We need to talk about the meaning of existence

[Sriram]

Yes, that is right.  Unconscious mind is all mind bar the whatever is in focus in the current moment.  I use 'memories' in the broadest sense, to include all your habits of mind, your prejudices, your motor skills, language skills, preferences, personality, all such things are 'stored', hence forms of memory.

What I think is that the Unconscious mind and its enormous power is an indication of the Self hidden behind the Conscious mind.

It is the Self that takes all decisions but the conscious mind and the Ego have the impression that they are the players...when in fact they are just the horse that the Self is riding. They are just tools that the Self uses in its journey.
 

[torridon]

What I think is that the Unconscious mind and its enormous power is an indication of the Self hidden behind the Conscious mind.

It is the Self that takes all decisions but the conscious mind and the Ego have the impression that they are the players...when in fact they are just the horse that the Self is riding. They are just tools that the Self uses in its journey.

I am minded to make a distinction between an (unconscious) self and a conscious self. 

The unconscious one I would equate to personality.  A person's habits, their sense of humour, the dialect with which they speak, their political and religious views, their abiliity on the dance floor, and so on.  Long term, persistent entrenched habits of mind and personality traits.

A conscious self I see as a phenomenological construction of mind created by the engine of human consciousness.  That sensation of an incorporeal being resident somewhere inside the body though exactly where is hard to pinpoint, the recipient of perception, the moral agent apparently making choices; I think of it rather like the inflatable pilot in the movie Airplane!, something that appears to be in charge, but isn't, really.  It is the software that is really running the plane and the software creates a virtual pilot and it is the virtual pilot, or conscious self, which we imagine as the experiencer of experience and to which we attribute agency and moral accountability.

[Sriram]

I am minded to make a distinction between an (unconscious) self and a conscious self. 

The unconscious one I would equate to personality.  A person's habits, their sense of humour, the dialect with which they speak, their political and religious views, their abiliity on the dance floor, and so on.  Long term, persistent entrenched habits of mind and personality traits.

A conscious self I see as a phenomenological construction of mind created by the engine of human consciousness.  That sensation of an incorporeal being resident somewhere inside the body though exactly where is hard to pinpoint, the recipient of perception, the moral agent apparently making choices; I think of it rather like the inflatable pilot in the movie Airplane!, something that appears to be in charge, but isn't, really.  It is the software that is really running the plane and the software creates a virtual pilot and it is the virtual pilot, or conscious self, which we imagine as the experiencer of experience and to which we attribute agency and moral accountability.

I would put it the other way around.

The Personality (body, mind, ego, awareness, name, learning....etc.) is the conscious mind. This is what gets created after birth through our life time.  Personality is temporary...it gets created over time and it also dies. It gets affected by Alzheimer's, old age etc.

The Self is the Unconscious mind that acts behind the Personality.  It retains whatever it picks up from the Personality.

The Self is that which learns and experiences through the Personality and then leaves the body-mind to continue its experiences in another body-mind.

Then...there is the Higher Self...which is another issue....

[torridon]

And there you have left the straight and narrow path of evidence based reasoning and wandered off into woo-land.  Not going to be following you there.

[Sriram]

I thought so....

But we are beginning to narrow the gap...I can see that.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

On to where it calculates your toe to be

The question as far as the topic is concerned is,is the pain real?
If it is not real then how can we describe anything detected by our senses real?

If pain is an illusion then we know what is having the illusion......the self, and we are back into the question of whether the self is an illusion etc.

Back to the toe. It is incorrect merely to say the pain is an illusion projected onto the toe. Information comes from the toe and emerges as the sensation of pain.

Many systems have arrived at pain being an illusion and have developed crackpot notions of alleviating it by attempting to control the mind.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I don't see why not but then I'm not the person staring that it is logical that the self exists in another (timeless) place and somehow visits our bodies, in this universe/spacetime to interrogate the brain in order to make real-time decisions.

And neither am I but because you were busting with the expectation that I would conform to your caricature of a christian you had to make the accusation anyway.

Typical.....yes
Stinking.....yes
Rabid......profoundly.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

And there you have left the straight and narrow path of evidence based reasoning and wandered off into woo-land.  Not going to be following you there.

It seems to me that you've come to the end of the vocabulary and conceptual framework you are allowed as an obedient materialist to use on the topic of the self and are now guffing on about the mind instead.

[torridon]

The question as far as the topic is concerned is,is the pain real.
If it is not real then how can we describe anything detected by our senses real?

If pain is an illusion then we know what is having the illusion......the self, and we are back into the question of whether the self is an illusion etc.

Back to the toe. It is incorrect merely to say the pain is an illusion projected onto the toe. Information comes from the toe and emerges as the sensation of pain.

Many systems have arrived at pain being an illusion and have developed crackpot notions of alleviating it by attempting to control the mind.

If you take paracetamol for your toe pain, that is a pharmacological intervention working on your brain, not on your toe. The sensation of pain is created by mind, but it doesn't manifest as pain in your brain like headache, it manifests as a pain in your toe.  Hence the mind is projecting the pain back to the location of the toe.  You don't even need to have toe to feel pain in it - amputees often report pain in the amputated limb, a phenomenon so common we have a medical name for it - phantom limb syndrome.

Which brings us back to the self, if pain is projected to a virtual toe that implies the virtual toe is a part of a virtual whole, or self. It's all part of the mind's mapping of its virtual body to its flesh body.  So the question, is the self real, boils down to the same as, is the amputees painful missing foot real.  It is real enough in the mind of the patient, but it is not there in any conventional sense of the word 'real'. We could almost say, his phantom pain is an illusion.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

If you take paracetamol for your toe pain, that is a pharmacological intervention working on your brain, not on your toe. The sensation of pain is created by mind, but it doesn't manifest as pain in your brain like headache, it manifests as a pain in your toe.  Hence the mind is projecting the pain back to the location of the toe.  You don't even need to have toe to feel pain in it - amputees often report pain in the amputated limb, a phenomenon so common we have a medical name for it - phantom limb syndrome.

Which brings us back to the self, if pain is projected to a virtual toe that implies the virtual toe is a part of a virtual whole, or self. It's all part of the mind's mapping of its virtual body to its flesh body.  So the question, is the self real, boils down to the same as, is the amputees painful missing foot real.  It is real enough in the mind of the patient, but it is not there in any conventional sense of the word 'real'. We could almost say, his phantom pain is an illusion.

You seem to be equating real pain with phantom pain here so you can then say therefore the self is like phantom pain.

There are problems with this

Firstly the equation of pain with self.
Even if real pain is an illusion we know what it is that is having the illusion.
You have been unable to do that for the self.
Secondly there is your equation of phantom pain and real pain.
That is I would move an obvious conflation
Having erroneously classified all pain as phantom pain you then equate self with phantom pain.

I had hoped I was wrong about what you had done but the alternative would possibly be you not having equated real pain with phantom pain and just, as an act of preference and with no warrant chosen phantom pain as analogy to self.

[torridon]

You seem to be equating real pain with phantom pain here so you can then say therefore the self is like phantom pain.

There are problems with this

Firstly the equation of pain with self.
Even if real pain is an illusion we know what it is that is having the illusion.
You have been unable to do that for the self.
Secondly there is your equation of phantom pain and real pain.
That is I would move an obvious conflation
Having erroneously classified all pain as phantom pain you then equate self with phantom pain.

I had hoped I was wrong about what you had done but the alternative would possibly be you not having equated real pain with phantom pain and just, as an act of preference and with no warrant chosen phantom pain as analogy to self.

Seems to me you are struggling unnecessarily over this. Our minds create a phenomenological mapping of the physical body.  You don't need to look at your left foot to know where it is. Think of that mapping as your inner self.  It is real in the sense that all experience is real; on the other hand, it is not real in the sense that it is all in the mind.

[Bramble]

Bramble asks can't there just be experience'.
Even if there can be that seems irrelevant to the self and no explanation as to the awareness of experience.
It is a diversion. Also Bramble has to come back on what it is that is having the illusion.

Can there just be illusion without anything experiencing it?
Well no,

Which brings us all back to the question. If the self is an illusion.....what is it which is having the illusion.

I've suggested that the sense of self is just an aspect of experience. If you can accept that the experience of a world is a VR representation created by the brain then it shouldn't be difficult to see how what we experience as selfhood is simply part of that representation. I'm not sure what additional kind of self you think must underpin experience or why you think it is necessary. If selfhood is part of a VR model then demanding that it must either be illusory or real is likely to be unprofitable.

I've found it and so have you. In fact it is a little hard to miss. Is it independent? Yes in the sense that none of the functions from which it arises possess the property.

If it arises from something how can it be independent?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Seems to me you are struggling unnecessarily over this. Our minds create a phenomenological mapping of the physical body.  You don't need to look at your left foot to know where it is. Think of that mapping as your inner self.  It is real in the sense that all experience is real; on the other hand, it is not real in the sense that it is all in the mind.

A retreat into vagueness here what you are portraying as a struggle is in fact me not commenting on non sequitur descriptions of brain function. .Descriptions which amount to hand waving.

On a thread about reality you commited the cardinal error of conflating real pain with phantom pain.

If you wish to demonstrate illusion you need to show what it is that is illuded. Just giving examples of illusion as analogy where we know what is illuded does not cut the mustard.
All it does is reveal what is an emergent property.

We agreed that these are often real.

Pain is an emergent property from bodily processes.
Phantom pain is brain function fooling the self into thinking an impossible pain is real.

If you are declaring the self as an illusion then it must be an illusion of real self....since phantom pain is an illusion of real pain.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I've suggested that the sense of self is just an aspect of experience. If you can accept that the experience of a world is a VR representation created by the brain then it shouldn't be difficult to see how what we experience as selfhood is simply part of that representation. I'm not sure what additional kind of self you think must underpin experience or why you think it is necessary. If selfhood is part of a VR model then demanding that it must either be illusory or real is likely to be unprofitable.

If it arises from something how can it be independent?

VR representations exist don't they? The mona lisa an old vr representation exists doesn't it.
What does the self represent? A self of course or something greater....if your analogy is a VR representation.

It is independent only in that it exists as a property not possessed by that from which it emerges.

[Sebastian Toe]

because you were busting with the expectation that I would conform to your caricature of a christian

I'm fascinated Vlad.
Exactly what is my caricature of a Christian?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I'm fascinated Vlad.
Exactly what is my caricature of a Christian?

Read your own post.

[Bramble]

VR representations exist don't they? The mona lisa an old vr representation exists doesn't it.
What does the self represent? A self of course or something greater....if your analogy is a VR representation.

It is independent only in that it exists as a property not possessed by that from which it emerges.

I never said the self doesn't exist, if that is what you are implying. I suggested it is merely an aspect of experience rather than a fundamental witness to experience and that it is unfindable under analysis. If you don't like this version others are available 

[wigginhall]

That has been one track in various meditation methods, look for the self.  It often becomes ludicrous, like chasing your own tail.  I think many people start going beyond the separate self, then who knows.

[Sriram]

If people don't know how to switch from the objective to the subjective...they will be searching externally for themselves. 

[Sebastian Toe]

Read your own post.

I did.
Nothing there but reporting of facts.

Facts? That is the caricature?
Is that a bad thing?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I did.
Nothing there but reporting of facts.

Facts? That is the caricature?
Is that a bad thing?

And what ''fact'' was your summary of Christian belief on the self which you assumed I shared but, to your obvious frustration I didn't, exactly?

[Sebastian Toe]

And what ''fact'' was your summary of Christian belief on the self which you assumed I shared but, to your obvious frustration I didn't, exactly?

My summary of Christian belief on the self?
Where is that?
I think that you might be getting a bit muddled up there.
Not surprising as you are juggling a good few different subjects at once.
I don't hold that against you Vlad.
Maybe you need to take a step back and rethink?
You might notice that I do in fact agree with you on something!
Is that what is worrying you? 

[torridon]

A retreat into vagueness here what you are portraying as a struggle is in fact me not commenting on non sequitur descriptions of brain function. .Descriptions which amount to hand waving.

On a thread about reality you commited the cardinal error of conflating real pain with phantom pain.

If you wish to demonstrate illusion you need to show what it is that is illuded. Just giving examples of illusion as analogy where we know what is illuded does not cut the mustard.
All it does is reveal what is an emergent property.

We agreed that these are often real.

Pain is an emergent property from bodily processes.
Phantom pain is brain function fooling the self into thinking an impossible pain is real.

If you are declaring the self as an illusion then it must be an illusion of real self....since phantom pain is an illusion of real pain.

Pain in a phantom limb is real pain in something that does not exist, this can only happen because the mind's mapping of physical body to internal 'self' is not always perfect, and that ongoing process of internal modelling maintains the illusion of self. Given you see the self as an emergent property of a body, that locates your position on this much closer to my position than to say Alan Burns. I see it as an emergent phenomenon which has the illusory quality that it feels like a thing when it is in fact a process, and the fact that most people who have ever lived think about themselves as two distinct things, person and body, is evidence of the power of the illusion.

[Sriram]

Pain in a phantom limb is real pain in something that does not exist, this can only happen because the mind's mapping of physical body to internal 'self' is not always perfect, and that ongoing process of internal modelling maintains the illusion of self. Given you see the self as an emergent property of a body, that locates your position on this much closer to my position than to say Alan Burns. I see it as an emergent phenomenon which has the illusory quality that it feels like a thing when it is in fact a process, and the fact that most people who have ever lived think about themselves as two distinct things, person and body, is evidence of the power of the illusion.

Processes happen to and within objects not by themselves....

We cannot attribute all phenomena only to processes without considering the relevant objects.

[torridon]

Processes happen to and within objects not by themselves....

We cannot attribute all phenomena only to processes without considering the relevant objects.

Yes, the 'relevant object' would be the brain.