as it is impossible to test the solipsism hypothesis.

According to Hinduism, we are all souls plugged into an illusion called Maya. All we see, hear, smell, taste and touch are part of this illusion called Maya. Allegedly, we reincarnate in Maya according to our karma. It is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of the illusion called Maya.

You don't have to read the book if you don't want to. My recommendation to read it is just that - a recommendation.

I am convinced by the contents of the book that the self is an illusion. If you want to assess the contents of the book you will have to read it. I am not going to copy and paste an entire book into my posts - that would breach copyright laws.

I disagree. I could be a disembodied soul experiencing the simulation or hallucination or dream or illusion that I am in a human body, in a universe where there are other humans and other species.

Welcome to the forum.

I am quoting ChatGPT 4:

The concepts of the minimal self and the diachronic self represent different aspects of personal identity and consciousness in the field of philosophy, particularly in the study of the self and identity. Here’s a breakdown of these concepts and how they compare:

Minimal Self
Definition: The minimal self is a concept referring to a person's immediate, present-tense sense of self. It is the basic, core self-awareness that is present in the moment, without any extended reference to one’s past or future.

Characteristics:

Immediate: It is concerned with the "here and now," focusing on present experiences and sensations.
Pre-reflective: It operates without the need for introspective thought or reflection on one's existence or identity over time.
Fundamental Awareness: It involves an awareness that one is the subject experiencing or undergoing an experience, often described as the sense of "I" or "me" in the immediate sense.
Philosophical Context: The minimal self is often discussed in contexts such as phenomenology, where philosophers like Edmund Husserl and later Zahavi delve into the structures of experience and immediate self-awareness.

Diachronic Self
Definition: The diachronic self refers to the aspect of self that extends across time. It includes a continuity of identity that spans past, present, and future experiences, forming a coherent narrative or story of oneself.

Characteristics:

Extended: It is concerned with the self across time, integrating memories of the past and anticipations of the future into a coherent identity.
Reflective: It often involves reflective self-awareness, where one thinks about one’s life as a continuous story or narrative.
Personal Identity: It addresses how a person remains the same individual despite various changes over time, considering aspects like memories, personality traits, and life experiences.
Philosophical Context: Philosophers such as John Locke and Derek Parfit have discussed the diachronic self, focusing on issues like personal identity, memory, and moral responsibility over time.

Comparison
Temporal Scope: The minimal self is about the immediate moment, lacking any temporal depth, whereas the diachronic self encompasses an extended timeline, integrating the past, present, and future.
Conscious Awareness: The minimal self involves a basic, possibly non-reflective awareness of selfhood in the present moment. In contrast, the diachronic self requires a higher level of self-reflection and narrative construction.
Function and Focus: The minimal self is more about experiencing and reacting in the present, which can be crucial for immediate survival and basic interactions. The diachronic self, however, is key to one’s overall life narrative, responsible for actions and decisions informed by a sense of personal history and future goals.
These two concepts of self highlight different aspects of what it means to be a person, one focusing on the immediate and fundamental aspect of experiencing consciousness, and the other on the continuity and narrative of one's identity over time. Both are essential for understanding the complex nature of human self-awareness and identity.

The question of whether the self is an illusion is a profound and contentious issue that spans philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and even areas of spirituality. Different disciplines and perspectives provide various answers:

1. Buddhist Philosophy
In many schools of Buddhist thought, the self is considered an illusion. This perspective holds that the notion of a permanent, unchanging self is a misconception. Instead, what we consider the "self" is merely a collection of changing phenomena, including physical sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. The concept of "anatta" or "non-self" is central here, suggesting that realizing the illusory nature of the self is key to achieving enlightenment.

2. Western Philosophy
Western philosophical views on the self vary widely:

Humean Perspective: David Hume famously argued that upon introspection, one does not encounter any fixed self but only a bundle of sensations and experiences. According to Hume, the self is more a product of our imagination, as we tend to think of our identity as some kind of underlying essence when it's actually just a collection of changing perceptions.
Kantian View: Immanuel Kant posited that while our empirical self (the self as we experience it) is knowable, there is also a transcendental self (the self that experiences) which we cannot directly know but must assume to exist as the condition for the possibility of experience.
3. Neuroscience and Psychology
From a scientific standpoint, some neuroscientists and psychologists suggest that the self is a construct created by the brain to organize and integrate information. This construct:

Functional Purpose: Serves to create a coherent narrative from the myriad of sensory inputs and internal dialogues.
Illusion of Continuity: Offers an illusion of continuity in an individual's life. This is seen in the way memories, personality traits, and personal narratives are woven together into what feels like a continuous identity.
4. Cognitive Science
Cognitive scientists might argue that the self, while being a constructed narrative, is not necessarily an illusion but a functional entity. The "self-model" used by our brains helps in predicting actions and planning future activities, which is crucial for survival and social interaction.

Conclusion
The question of whether the self is an illusion depends significantly on what we define as the "self" and the theoretical or practical lens through which we view it. From a strictly empirical and materialistic viewpoint, the self could be seen as an illusion—there is no singular, unchanging essence that is the self. From a functional and phenomenological standpoint, the self, though perhaps a construct, serves essential roles in human cognition and social interaction.

This ongoing debate is central to many disciplines and continues to challenge our understanding of human consciousness and identity. Each perspective brings valuable insights into what constitutes the self and how it influences human experience.

The word "illusion" means "not what it seems". That's all there is to it.

Did you read the book or not? You need to read the book to understand why there is no "You" inside your head.

It's possible that my body, the Earth, the universe, and all the other living things including you, are all part of a simulation or a hallucination or dream or illusion that I am experiencing.

We are not our body, but we appear to be embodied. I agree about the mind dying when the body dies.

It feels like my locus of consciousness is behind my eyes and between my ears. I imagine it feels that way for you also.

Our words reflect our experiences. That's why we have words such as "I" and "me". I feel like a conscious individual being.

Have you read the book I mentioned in my first post in this thread?

I agree that we are all unique. The reason we are unique is because we are products of the interactions between unique genes, unique environments from conception to the present, unique nutrients from conception to the present and unique experiences from the womb to the present. If these groups of variables were identical for everyone we would be identical in our thoughts, emotions, words, and actions.

So, how would you explain consciousness?

That's interesting. Thank you.

Some have called Hume a Bundle Theorist when it comes to the question of the self.

Being me feels like being a self. According to the book I recommended in the first post in this thread, this is an illusion because the self is a process not an entity.

If you have any evidence for the existence of souls, gods, resurrection or reincarnation please show us and we can examine the evidence together. Thank you.

The self feels like an entity even though it is not an entity but a process. This is what I mean by the self being an illusion. If solipsism is accurate, the self is all there is and everything else is generated by the self. I don't think solipsism is accurate even though we can't actually test the idea.

The self feels like an entity even though it is not an entity but a process. This is what I mean by the self being an illusion. I like your idea of proto-consciousness. How would we test this idea?

Thank you for your interesting reply. I have spoken with people who meditate regularly who said that they experienced the silent self which is beyond the chatter of thoughts. I have never experienced the silent self. Have you?

Thank you very much for your detailed post. I didn't really understand the quoted text because my brain is depressed which diminishes comprehension. If I ever get well, I will re-read it.

By sentient I mean conscious. Philosophical zombies behave as if they are conscious but are not actually.

What's the difference between self and consciousness?

I agree.

Thank you very much.

Source: https://www.quora.com/To-what-extent-are-our-choices-and-actions-considered-free

To what extent are our choices and actions considered "free"?

Are they really ‘ours’? If you look into it, you will see that there may be a sense of choosing but no actual chooser. One way to look at choice is as a process, which starts at the subatomic levels, going to the atomic and molecular and cellular and suddenly “I choose this!”

Who is this ‘I’? If you say, “Me, silly!”, then are you controlling the process of choice from your subatomic level throughout all the other levels? Are you controlling what your atoms, molecules and cells do? Because they’re doing a bunch of stuff before you reach the point of declaring your choice.

Are choices really made consciously? Psychologists would argue that many of them are unconscious. Who, then, is the chooser? I assume none of us have the experience of pulling choices from the unconscious level through to the conscious… Nope, these unconscious choices make themselves. Only after they are made, we may realize what lurked in our unconscious.

Libet’s experiment is quite famous. It showed that choices are made and we actually become conscious of them after they’ve been made. Then, there is a process in the brain of claiming the choice as ‘mine.’ This claiming makes it feel like ‘I’ made the choice, like ‘I’ was in charge the entire time. But, actually, the choice arose and then was claimed as ‘my choice.’

Another interesting angle is this: When I ask you to choose between coffee and tea, keep in mind that both coffee and tea require the entire evolution of the universe to exist. Without the birth of the sun and all the conditions that allow earth to produce coffee beans and tea leaves, and without humans to make beverages from them — that choice wouldn’t be available to you. So the choices you have, you didn’t choose to have them(!). Evolution did. You were born into a context, and all your choices take place within that context. And like you, those who came before were also born into a particular context and did not choose what choices they will have. They had completely different choices than you (depending how far back you go). Go all the way back to the first man, who made whatever choices were available to him. Who originally chose the choices that were available to him?

How free is our choice if we can’t choose what options we have? Our choice is very limited by our context and circumstance. And the mysterious thing is… who put it there? You may say God, you may say evolution. The first man didn’t choose to be, didn’t choose what options will be available to him, didn’t choose anything about himself or his environment. Once he found himself in these pre-existing conditions, he made whatever choices were available from his understanding of himself and the world. But before the first man, was there choice? If you answer that there was no choice in the universe before the first man, then why should choice have started with his appearance? If you there was choice before the first man, then who was it that chose? Randomness? Evolution? God? Either way, it wasn’t man - so at what point did man assume choice? You see, if all is evolution’s doing, then we have no choice whatsoever and never had. Everything is just happening, unfolding, perhaps by laws of nature, and we are one choiceless part of that unfolding. If it’s God, then we are moved as God wills only (and what we think of as our will is really His). Man appeared within a context that he never chose. Evolution or God chose (or randomness). At what point did choice become man’s? What makes us think that we have gained independence? Seeking for the birth of choice kinda makes you wonder if it has any reality to it at all. The fact that we, humans, appear in the universe quite late on, after so much has been established (galaxies and solar systems, and planets etc), and then we claim to be in charge of some part of a process that is so much larger than us and began way before us… This is the same as what I started with - the subatomic, atomic, molecular and cellular levels - only looked at from the side of all the things that we are within rather than they within us. Do you see, we are part of a chain. Can one link on a chain claim to be a true individual, moving as it wishes?

This leads us perfectly into the more Buddhist view, that is an alternative to the evolution/God-is-the-chooser view. It might say it is neither God nor evolution, but interdependence. The existence of any one thing depends on all things. Our movement is not separate from the rest of the universe. It’s all one inter-connected movement, and one has to wonder where, within it all, is there any room for individuality and free will. If everything depends on everything else, then it is all inter-dependent, and that necessarily means there is no independent choice.

But say you’re not convinced and you feel you might have just a tiny bit of free will anyway, to have and to hold. Well is it not quite obvious that our choices are but a result of our genes and up-to-date conditioning? Which are utterly out of our control. Genes, we were born with. Our conditioning is a result of all of our life experiences, and surely we didn’t choose all the life experiences we had. I mean, did you choose to get into that terrible relationship? Or did you simply not know better? It wasn’t in your programming (conditioning) at the time to be able to smell where this relationship was going… You lacked experience at the time. It was your conditioning to go into it. It was only after the relationship ended that, most likely, your conditioning changed. But you didn’t choose who you had become. It happened. Through life experience. Experience that, again, you didn’t choose to have. You thought you were going into a relationship that would make you blissfully happy… You thought that’s what you were choosing. So much for choice when we so often don’t even know what we’re choosing. You may choose to go to a concert to have fun, but you end up crushed by the moshpit, and leave bruised, pissed and miserable. That… wasn’t really your choice.

The truth is that the next thing comes, whatever it is, regardless of what it is you think you’re choosing for yourself. I remember in India always asking for no spice in my food, and receiving enough spice for 7 people in my dish anyway. I “chose” no-spice, life gave me extra spice. If we really had choice, we would feel in control of our lives and of ourselves. There would be no addictions. Things would go our way. Life wouldn’t surprise us with curve balls constantly. We would know exactly what we’re getting into every single time we made a choice - we would know what we’re choosing. But even that we don’t know. Our choices are much more like guesses. Maybe it will lead to what we want, maybe not.

Let’s face it, we’re not in control. And the process of decision-making only feels real, but is actually a result of a false sense of separation from the whole.

BUT… there are good news at the end of it all. You ready? The good news is this: It’s freedom we want, not free will. “What?,” you say, “they’re one and the same!” No, no, no, not at all. Free will - choice - is bondage. Being not-separate from the whole, is freedom. It is the sense of separation that makes you constantly desire something other than what is. This is rarely ever good enough, you want THAT (whatever your THAT is). And you hope that having choice will enable to get what you want. We think freedom is being able to have something, like have the life we want. But it is the desirer that is the cause of suffering to begin with. Wanting what isn’t rather than what is, it attaches to these desires, these outcomes - and suffers, for it decides it is not complete until the desire is satisfied. But, of course, the death of one desire is the birth of the next. And on it goes. And thus one feels never fully and truly satisfied. UNTIL… one sees the absurdity and is happy with what is, as it is. This is the realization of non-separation from life. The realization that there is no ‘you’ to choose anything, for ‘you’ are a part of the whole’s (life’s) movement. THIS is freedom. Not-wanting. Not being troubled by choice and the search for THAT rather than THIS, what is.

Choosing occurs. But no chooser there is. (In Yoda-speak).

I agree.

Thank you very much.

I agree with your statement about assigned culpability. I also agree that there is no actual culpability as the choices we make are determined by prior causes.

The term Big Bang is a misnomer. It should be renamed Tiny Silent Beginning as this is what actually happened.

I don't think there will be a Big Crunch because the expansion of the universe is accelerating. I think this universe will die from Heat Death. We will be long dead so it won't affect us.

Thank you for your recommendation.

Thank you for your kind wishes. You are most welcome.

Why does our brain have limited capacity? Why aren't all living things all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful? How do you know that someone could have done something else at the time and place of the doing instead of what was done? I am not convinced that anyone could have done something else but I could be wrong as I am not all-knowing.

Here is a MOOD SCALE that I use to monitor myself:

+5: Total loss of judgement, exorbitant spending, religious delusions or hallucinations.
+4: Lost touch with reality, incoherent, no sleep, paranoid and vindictive, reckless behaviour.
+3: Inflated self-esteem, rapid thoughts and speech, counter-productive simultaneous tasks.
+2: Very productive, everything to excess, charming and talkative.
+1: Self-esteem good, optimistic, sociable and articulate, good decisions and get work done.
0: Mood in balance, no symptoms of depression or mania.
-1: Slight withdrawal from social situations, concentration less than usual, slight agitation.
-2: Feeling of panic and anxiety, concentration difficult and memory poor, some comfort in routine.
-3: Slow thinking, no appetite, need to be alone, sleep excessive or difficult, everything a struggle.
-4: Feeling of hopelessness and guilt, thoughts of suicide, little movement, impossible to do anything.
-5: Endless suicidal thoughts, no way out, no movement, everything is bleak and it will always be like this.

Right now I am at -2 on the mood scale. Have you ever experienced what it is like to be at -2 or -5 or +5? I have. I have to take 600 mg of Quetiapine XL per night to get to -2 on the mood scale. If I didn't take it, I would be stuck at -5. Have you ever had hallucinations? If you haven't, you won't understand how scary and confusing it is to have one's reality warped by things that are not really there.

If you don't have Bipolar Affective Disorder, the descriptors above won't mean much to you. Words cannot accurately convey what it is actually like.

I also have CPTSD and chronic pain. If you don't have flashbacks and nightmares and intrusive thoughts you are not going to understand what that's like. If you don't live with chronic pain you won't know what that's like. There is no substitute for actual experience. No amount of reading will help you comprehend how painful pain is.

I will read Hume and Kant if I ever get to either 0 or +1 on the mood scale. Thank you for the recommendations.

I am having second thoughts about your "dumb physical processes." Clouds making shapes are indeed a dumb physical process. However, brain activities are not dumb physical processes. The human brain is the product of billions of years of evolution. It doesn't function the way clouds do. It has responsive feedback systems that are self-correcting to make sure that the model of reality generated by the brain is accurate enough for the organism to survive and reproduce in the real world. If our brain worked only once in a blue moon the way clouds make numbers, we simply would not survive or reproduce or be able to look after children. I think that determinism does not remove the brain's credibility.

You are most welcome. However, if my actions are inevitable, either due to secular determinism or due to divine predestination, do I or anyone else deserve any thanks or blame for anything?

I understand your point now. Thank you for taking the time to explain it more clearly. I agree with you now. We don't fully understand how the brain works. We know a lot more now than we did before but we still don't have complete knowledge of how the brain works. Perhaps I should just be an agnostic about everything?

How do you know that someone could have done something else at the time and place of the doing instead of what was done?

How do you know that mine is incorrect?

According to https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/freewill the word "free will" has two meanings:

1
: voluntary choice or decision
I do this of my own free will
2
: freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention

I agree that people can make voluntary choices e.g. donating to charity. However, just because the choice to donate is voluntary it does not mean that it is free from prior causes or divine predestination.

If secular determinism is true, then the choice to donate money to charity was inevitable.

If divine predestination is true, then the choice to donate money was also inevitable.

How do we work out whether secular determinism is true? We could examine the evidence for causation. We could test how genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences affect decision making in organisms.

How do we work out whether divine predestination is true? We could trust what the Bible or the Quran or another religious book says or we could look for evidence for or against divine predestination.

Thank you for skimming the articles.

Your argument for how determinism removes our brain's credibility did not make any sense to me. I don't know if that's because I am depressed or because I am stupid or because the argument is a sophistry.

Are you talking about this? https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140116085105.htm

The macroscopic world is deterministic despite quantum indeterminacy. You can test this by doing the following experiment. Take a coin and toss it. It will land on its head or tail - it will never be superpositioned or indeterminate.

Did you read the two articles I gave you links for?

It's possible that our brain scanners are not yet good enough to see everything. Time will tell. Unfortunately, I don't have a time machine which I could use to travel a million years into the future and see how much better brain scanners have gotten.

I would rather the gun in your experiment was pointing at a wall instead of a cat.

I am not convinced that determinism removes our brain's credibility.

It's not possible to think freely. Can you think up everything there is to know about dark matter and dark energy? No, you can't. Can you think of a trillion thoughts per second? No, you can't. Our thoughts are determined and constrained by our genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences. We are all prisoners of causality - doomed to suffer and die. I am all-loving but I am not all-knowing and all-powerful. I am so sad. I wish I never existed.

Hume and Kant were dualists. They are both wrong. You are also wrong about having free will. I am a materialist monist hard determinist because I am convinced by evidence.