Most of us believe that we possess a self - an internal individual who resides inside our bodies, making decisions, authoring actions and possessing free will. The feeling that a single, unified, enduring self inhabits the body - the 'me' inside me - is compelling and inescapable. This is how we interact as a social animal and judge each other's actions and deeds. But that sovereignty of the self is increasingly under threat from science as our understanding of the brain advances. Rather than a single entity, the self is really a constellation of mechanisms and experiences that create the illusion of the internal you.
We only emerge as a product of those around us as part of the different storylines we inhabit from the cot to the grave. It is an ever changing character, created by the brain to provide a coherent interface between the multitude of internal processes and the external world demands that require different selves. — Quoting the description of the book
You might find (the implications of) this discussion interesting ...What is thetrue nature of theself?
The self is an illusion generated by the brain. This illusion vanishes when the brain dies. — Truth Seeker
That seems to be a straight assertion of dualism, but a non-dualist can also have a sense of self, so I must disagree with the book's definition.an internal individual who resides inside our bodies, making decisions, authoring actions and possessing free will — Quoting the description of the book
You can react to external stimuli, which is perception, and sentience is perception or feelings. Perhaps you cannot prove qualia (what you might designate as feelings), but it's hard to deny that you have perception. Perhaps a different definition of sentience is being referenced. It wasn't given.I am sentient but I can't prove to you — Truth Seeker
Kant realized that Hume’s world of pure, unique impressions couldn’t exist. This is because the minimal requirement for experiencing anything is not to be so absorbed in the present that one is lost in it. What Hume had claimed— that when exploring his feeling of selfhood, he always landed “on some particular perception or other” but could never catch himself “at any time without a percepton, and never can observe anything but the perception”— was simply not true.33 Because for Hume to even report this feeling he had to perceive something in addition to the immediate perceptions, namely, the very flow of time that allowed them to be distinct in the first place. And to recognize time passing is necessarily to recognize that you are embedded in the perception.
Hence what Kant wrote in his answer to Hamann, ten years in the making. To recollect perfectly eradicates the recollection, just as to perceive perfectly eradicates the perception. For the one who recalls or perceives must recognize him or herself along with the memory or perception for the memory or impression to exist at all. If everything we learn about the world flows directly into us from utterly distinct bits of code, as the rationalists thought, or if everything we learn remains nothing but subjective, unconnected impressions, as Hume believed— it comes down to exactly the same thing. With no self to distinguish itself, no self to bridge two disparate moments in space-time, there is simply no one there to feel irritated at the inadequacy of “dog.” No experience whatsoever is possible.
Here is how Kant put it in his Critique of Pure Reason. Whatever we think or perceive can register as a thought or perception only if it causes a change in us, a “modification of the mind.” But these changes would not register at all if we did not connect them across time, “for as contained in one moment no representation can ever be anything other than absolute unity.”34 As contained in one moment. Think of experiencing a flow of events as a bit like watching a film. For something to be happening at all, the viewer makes a connection between each frame of the film, spanning the small differences so as to create the experience of movement. But if there is a completely new viewer for every frame, with no relation at all to the prior or subsequent frame, then all that remains is an absolute unity. But such a unity, which is exactly what Funes and Shereshevsky and Hume claimed they could experience, utterly negates perceiving anything at all, since all perception requires bridging impressions over time. In other words, it requires exactly what a truly perfect memory, a truly perfect perception, or a truly perfect observation absolutely denies: overlooking minor differences enough to be a self, a unity spanning distinct moments in time.
I am talking about these three things: being, knowing, and willing. For I am and I know and I will. In that I know and will, I am. And I know myself to be and to will. And I will to be and to know. Let him who can, see in these three things how inseparable a life is: one life, one mind, and one essence, how there is, finally, an inseparable distinction, and yet a distinction. Surely this is obvious to each one himself. Let him look within himself and see and report to me. (Confessions)
Then you seem to define 'conscious' as having one of those 'self' thingys as defined by the quoted book.By sentient I mean conscious. Philosophical zombies behave as if they are conscious but are not actually. — Truth Seeker
What is the true nature of the self?
The self is an illusion generated by the brain. This illusion vanishes when the brain dies.The self is an immortal soul that is resurrected after death of the body.The self is an immortal soul that reincarnates into another body according to karma.The true nature of the self is unknown and unknowable. — Truth Seeker
For instance, my awareness of being self-aware isn't actually mine? :chin:
2h — 180 Proof
What is the true nature of the self? — Truth Seeker
Most of us believe that we… — Quoting the description of the book
For people have doubted whether the powers to live, to remember, to understand, to will, to think, to know, and to judge are due to air or to fire or to the brain or
to the blood or to atoms or to a fifth body (I do not know what it is, but it differs from the four customary elements); or whether the combination or the orderly arrangement of the flesh is capable of producing these effects. Some try to maintain this opinion; others, that opinion. On the other hand, who could doubt that one lives and remembers and understands and wills and thinks and judges? For even if one doubts, one lives; if one doubts, one remembers why one doubts, for one wishes to be certain; if one doubts, one thinks; if one doubts, one knows that one does not know; if one doubts, one judges that one ought not to comment rashly. Whoever then doubts about anything else ought never to doubt about all of these; for if they were not, one would be unable to doubt about anything at all.40
Does the definition of "entity" not allow a process to be an entity? I really don't know, but I wouldn't approve of that limitation. The entities we call human beings are not nothing but physical objects. As I said in my previous post, that leaves out everything that truly defines - to ourselves and to each other - each of us.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. — Truth Seeker
I can't imagine. If it is true that particles have proto-consciousness, then there is no way to test anything in its absence. We can't try to create artificial consciousness without it, because we can't remove it from the material any more than we can remove the mass.I like your idea of proto-consciousness. How would we test this idea? — Truth Seeker
I have never experienced the silent self. Have you? — Truth Seeker
I think there is a persistent confusion between self and consciousness which messes up a lot of the discourse.
— bert1
So then "consciousness" is impersonal? For instance, my awareness of being self-aware isn't actually mine? :chin: — 180 Proof
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. — Truth Seeker
Many people believe that humans have immortal souls which leave when the body dies and is either resurrected by God or reincarnated according to karma. I am not convinced that souls exist but I am open to examining any new evidence for the existence of souls. — Truth Seeker
Rather than a single entity, the self is really a constellation of mechanisms and experiences that create the illusion of the internal you.
The store-house consciousness (ālāyavijñāna) receives impressions from all functions of the other consciousnesses (i.e. sensory and rational), and retains them as potential energy, bīja or "seeds", which manifest as, or 'perfume', one's attitudes and actions. Since this consciousness serves as the container for all experiential impressions it is also called the "seed consciousness" or "container consciousness".
According to Yogācāra teachings, the seeds stored in the store consciousness of sentient beings are not pure.
The store consciousness, while being originally immaculate in itself, contains a "mysterious mixture of purity and defilement, good and evil". Because of this mixture the transformation of consciousness from defilement to purity can take place and awakening is possible. — Wikipedia, Eight Consciousnesses
Citta-santāna (Sanskrit), literally "the stream of mind", is the stream of succeeding moments of mind or awareness. It provides a continuity of the personality in the absence of a permanently abiding self (ātman), which Buddhism denies. The mindstream provides a continuity from one life to another and also moment to moment, akin to the flame of a candle which may be passed from one candle to another: William Waldron writes that "Indian Buddhists see the 'evolution' of mind in terms of the continuity of individual mind-streams from one lifetime to the next, with karma as the basic causal mechanism ( :angry: ) whereby transformations are transmitted from one life to the next." 1
According to Waldron, "[T]he mind stream (santāna) increases gradually by the mental afflictions (kleśa) and by actions (karma), and goes again to the next world. In this way the circle of existence is without beginning."
The vāsanās or "karmic imprints" provide the continuity between lives and between moments of existence. According to Dan Lusthaus, these vāsanās determine how one "actually sees and experiences the world in certain ways, and one actually becomes a certain type of person, embodying certain theories which immediately shape the manner in which we experience."2
1.Waldron, William S. (n.d.). Buddhist Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Thinking about 'Thoughts without a Thinker
2. Lusthaus, Dan (2014) Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogacara Buddhism and the Ch'eng Wei-shih Lun. Routledge. — Wikipedia, Mindstream
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