The Illusion of Self

[Tharmas]

The question is - what is it about this experience that makes it an illusion?

Ok. This time I'm going to type really, really slowly, just for you.

People generally tend to think it's in the middle of their heads, just behind their eyes, but it isn't.

So, is that making the SELF an illusion, or the sense of the LOCATION of self?

I think our self could be processed in nerve cells in our toes, but if the bulk of our sensory data comes from our skull (vision, hearing, balance, motion, smell), that's where we experience it.
I think you're making an error saying the 'self' is an illusion, if it's just a trait that does not show up on the proprioception (sp?) inventory.

I think the point is the "self," the "I," is not to be found in the nerves or the synapses. It's created as a bi-product of brain processing. Looking for the self in the nervous system is like looking for the program in the CPU.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I think the point is the "self," the "I," is not to be found in the nerves or the synapses. It's created as a bi-product of brain processing. Looking for the self in the nervous system is like looking for the program in the CPU.

But that's still just arguing over the location of the 'self,' not the existence.
Like, if 20 computer users are asked where the Booleans are processed, and most of them point to the monitor, the keyboard, the mouse, or the power cord transformer, that doesn't make the processing illusory.

 

[ruby sparks]

The question is - what is it about this experience that makes it an illusion?

Ok. This time I'm going to type really, really slowly, just for you.

People generally tend to think it's in the middle of their heads, just behind their eyes, but it isn't.

So, is that making the SELF an illusion, or the sense of the LOCATION of self?

I think our self could be processed in nerve cells in our toes, but if the bulk of our sensory data comes from our skull (vision, hearing, balance, motion, smell), that's where we experience it.
I think you're making an error saying the 'self' is an illusion, if it's just a trait that does not show up on the proprioception (sp?) inventory.

Yes, the study in the OP is only about the location being an illusion. I think that overall there's a strong, comprehensive case for self being an illusion in many other ways, and there is a lot of material out there from psychology, philosophy and neuroscience to support that idea (some of it is presented in the video of the Thomas Metzinger talk that was posted here) and for related illusions of many sorts, about perception, consciousness and agency etc.

The OP was just a brief attempt to demonstrate one apparently obvious way that our experience of self is illusory. To those who hadn't previously considered or accepted that there are in fact some significant issues with our intuitive, commonsense beliefs about self, it might (I thought) have been something of a little red flag.

 

[DBT]

Perhaps the illusion of self is that it is not exactly what it perceives or believes itself to be.

 

[Treedbear]

Claim: Self is an illusion.

An illusion is not something that is not there, it is only something that is not what it seems to be.
...
Therefore, self is an illusion, or if you prefer, a subjective sense of self, when it is present (it isn't always or fully) generally seems to involve an illusion, at least the illusion that it has or acts through a centre.
...

I think you pretty much have it right. A brain builds imperfect models of its environment based on a necessarily limited range of sense perceptions to which it applies inductive and deductive reasoning. This environment includes the thoughts and sensations originating within the organism itself. A model of the self is needed as a point of reference in many situations, and is necessary for a state of conscious awareness to exist. Conscious awareness (i.e.; consciousness) occurs when the brain's self image interacts with the various other models it creates. I think all organisms that need to interact with and respond to an external environment must have some rudimentary structures organized around a self. But a centralized neural system is required in order to coordinate these responses efficiently, and a complex brain is required before pattern recognition is possible and models can be produced that make predictions. An organism needs some method by which it can locate itself within its environment in order to orient itself to best effect. It's rather basic then that we still have some sense of where the self resides.

 

[abaddon]

Perhaps the illusion of self is that it is not exactly what it perceives or believes itself to be.

Which is that it's a unitary self -- an entity which receives sensory perceptions and controls thought and makes choices. The illusion is there's a charioteer steering the body (the horses) around. This is the illusion, that there's an immaterial homunculus in the brain. I've even seen a picture somewhere that depicts this... a head with a smaller head inside of it.

It's the "it-ness" that is the illusion, irt the question of the self's existence. It's localization is a problem because it's not an it.

 

[DBT]

Perhaps the illusion of self is that it is not exactly what it perceives or believes itself to be.

Which is that it's a unitary self -- an entity which receives sensory perceptions and controls thought and makes choices. The illusion is there's a charioteer steering the body (the horses) around. This is the illusion, that there's an immaterial homunculus in the brain. I've even seen a picture somewhere that depicts this... a head with a smaller head inside of it.

It's the "it-ness" that is the illusion, irt the question of the self's existence. It's localization is a problem because it's not an it.

Yes, that appears to be the illusion.

 

[steve_bank]

I believe the search for I is like a dog chasing its tail. Never quite gets there but has a lot of fun trying.

 

[abaddon]

A model of the self is needed as a point of reference in many situations, and is necessary for a state of conscious awareness to exist.

I think you overstate your case in the second half of that sentence. Some meditators and psychedelics users report experiences of having no sense of self. Awareness is there but the feeling of being "me" isn't. They might not be able to orient well since their field of awareness has no center point. But still a self isn't necessarily the prerequisite to awareness. Seems to me it's the other way around.

 

[Treedbear]

Perhaps the illusion of self is that it is not exactly what it perceives or believes itself to be.

Which is that it's a unitary self -- an entity which receives sensory perceptions and controls thought and makes choices. The illusion is there's a charioteer steering the body (the horses) around. This is the illusion, that there's an immaterial homunculus in the brain. I've even seen a picture somewhere that depicts this... a head with a smaller head inside of it.

It's the "it-ness" that is the illusion, irt the question of the self's existence. It's localization is a problem because it's not an it.

But even if the self only exists as a concept or model it has to be something created by the brain and therefore is contained within the brain. It exists as a system of relationships. IOW I am not just my conscious thoughts but my unconscious thought processes, and perhaps even all those things that directly interact with my brain via the nervous as well as other systems. How can I separate them and why would I want to? I can choose to own them as part of my self or I can reduce the concept of self to some meaningless solitary form. I'd rather understand the world in terms of relationships.

 

[Treedbear]

A model of the self is needed as a point of reference in many situations, and is necessary for a state of conscious awareness to exist.

I think you overstate your case in the second half of that sentence. Some meditators and psychedelics users report experiences of having no sense of self. Awareness is there but the feeling of being "me" isn't. They might not be able to orient well since their field of awareness has no center point. But still a self isn't necessarily the prerequisite to awareness. Seems to me it's the other way around.

I think they are mistaken. There is awareness and then there is conscious awareness. If they sense that they lack a feeling of me it must be with respect to some sense of that me. True that meditation is about losing that conscious awareness but that would only be true up to the time when the awareness returns and one consciously realizes that the me was absent for a time. And then the meditation resumes.

 

[abaddon]

But even if the self only exists as a concept or model it has to be something created by the brain and therefore is contained within the brain. It exists as a system of relationships. IOW I am not just my conscious thoughts but my unconscious thought processes, and perhaps even all those things that directly interact with my brain via the nervous as well as other systems. How can I separate them and why would I want to? I can choose to own them as part of my self or I can reduce the concept of self to some meaningless solitary form. I'd rather understand the world in terms of relationships.

Me too. I think that's a useful point in recognizing the illusory nature of a solitary/unitary/atomistic self that's inside the head and peering out through the eyeballs at the world and using the senses to take "it" (the world) in and then figure out what ways this isolate "I" can manipulate "it" (the world). There are better ways to relate - to have a more expansive sense of self. An embodied self, a social self, even an ecological self.

 

[abaddon]

I think they are mistaken. There is awareness and then there is conscious awareness. If they sense that they lack a feeling of me it must be with respect to some sense of that me. True that meditation is about losing that conscious awareness but that would only be true up to the time when the awareness returns and one consciously realizes that the me was absent for a time. And then the meditation resumes.

You're right, in so far as there is no "me" saying "I'm not here in this experience" at the time of the experience. When during such an experience, I go "I think that's beautiful!" then I realize that, obviously, I am back in the picture again. But awareness is awareness. It's not the awareness that goes away and then returns. It's the localized observer "me" that goes away and then returns.

---------------------

ETA:
It might be a case of such an expansive sense of self that it subsumes all that "self" is aware of so that self and scenery are intermingled. It's a struggle to fit the experience into words... But if this is a better description than what I said above, then it's a case of a person's habit of localizing the observer as specifically "here" within the experience is what has gone away.

I didn't want to get into altered states. The point was that the self's highly diffuse. People so often talk about it as a hard-and-fast object. Which is tragic. A self that can loosen its boundaries is a self that might feel identity more closely with the surrounds that sustain its being better than modern humans are taught to do.

 

[rousseau]

The question is - what is it about this experience that makes it an illusion?

Ok. This time I'm going to type really, really slowly, just for you.

People generally tend to think it's in the middle of their heads, just behind their eyes, but it isn't.

So, is that making the SELF an illusion, or the sense of the LOCATION of self?

Right, that's what I was getting at. The location of the self is an illusion, I was trying to move beyond that and frame the conversation in a different way. Rather than discussing the location of the self, discussing whether the sense of self.. itself, is an illusion. Those are different claims, 'there is no self' doesn't necessarily follow from people feeling like the self has a tangible location, in my perspective.

I think DBT is on point when he mentions that the imagined self is a construct of memory that's stable over time. In my view, people need to have a stable identity for long enough to form relationships / bonds / have kids, before they die, when the brain breaks down. That we sense a real, physical self during this time is an indicator of self as a tangible mental construct.

Whether you want to call that an illusion, or just what we are, would be subjective.

 

[DBT]

Perhaps the illusion of self is that it is not exactly what it perceives or believes itself to be.

Which is that it's a unitary self -- an entity which receives sensory perceptions and controls thought and makes choices. The illusion is there's a charioteer steering the body (the horses) around. This is the illusion, that there's an immaterial homunculus in the brain. I've even seen a picture somewhere that depicts this... a head with a smaller head inside of it.

It's the "it-ness" that is the illusion, irt the question of the self's existence. It's localization is a problem because it's not an it.

But even if the self only exists as a concept or model it has to be something created by the brain and therefore is contained within the brain. It exists as a system of relationships. IOW I am not just my conscious thoughts but my unconscious thought processes, and perhaps even all those things that directly interact with my brain via the nervous as well as other systems. How can I separate them and why would I want to? I can choose to own them as part of my self or I can reduce the concept of self to some meaningless solitary form. I'd rather understand the world in terms of relationships.

The unconscious mechanisms, the wiring, the electrochemical activity is there when memory function breaks down (connectivity between cells, patterns of firings) yet all sense of self and self awareness has unraveled and dissipated.

Quote;
''People suffering from Alzheimer's disease are not only losing their memory, but they are also losing their personality. In order to understand the relationship between personality and memory, it is important to define personality and memory. Personality, as defined by some neurobiologists and psychologists, is a collection of behaviors, emotions, and thoughts that are not controlled by the I-function. Memory, on the other hand, is controlled and regulated by the I-function of the neocortex. It is a collection of short stories that the I-function makes-up in order to account for the events and people. Memory is also defined as the ability to retain information, and it is influenced by three important stages. The first stage is encoding and processing the information, the second stage is the storing of the memory, and the third stage is memory retrieval. There are also the different types of memories like sensory, short-term, and long-term memory. The sensory memory relates to the initial moment when an event or an object is first detected. Short-term memories are characterized by slow, transient alterations in communication between neurons and long-term memories (1). Long-term memories are marked by permanent changes to the neural structure''

 

[ruby sparks]

A model of the self is needed as a point of reference in many situations, and is necessary for a state of conscious awareness to exist.

I think you overstate your case in the second half of that sentence. Some meditators and psychedelics users report experiences of having no sense of self. Awareness is there but the feeling of being "me" isn't. They might not be able to orient well since their field of awareness has no center point. But still a self isn't necessarily the prerequisite to awareness. Seems to me it's the other way around.

I think they are mistaken. There is awareness and then there is conscious awareness. If they sense that they lack a feeling of me it must be with respect to some sense of that me. True that meditation is about losing that conscious awareness but that would only be true up to the time when the awareness returns and one consciously realizes that the me was absent for a time. And then the meditation resumes.

Like you and abaddon, I am curious as to whether a sense of self is required for consciousness or if it's the other way around, or if it's simultaneous and shared. My intuitive guess is that 'bare consciousness, without a sense of self' comes first and/or is possible, but that's just a guess. I think it's up for grabs.

The situation I run through is waking up in the morning. It seems that there is awareness just before my sense of self slides quickly into place.

But I admit that's not conclusive. I'm not even sure how the correct answer could be demonstrated.

 

[ruby sparks]

One way to try to explore the above might be by considering pain. Scientists often, it seems, focus on pain because it seems such a basic, 'pure', simple experience.

There's a few things we could say about pain. First, that you can perceive it before it enters your consciousness. I read that a stimulus is needed for approximately half a second before that happens, although by then your system can already have non-consciously responded. This can be tested by applying stimuli for durations less than half a second. This shows that consciousness is apparently 'late on the scene' for everything you experience about the outside world. You literally never get to experience a now when it actually happens. That is fun to think about. Although it seems your brain can muck about with its experience of time, in order to address the issue.

The other thing we could say about pain is that at least as regards location, it is also likely an illusion. When you go to the doctor and say you have a pain in your toe, the pain is actually, it seems, in your head. You just think it's in your toe, but it isn't.

But as regards pain and self, the interesting question is whether we can initially experience pain, consciously, before it becomes located in 'part of me' at all. In other words, is self late on the scene for both pain and consciousness, the same way consciousness is late on the scene for pain?

Intuitively, I would guess yes, because there always seems to be processing time involved for literally everything that happens in a brain. 'Bare consciousness' if it existed, would not be sophisticated. I might guess that individually-experienced elements of consciously-experienced stimuli (eg pain) might have to go through a 'binding process' before they could be integrated into an experience a self has.

But I'm guessing.

 

[steve_bank]

A number of psychological experiments icsome animals have the capacity to distinguish itself from others, a conscious awareness.

 

[Treedbear]

But even if the self only exists as a concept or model it has to be something created by the brain and therefore is contained within the brain. It exists as a system of relationships. IOW I am not just my conscious thoughts but my unconscious thought processes, and perhaps even all those things that directly interact with my brain via the nervous as well as other systems. How can I separate them and why would I want to? I can choose to own them as part of my self or I can reduce the concept of self to some meaningless solitary form. I'd rather understand the world in terms of relationships.

Me too. I think that's a useful point in recognizing the illusory nature of a solitary/unitary/atomistic self that's inside the head and peering out through the eyeballs at the world and using the senses to take "it" (the world) in and then figure out what ways this isolate "I" can manipulate "it" (the world). There are better ways to relate - to have a more expansive sense of self. An embodied self, a social self, even an ecological self.

Exactly right. All things are properly understood within the context of how they relate to other things rather than as an an absolute essence.

I think they are mistaken. There is awareness and then there is conscious awareness. If they sense that they lack a feeling of me it must be with respect to some sense of that me. True that meditation is about losing that conscious awareness but that would only be true up to the time when the awareness returns and one consciously realizes that the me was absent for a time. And then the meditation resumes.

You're right, in so far as there is no "me" saying "I'm not here in this experience" at the time of the experience. When during such an experience, I go "I think that's beautiful!" then I realize that, obviously, I am back in the picture again. But awareness is awareness. It's not the awareness that goes away and then returns. It's the localized observer "me" that goes away and then returns.

I think we differ on that because what you seem to be describing as the awareness of an experience always, in my opinion, occurs with respect to the image of my self. There can of course be unconscious experiences. We constantly depend on the unconscious mind to analyze our environment and make decisions, especially when they need to be made very quickly. But they remain distinct from conscious experience, at least until the moment where they are realized and we are inspired to say "that's beautiful". Yes, beautiful things can occur in the unencumbered mind, but we are not consciously aware of them until they are presented in the context of the self.

---------------------

ETA:
It might be a case of such an expansive sense of self that it subsumes all that "self" is aware of so that self and scenery are intermingled. It's a struggle to fit the experience into words... But if this is a better description than what I said above, then it's a case of a person's habit of localizing the observer as specifically "here" within the experience is what has gone away.

I didn't want to get into altered states. The point was that the self's highly diffuse. People so often talk about it as a hard-and-fast object. Which is tragic. A self that can loosen its boundaries is a self that might feel identity more closely with the surrounds that sustain its being better than modern humans are taught to do.

Yes, and the opportunity in that is to become more open to one's true potential by accepting the diversity contained in that broader image. The scientific approach to knowledge is to seek a continuously more objective understanding.

 

[Treedbear]

...
I think they are mistaken. There is awareness and then there is conscious awareness. If they sense that they lack a feeling of me it must be with respect to some sense of that me. True that meditation is about losing that conscious awareness but that would only be true up to the time when the awareness returns and one consciously realizes that the me was absent for a time. And then the meditation resumes.

Like you and abaddon, I am curious as to whether a sense of self is required for consciousness or if it's the other way around, or if it's simultaneous and shared. My intuitive guess is that 'bare consciousness, without a sense of self' comes first and/or is possible, but that's just a guess. I think it's up for grabs.

The situation I run through is waking up in the morning. It seems that there is awareness just before my sense of self slides quickly into place.

But I admit that's not conclusive. I'm not even sure how the correct answer could be demonstrated.

My theory is that the self image is an essential component of consciousness. It's still a difficult issue to be sure. But I'm going with that. I think the sleeping state is when the self, as normally the most active model created by the brain, is shut down so that its support structures can recharge. The rest of the brain goes on doing what it normally does but somewhat less restrained. Waking is usually a gradual reactivation as the self subtly reasserts its dominance.