The Illusion of Self

[wigginhall]

It's interesting though that both modern scientific analysis and the mystics of all religions end up with no-self.   Sure, they have taken very different routes to get there, or not get there, but the convergence has often been commented on.   The mystics did it via direct experience, since they could not find a separate self, and obviously science cannot either. 

Having said, that, I think that Protestantism tended to erase this mystical aspect of Christianity, so it is poorly known, except among the Orthodox and some Catholics.

[torridon]

But there is no consistency in the materialist account as your dependence on the word virtual has shown. Wake up to what you are saying yourself.
Also it undermines the notion of emergence.
A material self is OK anyway for Christians who recognise we are part of a created order that we are dust and return to dust and have to be resurrected in a new body.

So the real problem lies in maintaining consistency of the reductionist materialist argument.

As I said the problems are all yours.

By 'virtual' I am not saying it is imaginary and I am not saying it is immaterial. I am just drawing the parallel with the hologramitic Uber driver of the OP analogy.  It is virtual in the sense of a composite projection, and this is fully in line with the brain's sense of proprioception. If you stub your toe, it hurts, so you take a painkiller.  The painkiller is a neuroinhibitor acting on pain centres in the brain.  It does nothing for your toe.  But the pain feels like it is coming from your toe.  That is the brain projecting a sensation of pain to the area of damage, and this is a similar mechanism to the brain projecting a composited feeling of self that leads us to the intuition that there is a 'someone' inside us.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It's interesting though that both modern scientific analysis and the mystics of all religions end up with no-self.   Sure, they have taken very different routes to get there, or not get there, but the convergence has often been commented on.   The mystics did it via direct experience, since they could not find a separate self, and obviously science cannot either. 

Having said, that, I think that Protestantism tended to erase this mystical aspect of Christianity, so it is poorly known, except among the Orthodox and some Catholics.

Not having a soul would therefore explain all the talk of having a dark night of the soul...of course ....it's all clear to me now ....one must be without a soul in order to have a dark night of one....simples.

[Nearly Sane]

Not having a soul would therefore explain all the talk of having a dark night of the soul...of course ....it's all clear to me now ....one must be without a soul in order to have a dark night of one....simples.

And since we have a word for leprechauns, you have just argued they exist....simples.

[torridon]

A material self is OK anyway for Christians who recognise we are part of a created order that we are dust and return to dust and have to be resurrected in a new body.

OK, but none of that is conclusion from evidence.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

And since we have a word for leprechauns, you have just argued they exist....simples.

Actually my point is that Wigginhall was talking about mystics of all religions find no self. I'm not sure that is either the goal or indeed the experience of all mystics in all religions.

Some believe in souls and some are ''A-souls.''

[wigginhall]

Not having a soul would therefore explain all the talk of having a dark night of the soul...of course ....it's all clear to me now ....one must be without a soul in order to have a dark night of one....simples.

I would have thought that in classical theism, it's the loss of ego (separate self) , which leads to the birth of soul.   But again, Protestantism largely erased this stuff, a pity.   With the hard-core mystics, e.g. 'The Cloud of Unknowing', I'm not sure how soul fits in, in the general abolition of reifications.

But then in some Eastern religions, everything must go, ego, soul, spirit, world, all burned up in the furnace of now.

I guess that for Protestants, the self is valuable, since it gets saved.   Again, some Buddhists argue that its actual non-existence is a kind of salvation.   

[Nearly Sane]

Actually my point is that Wigginhall was talking about mystics of all religions find no self. I'm not sure that is either the goal or indeed the experience of all mystics in all religions.

Some believe in souls and some are ''A-souls.''

So you phrased a strawman badly

[Sebastian Toe]

A further comment on this statement -
If the brain and its sensory inputs is the soul's window on to this material world, our awareness will not be fully functional until these physical instruments are fully developed and working.

Thank you, you have just described  how other creatures can have soul.
Their brains are just not developed enough and working at our level, to show it in the same way that we do.
That gets round your earlier objections eg 'show me a monkey that can appreciate the beauty of a sunrise'.
 

[Alan Burns]

Yes I agree this is not easy.  I didn't claim it was easy, rather that is truer to evidence. The simple answer would be that it is the virtual self that is being illuded, but the deception inflicted on the virtual self is merely a reflection of the original self-deception that occurs in lower levels of preconscious mind later on extrapolated into the synthesis of conscious experience.   I know that sounds a mouthful and it cuts to the heart of the question, what exactly is awareness, what is it made of, where is it located ? I don't think we can give easy sound bite answers to that. But the evidence is pointing us in the direction of the self as being an emergent proprioceptive projection created by mind, similar to the notion of a soul in so far as it is defacto intangible.  But can we say anything at all about the nature of the soul that sits comfortably within the knowledge base from science ?  A virtual self is harder for us to conceive of, but it is truer to evidence.

But the evidence derived from human scientific investigation is not a complete picture of reality, so the conclusions derived from it may not be valid.   I admit that I am not an expert in quantum theory, (indeed can anyone claim expert knowledge in this area?), but I do know that many quantum events are unpredictable and unfathomable to human intellect.  I know that some investigations into conscious decision making have shown some correlation with increased quantum activity in areas of the brain.  This does not provide definitive explanations for causation, but it opens up the possibility that conscious thoughts and decisions could be derived from whatever causes these quantum events to occur.  In other words there could be a gateway into a quantum world which is outside the scope of any scientific investigation. 

So I will continue to have faith in my own ability to drive my thoughts, words and actions and be content to wait for the human scientific endeavours to catch up with the reality of my own existence.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

OK, but none of that is conclusion from evidence.

Non sequiter. It means we have no vested interest in an immaterial soul. Therefore since you use the word virtual we have to ask the question why...and of course there are the problems with equating intelligence with consciousness when intelligence does not need consciousness and of emergence when no linking mechanism between intelligence and consciousness can be found since you would not be using the word virtual to describe such a system.

[wigginhall]

Another interesting aspect to this stuff, in many religions, is that loss of ego is equated with death.   In some formulations, this can lead to the birth of soul, which has universal connections.   However, for the radicals, as in some Buddhist groups, this is still too dualist - for them, everything collapses into a single reality, or maybe, not even that, (since it's another reification).  What a laaf.   The closest Christian version of this might be found in Eckhart, 'the only part of you that burns in hell is the part that won't let go of your life'.   But Eckhart is hard. 

(Should also mention Sufism, where 'fana' means death of self, or dying before one dies.)

[Alan Burns]

Thank you, you have just described  how other creatures can have soul.
Their brains are just not developed enough and working at our level, to show it in the same way that we do.
That gets round your earlier objections eg 'show me a monkey that can appreciate the beauty of a sunrise'.
 

The development of the brain and its sensory inputs can also be sufficient for the emergence of a biological robot (ie animal) with no conscious perception.  Conscious perception is not needed for behaviour based on instinct and learnt experience.  It is only needed to exert free will decisions which override our animal behaviour patterns.

[torridon]

But the evidence derived from human scientific investigation is not a complete picture of reality, so the conclusions derived from it may not be valid.   I admit that I am not an expert in quantum theory, (indeed can anyone claim expert knowledge in this area?), but I do know that many quantum events are unpredictable and unfathomable to human intellect.  I know that some investigations into conscious decision making have shown some correlation with increased quantum activity in areas of the brain.  This does not provide definitive explanations for causation, but it opens up the possibility that conscious thoughts and decisions could be derived from whatever causes these quantum events to occur.  In other words there could be a gateway into a quantum world which is outside the scope of any scientific investigation. 

So I will continue to have faith in my own ability to drive my thoughts, words and actions and be content to wait for the human scientific endeavours to catch up with the reality of my own existence.

I agree science does not and probably never will yield a complete picture of reality. Science doesn't do certainty.  Does that justify us in not following the evidence though ?

[Sebastian Toe]

The development of the brain and its sensory inputs can also be sufficient for the emergence of a biological robot (ie animal) with no conscious perception.  Conscious perception is not needed for behaviour based on instinct and learnt experience.  It is only needed to exert free will decisions which override our animal behaviour patterns.

Or they do have a soul and they are not a biological robot it is just that their relatively undeveloped brain is not able to display it in the same way that we do.
As some animals show some limited self awareness it is surely this version of reality which is being pointed to and yours is a mere wishing away of the evidence in order to preserve some 'specialness' for humans because of your religious bias and desires.
How do you know that is not the case?

[ekim]

I don't think we have any substantive or detailed definition at all for 'soul' do we.  It is a vague concept and its vagueness helps protect it from falsification. With 'virtual self' I am trying to get closer to a description of what we have traditionally meant by soul in terms of the phenomenological experience of being, the feeling of existing, self-awareness, the compelling feeling of being a person and not just a body, being in receipt of experience and choosing to take action, in other words the feeling of agency, all of which has led intuitively to a dualist conception of mind as being something separate from body.  I'm trying to rewrite 'soul' in a way that is true to our contemporary knowledge base.

I wish you luck with that.  I suspect that you will end up with just another concept but more closely associated with neurochemicals.  The expression 'Emergent property' seems quite vague too but if I could access an extra pint of it, I wouldn't care what it was called.  I think a lot of the confusion arises from the imaginative change in meaning from the original source words.  'Soul' for instance, if I remember correctly, has a Germanic origin and meant 'life' and those who identify with it might say 'I am life' (pure and simple) and 'I am here that you might have life more abundantly'.  Often the path to this is the sacrifice of the self/person which many identify with e.g. purify the soul/life of its attachments which go to make up the self/person.  This is a difficult process and you can see the 'self' defensive reaction if somebody who considers himself to be an intellectual and is called a fool or a tough man called a weakling.

[torridon]

The development of the brain and its sensory inputs can also be sufficient for the emergence of a biological robot (ie animal) with no conscious perception.  Conscious perception is not needed for behaviour based on instinct and learnt experience.  It is only needed to exert free will decisions which override our animal behaviour patterns.

Every animal that has lived in the last 500 million years or so has had conscious perception, or so the evidence suggests.  The ability to override instinctive behaviours is a phenomenon strongly characteristic of humans but that is not conscious perception, that is the higher cognitive function known as agency.

[Sebastian Toe]

a quantum world which is outside the scope of any scientific investigation. 

So I will continue to have faith in my own ability to drive my thoughts, words and actions and be content to wait for the human scientific endeavours to catch up with the reality of my own existence.

Ah, something which cannot be investigated.
That is the thing that you will wait on, er being investigated!
 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I would have thought that in classical theism, it's the loss of ego (separate self) , which leads to the birth of soul.   But again, Protestantism largely erased this stuff, a pity.   With the hard-core mystics, e.g. 'The Cloud of Unknowing', I'm not sure how soul fits in, in the general abolition of reifications.

But then in some Eastern religions, everything must go, ego, soul, spirit, world, all burned up in the furnace of now.

I guess that for Protestants, the self is valuable, since it gets saved.   Again, some Buddhists argue that its actual non-existence is a kind of salvation.

Since you seem equally keen to support both the materialist and neuroscientific view of the self and the Buddhist idea of eradicating the self...perhaps you would be good enough to tell us which part of the brain actually disappears when a Buddhist successfully negates his or her self.

[torridon]

Since you seem equally keen to support both the materialist and neuroscientific view of the self and the Buddhist idea of eradicating the self...perhaps you would be good enough to tell us which part of the brain actually disappears when a Buddhist successfully negates his or her self.

I'm no Buddhist, but I would have thought that something that isn't actually there in the first place cannot disappear.  The Buddhist route would simply discover and reconcile to the fact that it isn't there in the first place.  Wiggs can correct me if I'm wrong on that.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I'm no Buddhist, but I would have thought that something that isn't actually there in the first place cannot disappear.  The Buddhist route would simply discover and reconcile to the fact that it isn't there in the first place.  Wiggs can correct me if I'm wrong on that.

But were not talking just Buddhism here, we are talking materialist Buddhist.......or are you suggesting Wigginhall will take any sufficiently antichristian position?

[wigginhall]

Since you seem equally keen to support both the materialist and neuroscientific view of the self and the Buddhist idea of eradicating the self...perhaps you would be good enough to tell us which part of the brain actually disappears when a Buddhist successfully negates his or her self.

I don't think 'eradicate' is the right word.   Also, I don't think that ego is connected with 'a part of the brain'.   There are some studies of brain activity during meditation,  some interesting stuff on plasticity.  I'm not a Buddhist, but I would not describe most of them as materialist!

[wigginhall]

But were not talking just Buddhism here, we are talking materialist Buddhist.......or are you suggesting Wigginhall will take any sufficiently antichristian position?

Actually, I'm very heartened by the considerable amount of mystical stuff in Christianity on surrendering the self, self-abandonment, and so on, some of it ancient, e.g. 'The Cloud of Unknowing'.     As I said, a lot of it has been ignored in modern Protestanism.

[torridon]

Since you seem equally keen to support both the materialist and neuroscientific view of the self and the Buddhist idea of eradicating the self...perhaps you would be good enough to tell us which part of the brain actually disappears when a Buddhist successfully negates his or her self.

Quite apart from the phenomenological issues thrown up by neuroscience and biology, I think the idea of a unitary self is also problematic in purely psychological terms.  Ask me what my favourite music is, and one day I might respond 'Bach'; on another day I might say 'Motorhead'.  How do you reconcile that.  Try playing them together,  the result is awful.  Thing is, there is no single self even in psychological terms; rather we are host to a continuous flux of bubbling under competing interests, desires and fears, which are continuously rising to the surface while others subside. I can only give a psychological description of 'me' that is valid at that moment in time.  Over time, tendencies and habits change; this is consistent with a materialist account in which constant change is a given, but not with some primal ontologically pure separate self.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Actually, I'm very heartened by the considerable amount of mystical stuff in Christianity on surrendering the self, self-abandonment, and so on, some of it ancient, e.g. 'The Cloud of Unknowing'.     As I said, a lot of it has been ignored in modern Protestanism.

But not as much as modern atheism and antitheism which you seem to utterly love.