Susan Blackmore – “The Self” Lecture 12 – The Self Susan Blackmore – “The Self”

What it the Self? Owner Someone who is acting, having conscious experiences, making decisions, etc. Science does not need an inner self. Brains are “causally closed”—”we can see how one neuron affects another, how groups of neurons form and dissipate, and how one state leads to another, and there is no need for any further intervention” (66).

Ego versus Bundle Theories Ego Theories: We are single, continuing selves. Scientific Theories: neural correlates of the self or enduring structures in the brain. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism. Bundle Theorists: There are no single, continuing selves. There are only ‘bundles’ of experiences or sensations. David Hume Buddhism

Split Brains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM LzP1VCANo What implications about the self should we draw from these experiments? Sperry thought that patients have two conscious entities. Gazzaniga argued that only the left hemisphere, which uses language and organizes belief, houses the self. Or maybe there is no self, just experiences.

Hypnosis and Dissociation Does hypnosis involve a special state of consciousness or does it divide consciousness? Do cases of multiple personality, now known as “dissociative identity disorder,” provide evidence for there not being a single unified self?

Theories of Self 1. “Thought is itself the thinker” William James – The Principles of Psychology “He argues that our own thoughts have a sort of warmth and intimacy about them which he attempts to explain in this way: at any time there may be a special kind of Thought which rejects some of the contents of the stream of consciousness but appropriates others, pulling them together and calling them ‘mine’. The next moment another such Thought comes along, taking over the previous ones and binding them to itself, creating a sense of unity” (79).

Theories of Self 2. Self = particular groups of interacting neurons. For example, global workspace theory. “A hierarchy of contexts determines what gets into the spotlight in the theatre of consciousness. Dominant among these is the self-system which allows information to be reportable and usable. Multiple personality can be explained by different context hierarchies competing for access to the global workspace and to memory and the senses” (80). “Brain processes are said to be experienced by a self because they are displayed or made available to another brain process” (80). Blackmore suggests these theories leave conscious experiences unexplained.

Theories of Self 3. Self as Narrative Gravity Daniel Dennett Self is like a center of gravity in that it is a useful abstraction. Self is a center of narrative gravity. We tell stories about a self and we come to believe there is a single unified inner self, but really this is just a useful fiction.