A sense of self

Comments (63)

1. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

2. The most interesting illusion to me is that we have selves.

   I am not at all clear on what it is that you are denying there. Are you just using the argument “I can’t explain it, so I will declare that it doesn’t exist or is an illusion or an epiphenomenon,” a form of argument that seems to be all too common in cognitive science.

   In that sentence of yours that I quoted, the sixth word is “me”. Are you asserting that the “me” has no referent? And if you are asserting that, then why are you even using that word?

   As for ID having a dualistic assumption – sure, that’s clear enough, though hardly surprising given the religious assumptions which ID proponents deny but cannot hide. There are also dualistic assumptions implicit in philosophy, though many philosophers seem to be in denial over this. In particular, epistemology seems to be based on dualistic assumptions. Ryle seemed to understand that in “The Concept of Mind”, where he attempted to explain knowledge in terms of behavioral abilities rather than in terms of belief.

   1. I often rail against what I call the Reification Fallacy: the notion that if we use a word as a noun there has to be a thing the word denotes. “Me” is a social, legal and semantic concept, usually tied to a single body (but not always). I, me, we and the other self-referent terms that you and others below object to my using as if it were some kind of self-defeat for me to do so are just a way to anchor talk. It does not follow that there actually are unitary selves. We also talk about nations, but nations are largely legal fictions.

      1. If reification were always a fallacy, then all of mathematics would be fallacious. The fact that words such as “me” and “I” seem to be indispensable suggests that references to self are not fallacious.

         It’s not that I was trying to show a “self-defeat”. Rather, I was illustrating the lack of clarity on what it is that you are denying. And it remains unclear at this point. Or, to be clearer myself, you have not made a convincing case that self is an illusion. Perhaps it is not a “thing”, but then it was never clear what it means to say that x is or is not a thing.

         Using mathematics as an example, I have come across some people who take an extreme physicalist position and insist that there are no abstract entities. In particular, they insist that numbers are pencil marks on paper. But the trouble with this is that the way we talk about numbers does not allow them to be pencil marks on paper. If we had to change our way of talking to allow that, then mathematical talk would become so cumbersome that nobody would want to engage in it. So we instead think of numbers as abstract entities. I don’t see a problem with similarly thinking of self as an abstract entity. But that would not make it an illusion, nor would that make it a spiritual soul.

         1. Wow, Neil, there’s a non sequitur if ever I saw one. I argue that it doesn’t follow from there being a noun that there is a thing the noun refers to and you invert this to assert that I have said that using a noun implies there is not a thing referred to.

      2. If the self is an illusion, then “your” location in space and time on earth is illusion, and therefore everything in that context is an illusion – all earth science, math, religion, culture, etc. You can say in the third person that John Wilkins’ location in space and time is not an illusion, but it presumes the existence of an irreducible narrator or an observer, in whose mind John exists, which could be himself. You can’t just keep passing the buck. In addition, if there is illusion, then some irreducible mind must recognize it as such, or else the illusion becomes a reality. The concept of irreducible unity vs aggregates was explored in Leibniz philosophy of mind.

         The concept of the self is not anti-science, but I think it is fatal to the notion that science and objectivity are everything there is. If you really believe that, then there cannot be a self.

         1. “If the self is an illusion, then “your” location in space and time on earth is illusion, and therefore everything in that context is an illusion”

            I think the point is that there is no single conciousness in your head; what you think of as you is better conceptualised as a committee. So you do have a discrete location, well a few litres, but there is no single you within that location, instead there are a bunch of interconnected, arguing neural networks. So our space time locations are not illusions, though they are a little fuzzy.

         2. Well said, that man. It is both the fuzziness of the person (my iPhone acts as part of my memory these days) and the multiple drafts of my “consciousness” (a word that has, so far as I can tell, no actual meaning whatsoever, and should be abandoned) that are what I claim to be the case, and neither of them cause any trouble for my using first person terminology. My iPhone agrees.

         3. “I think the point is that there is no single conciousness in your head; what you think of as you is better conceptualised as a committee. ”

            Whose committee, in whose head? And who is doing the conceptualizing

            In John’s reductionism, Self is merely a behavioural tendency encoded in neurons that has no other physical counterpart (no subjective definition can be used with physical reduction). By this definition subjective thoughts also cannot exist (such as the kind you may use to formulate posts). I actually can’t prove the existence of the Self to him in his terms. To me, the self is real, and non-physical, and very close in meaning to subjectivity, awareness, and consciousness. If someone denies they have a self, I might think it very odd, but I guess I have to take them at their word. I certainly can’t observe their sense of self, so it’s not for me to judge. But as for me (my Self) I feel it, and it is real. I feel that reality is being experienced from “my” perspective, instead of someone else’s, everyone else’s, or not at all. If physics was all there was, I should be an automaton with neurons buzzing, but not feeling anything internally – no Self, no illusion, no awareness, nothing at all. Awareness cannot be expressed physically, and yet it is there for me. What should I conclude? I’ve tried blotting out the Self without various substances, but it keeps coming back. Maybe physical death will kill it. Or maybe not.

3. Scanlon is a biology student, so we can cut him a bit of slack when he waxes metaphysical; but to suppose that “dualism is a necessary posit” of ID is going a claim to far. Could anybody who knows any philosophy actually think that ID entails the falsity of idealism a la Berkeley, or monism a la Spinoza? Being on the “right side” of a political tussle isn’t an excuse for talking nonsense.

   1. Bob, I don’t claim that dualism is a necessary posit of all kinds of ID, but I do claim that the ID commonly put forward by those at the Discovery Institute, as well as their friends, revolves around “intelligence” being a supernatural phenomena, hence their continuous rhetorical attacks on naturalism, both metaphysical and methodological.

      Naturalistic ID is perfectly coherent, in my opinion (albeit rarely considered in the religiously-inspired ID movement). After all, a deterministic, material brain still designs things, yes? If not, what is human design? Are architects out of a job? My father won’t be happy to hear that.

   2. *cough* Any spelling errors can be put down to my being a biology student. *cough*

4. Does constructed=illusion? The connotations of each word are quite different. Investments in the construction industry will probably be better than those in the illusion industry. I basically agree with you, the self only has a fundamental ontological grounding if identity is rooted in some fundamental narrative of the universe for example: A) We have a soul created by a caring all-powerful creator, or B) each of our selves are perfectly evolved for survival and propogation.

   I think both of these narratives are highly unlikely, but at the same time acting like oneself is an illusion is philosophically rational, but practically ridiculous. The statement “I know her, she wouldn’t do that,” is incoherent if one gives no ontological validity to selves. But statements such as these are fundamental to human interactions. The epistemological claims in it are very powerful, with no empirical evidence, you can claim that you know what someone would or would not do. Of course, she may have done it, in which case one would revise the epistemological claim “I know her.” “I don’t know honey, you might have done it, I wasn’t there,” may have real material consequences involving blunt of sharp objects.”

   Being a unitary self leads to all kinds of problems, because, it is constructed, and there aren’t any manuals to go about it (though plenty of material to draw from) as the uniqueness of one’s own self is essential to it being a true self. It’s a mess, and so no wonder we throw our intellectual hands up, intellect may shape but can’t deliver a solution. At the same time, a sense of self is incredibly powerful, for good or ill. So calling it an illusion may be technically accurate, but this cedes the ground to those who, justifiably or not, have little regard for technical accuracy.

5. “It is quite obvious to me that selves are dynamic, fractured, transitory things that occur largely in a single head, which is why we think they are unitary… Our memories are generated from hints and episodic traces, our thoughts are the consensus of many partial circuits of neurons…”

   I’m with Neil… what right do you have to use words like “we” and “our” in this way. Who are you talking about? Who believes that they have a unitary self? Whose “behaviour” are you describing?

   There’s kind of an old lesson in the philosophical literature on personal identity… if you’re going to formulate a position, it has to be formulated in a noncircular manner. If you can’t find a way to do that, it might be because the position is in some way absurd.

   1. If there is no unitary self for nearly all human beings – you do understand this defenestrates the Enlightenment Project? You’re right, of course, but… it’s just that it’s a hemlock-worthy thing to say. Imagine should it catch on amongst the youth. I think you should publish.

      1. If this were in any way original to me, then I would publish, but it’s a view that has often been expressed, and one which goes back at least to Hume. The consensus of partial voices is Marvin Minsky’s “Parliament of Mind” idea.

         1. The consensus of partial voices is Marvin Minsky’s “Parliament of Mind” idea.

            It seems to me that brain activities are far more tightly coordinated than “consensus of partial voices” would suggest. If you don’t like “unitary” then can you at least suggest an alternative term that is considerably stronger than “consensus.”

         2. If I thought this tight coordination were real, then I probably could.

6. As usual, the philosopher is too busy talking about his own ideas to listen to what science has to say:

   
   Cognitive and neural components of the phenomenology of agency
   How culture shaped the human genome: bringing genetics and the human sciences together
   The Sense of Agency
   Automatic Brains—Interpretive Minds
   The phenomenology of action: A conceptual framework
   Narrators and comparators: the architecture of agentive self-awareness
   Self-Agency
   The Phenomenology of Joint Action: Self-Agency vs. Joint-Agency

   Note: I’ve read these but haven’t yet analyzed them, and certainly can’t say I agree with them (or not). But IMO the research discussed in these and other such papers should certainly be taken into account when considering this subject. And even the opinions of the writers are probably worth considering, even if just to reject them.

7. Jack Scanlan:

   …a deterministic, material brain still designs things, yes? If not, what is human design? Are architects out of a job? My father won’t be happy to hear that.

   I wish we paid more attention to understanding what happens when human beings design things. As it is, I find that whenever I point out that innovation operates rather differently among our species than among others, I’m accused of some sort of religious obscurantism as if the only alternative to neural psychologism were the Casper-the-friendly-ghost version of dualism. I think part of the problem is the assumption that intelligence can be understood as something that takes place inside people’s heads. Human beings without culture aren’t human beings.

   1. And this too has antecedents. The one I most approve of is “My Station and It’s Duties” by F. H. Bradley (a chapter in his Ethical Studies). Basically he said that to be an Englishman and not a Japanese is to be raised in a cultural context. Given the biological determinism of the time that is a rather radical statement.

8. As i recall, Kant made the point that you know only what you have experienced of yourself in action, i.e., what you have done or been. But right now before you act or even as you are just being still, you can not know anything about the self. So to say “I have a self” is to say “I can recall what whoever-this-is” (says I, pointing a finger at me) “has experienced so far.”

   Such thought finds good company in Wittgenstein’s statement, if recollection serves, about not knowing his own thought until he spoke or wrote that thought in words.

   1. I am extremely fond of Wittgenstein’s social behaviourism… Someone else (possibly E. M. Forster) once asked “How can I know what I think until I see what I say?”

      1. Is seeing and understanding not then a form of thinking? Circularity… I’m tempted to entertain the premise that solipsism is true, and John is one of the few others who are just being honest.

9. Why we seem to need to think we have selves is a little bit of a mystery.

   I can’t resolve that question for you… but I can speculate that any mobile animal is likely to benefit from being aware of its boundary. I can speculate that any animal with a memory and awareness of time is likely to benefit from a continuity of that memory.

   Interestingly, I’ve read that people extend their sense of self to include any hand tools they are using. Is the sense of self also altered by TMS, drugs, injury, meditation and contemplation? Apparently so – which tends to support the argument that the sense of self is a brain process rather than some mystical essence.

   Still intriguing, but not so mysterious perhaps?

10. Hi John, long time no comment….

    Are you aware of the apparent relationship between language and the theory of mind? For instance, that community of deaf people in South America who developed their own sign language that was missing some fairly important concepts, and in turn appeared to be cognitively unable to take an intentional stance towards other people?

    That’s not a very good explanation: there’s a Radio Lab piece about the whole idea that you can probably track down. The point is that even the ability to define “self” for either yourself or other people appears to be really plastic in the human brain.

    Yes, I’m a biologist too 😉

    1. I read something about this, but thought it had more to do with syntax than intentional stances. However I do not accept the Whorf-Sapir Thesis that thinking is either determined or constrained by language. It modulates it, perhaps. What does constrain thought, though, is social context, although again that doesn’t imply it must determine it.

       1. http://www.radiolab.org/2010/aug/09/

          I’m pretty sure that’s the one. Some of the examples just don’t make sense unless language not only modulates but helps create our “theory of mind” — which is totally counterintuitive and actually quite hard to swallow. But not necessarily untrue just because of that!

       2. The Whorf-Sapir thesis suggests that the thinking of particular groups of people are constrained by their particular language. I tend to be very skeptical of that idea, at least in its commoner forms. As you’re very well aware, it is not very easy to pin down exactly what any particular version of the thesis is claiming. My view of things is different: it seems to me the possession of language, any language, is what matters even though, of course, nobody speaks Language. They speak French or English or Japanese. (Actually, I don’t think that language is the only dimension of culture that matters in constituting man in his niche; but language will do for starters.)

          By the way, you mentioned Bradley above; but my thinking on the subject goes back to Hegel’s idea of objective spirit, not to Bradley’s excruciatingly English version of something somewhat similar. (Bradley was reading Hegel too, but I read Hegel a long time before I read Bradley)

11. jeff: If physics was all there was, I should be an automaton with neurons buzzing, but not feeling anything internally – no Self, no illusion, no awareness, nothing at all.

    If physics is all there is… does your concept of physics include emergent properties? From observation we know that large collections of atoms can display behaviours not shown by simpler collections.

    While it does not necessarily prove the case, I can imagine emergent behaviours that include the feeling of emotions and the feeling of Self. Even organisms with no neurons can react to environmental triggers; human subjective experience could be ‘just larger scale biochemistry’.

12. “I can imagine emergent behaviours that include the feeling of emotions and the feeling of Self”

    Sorry, I can’t. The main reason is that physics deals with objectively observable properties of systems – even “emergent” properties that cannot be predicted in advance. It can have nothing to say about properties which can never be objectively observed, such as pain in system of neurons, although it can correlate such unobservable properties with objective events.

    1. If physical events only correlate with subjective events, what is(are) the causative event(s) behind both?

       1. Good question. Short answer: I don’t know. What is causation? One might also ask how subjectivity can even exist in an objective universe. Can something non-physical emerge from something physical? Do physical processes and things have permanently hidden properties? If so, then how can one assume that physical things are the “cause” of hidden things?

          1. Are there single celled organisms that display tropism and trophism behaviours? Yes.

             Do they have subjective experiences of the external world? I think probably not, they are just a bag of organised chemicals.

             According to the New Scientist (3 Sept 2011 issue, page 11) Choanoflagellates, our closest single celled relatives, already possess components for each of the main functions of neurons.

             Does it seem likely that multi celled organisms might dedicate some cells to carry electrical signals along their length, signal neighbouring cells with neurotransmitters, and also receive those signals? Yes.

             Do they have subjective experiences of the external world? I think they might have the beginnings of such if they can use ‘memory’ to modulate their response to stimuli. (Eg sea slugs and their adaptive behaviour).

             Are hidden processes or events necessary to explain the adaptive behaviour? Not as far as I can tell – there are plenty of research papers about this. All neurochemistry, which is underpinned by physics.

             And why should more elaborate multi celled animals be any different? I can imagine that a ‘sense of self’ is a useful fiction, it may even ‘feel’ compelling, but I don’t see the need for any new ‘stuff’ just because of the way we choose to divide the world into objective and subjective categories.

          2. “Are there single celled organisms that display tropism and trophism behaviours? Yes.”

             So? Behaviour is objective, we all knew that.

             “Do they have subjective experiences of the external world? I think probably not, they are just a bag of organised chemicals.”

             You think? In your mind. Do you know in an objective sense? Reductionism a priori. Why is this relavant to a sense of Self?

             “According to the New Scientist (3 Sept 2011 issue, page 11) Choanoflagellates, our closest single celled relatives, already possess components for each of the main functions of neurons.
             Do they have subjective experiences of the external world? I think they might have the beginnings of such if they can use ‘memory’ to modulate their response to stimuli. (Eg sea slugs and their adaptive behaviour).”

             You think? Prove it objectively.

             “Are hidden processes or events necessary to explain the adaptive behaviour? Not as far as I can tell – there are plenty of research papers about this. All neurochemistry, which is underpinned by physics.”

             Sounds impressive. Can all of my subjective experience be correlated with adaptive behaviour and physicalism? A genuine link between the objective and subjective seems to be missing.

             “And why should more elaborate multi celled animals b”e any different? I can imagine that a ‘sense of self’ is a useful fiction, it may even ‘feel’ compelling, but I don’t see the need for any new ‘stuff’ just because of the way we choose to divide the world into objective and subjective categories.”

             You imagine? Is your subjective imagination useful to everyone? How can there be “feel” in an objective universe? What you imagine and see may not be what others see. Objectivity, right?

13. I will respond to this post soon with a brief overview of research on “sense of self” and autism, but here is a preview.

    As awareness of the “other” and a mental conception of having a self use overlapping brain pathways, an impairment in one usually goes hand-in-hand with the other.

    Sample research to start:

    http://www.bcm.edu/news/item.cfm?newsID=1058
    Poor recognition of ‘self’ found in high functioning people with autism

    HOUSTON — (February 6, 2008) — Contrary to popular notions, people at the high end of the autism spectrum disorder continuum suffer most from an inability to model “self” rather than impaired ability to respond to others, said Baylor College of Medicine researchers in a report that appear in the journal Neuron.

    This inability to model “self” can disrupt an individual’s ability to understand the world as a whole, said Dr. P. Read Montague Jr., professor of neuroscience, and director of the Human Neuroimaging Lab and the Computational Psychiatry Unit at BCM. “It’s an interesting disconnect.”

    1. What I was trying to say, incoherently, is that autistics probably have a self, not so much that they have a sense of it. But I think your reference undercuts that claim. As always, I am in your debt for educating me.

       So now I need to find an example of a coherent and unitary self in the psychopathology of humans. Monomania?

       1. I will try to keep this brief.
          Note I wrote this before I read your above response to my comment. [I have some other thoughts I will share later.]

          “If Schizophrenics are those whose sense of self is so fractured that the partial voices in their heads are not identified as originating within their own heads, there is a class of person who has so strong a sense of self they are unable to connect with others: Autistics.”

          As I interpret this, you seem to be taking the idea of something fragmented and the idea of something unitary, and setting up the contrast between them. I suppose, viewed from outside, a schizophrenic’s self might be seen as fragmented in the sense that it is composed of pieces that don’t seem to be communicating well with each other, and, viewed from outside, an autistic’s self might be seen as unitary in the sense that it follows a particular course with little reference to the external world. This, though, is not the same thing as a “sense of self” that is experienced by the person in question. There is a distinction being drawn here, but it seems to fail to map onto anything but its own intuited notions.

          Schizophrenics may seem fragmented, but their skewed and distorted thinking is often internally-consistent within their own schema, or at least in certain psychotic states and during the more overt (positive) symptomatic [as compared to the apathy, numbness, catatonic (negative)] manifestations of the disease. At various stages of this neurological illness there can be a hyper-sense of “self.” Grandiosity, megalomania, persecution, paranoia are all oriented toward “I”-ness. “They are out to get me.” “I am chosen.” “I have a mission.”

          As the Friths describe:
          “Many brain-based disorders impair social and communication function. For example, some types of schizophrenia involve a disturbance of mentalising. Unlike autism, this disturbance seems to point to an overactive attribution of mental states, extending these to a wide variety of other agents, including physical objects which may be experienced as senders of significant messages. Theory of Mind difficulties can also be acquired through brain damage in frontal cortex or in the region of the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). Patients with fronto-temporal dementia are also prone to suffer from an inability to mentalise.”

          Hypersalience and over-mentalizing can also be seen in other delusional and schizotypal disorders [I hope this term is kicked out of the new DSM] as well as temporal lobe epilepsy.

          “The earliest stages of delusion are characterized by an overabundance of meaningful coincidences impinging on the sufferer’s existing worldview. Successive events are seen by him as pointing to, and then confirming, a fundamentally new reality that takes him over and engulfs his everyday life. Research over the last 4 decades has revealed the importance of dopamine (DA), D2 receptors, and the basal ganglia in psychotic thinking. Recent work has implicated the aberrant reward learning initiated by the excess release of striatal DA in the attribution of excessive importance or salience to insignificant stimuli and events.”

          From:
          Morrison, P. D., & Murray, R. M. (2009). From real-world events to psychosis: the emerging neuropharmacology of delusions. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 35(4), 668-674. Oxford University Press.

          It is the opposite for severe autism— where the awareness of: subject/object, outside/inside, and self/other—can all be impaired. The brain networks related to Theory of Mind, mentalizing and the mirror neuron systems, may have multiple dysfunctions affecting both the ability for awareness of “self” and awareness of “others.”

          The Friths again:
          “Autism is primarily characterised by an impairment in social communication. This is not a global social impairment. The failure lies specifically in an inability to take account of others’ beliefs, desires and feelings. This is shown, for instance, in their poor understanding of deception, irony and reputation building, but good transmission of verbatim information. This inability could be due to an ultimately genetic fault in a basic neurophysiological mechanism. For nearly three decades researchers have investigated the apparent inability of autistic children to mentalise, and their slow and fragile acquisition of the concept of mental states. It has been argued that intuitive mentalising, as already shown by infants by their second year, is never attained in autism, but that explicit rule-based mentalising can be learned.”
          ––––––––––––––––
          Regarding the first part of the post,you are correct. According to emerging neuroscience, the sense of a consistent, coherent, unitary self is basically an illusion, which Hume seemed to intuit, as is the belief that we are in the “driver’s seat” (often called the “User Illusion”). However, having this illusion of a “consistent self” may be essential to developing into healthy adults with executive function.

          All these terms: agency, autonomy, free will, will power, volition, identity, self, metacognition, etc. are related, but not interchangeable, and are being studied and deconstructed from many fascinating new perspectives and with new tools. More fundamental questions of sentience, awareness, consciousness, are also being re-examined. Studies in: interoception, the adaptive unconscious, embodied cognition, and “feeling of knowing,” are particularly fruitful. Strange localized brain anomalies continue to spark new models of mind, such as Blind sight and Cotard’s syndrome (where someone is otherwise perfectly normal except for holding a strong and vivid conviction that they are not alive or do not exist.)

          The flood of research can be daunting, so I will just share some examples with readers here who may be interested. See the work of: Daniel Wegner, Alison Gopnik, Daniel Schacter, Chris and Uta Frith, A. D. (Bud) Craig, Hugo Critchley, Bruce Hood, Paul Bloom, Jesse Bering, among countless others. My library of papers is open to any requests.

          I believe that thinkers from philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience will really have to work together if we want to get anywhere on redefining these terms based on the data of how the mind actually works, and then we can hopefully ask better questions for further research and create more useful taxonomies.

14. I’m not that impressed with how conclusions about autistics’ recognition of the “self” were derived from that study. That autistics would process a social interaction using different parts of their brain than normal people is unsurprising. However, assuming that having a high level of activity in a particular part of the brain when one is imagining doing something oneself corresponds to the “sense of self” being located in that part is dicey, especially when what is meant by “sense of self” is poorly defined.

    I’m reminded of something written by Francesca G.E. Happe in the book Autism and Asperger Syndrome. She discussed that a relatively famous autistic, Temple Grandin, had written in her autobiography that when playing hide and seek, she’d stuff her coat full of leaves and use it as a decoy on the person doing the seeking. This showed that Grandin was capable of understanding that others had minds different from her own which did not necessarily know what she did. (This conflicted with Happe’s ideas of autistics’ theory of mind, so she cast aspersions on the veracity of Grandin’s account.) Anyway, the point is that I’m rather skeptical of ideas about autistics and their understanding of the self, their theory of mind, etc.

    Note: I myself am high-functioning autistic.

    1. I can’t speak to autistics’ experience, but Asperger’s (probably me, certainly my son) have a different problem. They know others have a point of view that is different to theirs, but they do not know what that is, so they attempt, by trial and error, to work it out. Gross things like visual perspective are simple: the real difficulty is in the tacit rules of behaviour.

    2. I agree with you, there is a tendency to draw too many generalized conclusions based on a stream of data that is still being synthesized and verified. However, I was specifically pointing out distinctions about “self” for severe autistics in response to the post.

       There is of course a non-linear continuum of capacities and impairments for those on the so-called “spectrum”. Everyone has a unique brain pattern and information-processing profile and this will be reflected in future models and diagnostics. Some professed Asperger’s such as Oliver Sacks, become experts in emotions and social cognition [stemming from their intellectual passion] and develop almost poetic insight into human nature.

       I have worked with many people with Asperger’s as a neurobiological and learning consultant and I love to discover the always unexpected ways their minds work. [And it is hard to ignore the seeming preponderance of AS in the science and philosophy-bogging community.]

       I deeply trust my own particularly-close friends with Asperger’s due to their exceptional integrity and empathy. I enjoy their unique, quirky minds and lack of societal formality.

       1. i mean’t “blogging”-community, not “bogging” . . . .or, did I?

          1. I have been known to blog and bog.

             I have a hypothesis that in the theoretical disciplines like math, philosophy and computer science, the ratio of Aspies to Normals rises greatly the more theoretical the field. Those aspects of philosophy that are not practical (i.e., metaphysics) are replete with Apsies. All topologists are probably Aspies.

             In general Aspies are honest for two reasons: we tend to be very fixed in our behaviours and we were generally taught to be honest; and also we cannot keep all the little tells from showing that a Normal can. So it’s just easier to be honest.

15. jeff:
    …
    “And why should more elaborate multi celled animals be any different? I can imagine that a ‘sense of self’ is a useful fiction, it may even ‘feel’ compelling, but I don’t see the need for any new ‘stuff’ just because of the way we choose to divide the world into objective and subjective categories.”

    You imagine? Is your subjective imagination useful to everyone? How can there be “feel” in an objective universe? What you imagine and see may not be what others see. Objectivity, right?

    I have argued that subjectivity can be understood as simply having a perspective on the world, and that “feel” is not an ontologically unique category here.

    Basically terms like “feel” or “quale” seem to me to have no purchase apart from this. I sense the world using the equipment evolution gave me, and there’s an end to it. Phenomenology is an objective feature of the world, and subjectivity is just being limited, located, and of a certain constitution.

    1. Essentially what you were saying in that article, is that because consciousness cannot be precisely defined objectively via what you call “hard information”, that it’s existence is highly suspect. You are a priori and implicitly asserting that if it’s not objective, it doesn’t exist. Your category system simply does not include the subjective, so you look for another place to put it. But the whole point of the consciousness debate is that it is not objective. You can certainly do your best to imagine what it is like to be a camera, but in the end you can never actually know, because you are not the camera, and any imagining you do can only be based on your own personal experience. If you say that you have no personal experience, and only objective things exist, then we are back to square one again.

       As for qualia and/or consciousness being language-dependent: when you’re in a hospital bed in terrible cancer pain, is that just a language problem? Also there have been cases where some patients have temporarily lost all language capability (both understanding and speaking), usually from a stroke, and are later able to describe how they were entirely conscious of the entire experience. Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor comes to mind.

       “So if I do not need qualia to explain the experience of experiencing”. Just a comment: Qualia is not an explanation, it IS the experience, or at least some types of experience.

       1. What you are saying is the mere assertion that qualia exist. Who has the onus of proof here? On parsimony grounds we should not accept things exist that have no definite and expressible nature and which are not investigable. In fact I would even doubt that the notion of an ineffable inner life was all that common before Augustine’s Confessions. It was most emphatically not the default or folk view prior to Descartes.

          People can talk all they like about things like consciousness, but until we can specify what it is we are talking about, the question of what explains it doesn’t even arise.

          1. I say they exist, because I observe them directly and continuously, as the vast majority of the population does also. Theories of multiverses are routinely accepted in science but not observed. Who has the onus of proof here? Do you really think that multiverses are a more credible concept than the smell of coffee?

             “I would even doubt that the notion of an ineffable inner life was all that common before Augustine’s Confessions. ”

             Just totally wrong. Look at Hindu literature, Vedanta, Bhagavad Gita, Buddhism, etc. It’s probably all over the bible if you look hard enough, ancient poetry, and many other books of antiquity. For example, the “gospel of thomas” somewhere before 300 A.D., verse 29: Jesus said, “If the flesh came into being because of spirit, that is a marvel, but if spirit came into being because of the body, that is a marvel of marvels.

          2. I would say that qualia is more primary than “evolutionary equipment”. This is because I am not done exploring qualia yet. There are new vistas to emerge from going deeper into subjective phenomena. Others may find that an externalised view of reality benefits them for the moment. This I can sympathise with. But ultimately I believe we will find that we create “reality” to the same degree that “reality” creates us. We will have to learn to take responsibility.

          3. I would say that “qualia” is a fiction created, along with “self”, out of our desire to have some “thing” or property answer to our personal experience. It is no more an evolutionary bequest than souls.

16. Reading over this thread makes me slightly sea sick because the topic sloshes around a lot. People talk about selfhood as a metaphysical illusion and yet they obviously think that it’s also terribly important on an empirical level when it comes to the integration of mental functioning and dealing with others. I guess that’s not so peculiar. The Buddhists, who got there first with this no-soul business, nevertheless warned meditating monks to watch out about messing too much with the skandhas, the heaps of mental contents that play a role in their explanations analogous to the neural pathways invoked in our current era of intracranial phrenology. So schizophrenics are in trouble because their components aren’t in synch and they therefore lack a strong enough illusion of selfhood while the autistic are in trouble for the opposite reason.

    It’s just a guess, obviously; but I bet that a lot of contemporary discourse about matters neuro-psychological will, like behaviorism and cognitive psychology, turn out to have been largely hype and category mistakes. The notion that everything takes place in the brain strikes me as a queer sort of error much like thinking that we could finally understand the Remembrance of Things Past if only we could autopsy Proust’s typewriter. For that matter, the endlessly announced solution to the mind/body problem sounds to me like an exercise in self-hypnosis, a problem that we’re sure will go away if we only tell ourselves often enough that there is no problem.

    One other heresy: I suspect that Asperger’s syndrome will eventually join melancholy and neuresthenia in the long roll call of nosological fads and obsolete diseases and we will have to suffer from a condition named after a different German doctor.

    1. “It’s just a guess, obviously; but I bet that a lot of contemporary discourse about matters neuro-psychological will, like behaviorism and cognitive psychology, turn out to have been largely hype and category mistakes.”

       You are right: It is just a guess.

       Of course, there is ignorance, quackery, misdiagnosis, over-labeling, and hidden agendas in any area of mental health or medicine. And current labels such as Asperger’s, Tourette’s or Attention Deficit Disorder are inadequate to describe the endless variations of human processing.

       But there is also a much more sophisticated body of research than you seem aware of. [A simple pubmed search would give you an inkling]

       Complex neurobiological disorders manifest in many ways and to different degrees in each person. AS resides somewhere on a spectrum of related learning and developmental conditions. Neuroscientists and molecular geneticists are finding comparable characteristics, such as problems with shifting attention and regulating stimuli, in many of these conditions and they are mapping these problems to subtle neuropsychological testing.

       As we continue to expand our tools and understanding, each person’s brain will be seen as a unique matrix pattern of function and structure.

       But the real point is that real people struggle with these real problems. Entire families suffer when a loved one has an undiagnosed or untreated developmental, learning or mood problem and the shaming judgments of society and the “you’re just making it up” make it much worse. These differences do not have to be handicaps— with the right support people with these differences can flourish and contribute unique gifts—but denial and ignorance about them are an obstacle to this.

       1. I think you misunderstand me. I’m not suggesting that people don’t have real problems or that they’re just making things up. I was complaining about the physicians, not the patients and more generally trying to raise a metaphysical point involving my doubts about the current tendency to think that everything is neurological or genetic, which is not, I hasten to add, the same as making a claim that neurology or genetics are irrelevant.

          When you are suffering, it’s a blessing to have a name and an explanation to hang on to. Believe me, I’ve been there myself. And in any case everybody’s stuck with trying to understand their situation in the currently available terms. Once again, I’m not giving anybody trouble for doing that and I’m sorry if I gave you that impression.

          1. thanks for explaining. sorry for any snark.
             (i normally really like your comments BTW)

             Note: I left clinical/advocacy work because I got so tired of trying to help struggling people with multiple needs navigate the inadequate resources and overloaded systems and the dearth of thoughtful integrated diagnosis and treatment — the tendency for formulaic, assembly-line solutions dispensed by overworked physicians, providers, and social service case workers in a “managed care” environment.

       2. Jocelyn Stoller:
          Complex neurobiological disorders … such as problems with shifting attention and regulating stimuli … but denial and ignorance about them are an obstacle to this.

          This is a pattern of “awareness” which emphasizes executive functioning.

          —> manipulation and self direction of the focal awareness

          The main thought disorders methods can each be categorized as a distinct pattern of awareness displacement.

          Yes. It is that simple.

          A sense of self frames these methods of awareness.

17. Maybe the ‘royal “we”‘ is not such an affectation as we thought.

18. Hofstadter in “I Am a Strange Loop” raises the interesting question of to what extent a “self” can be said to exist in another’s brain. This is the other extreme of autism, where empathy not only allows one to briefly put oneself in someone else’s shoes, but in fact one has a construct that is at least a shadow of the other “self”. My mother recently passed away (it was a blessing for her) after suffering a series of strokes. My parents had been happily married for 66 years. I don’t think the “self” my father interacted with when he was hold my mothers hand in the years before her death was the self her caregivers knew. It was a “self” that existed more concretely in his mind than in her stroke damaged brain.

19. It is interesting to see this neodarwinian struggle against human “I” or “Ego”. Neodarwinists are probably scenting some metaphysical troubles here – so they would like to get rid of “I”. How can this be done even by philosophers is another interesting question of contemporary state of thinking – considering Descartes’ “Cogito” as one of the central issue of the modern philosophy, as even Husserl recognized in his Cartesian meditations as the starting point of his phenomenology. Not to speak about Kant’s Critique of pure reason where it is actually “I” which enables the whole edifice of his Critique.

    1. Philosophers emphasize ‘object’
       ‘abstraction’ ~ lossy convergence ~ Philosophical ‘original sin’

       Everyone must struggle heroically against a sense of self. We are all convergence junkies.

       There is only subjectivity. Objectivity is a subjective experience whose essential quality is timeless virtual representation of ‘totality’.

       As per Wilkins:
       Philosophers are subjective of ‘self’ in the extreme.

20. “I would say that “qualia” is a fiction created, along with “self”, out of our desire to have some “thing” or property answer to our personal experience. It is no more an evolutionary bequest than souls.”

    But John you are reifying “qualia” (I won’t bother with “self”). Qualia to me is just a convenient word to describe phenomena that is not explained by evolutionary equipment. Whether you call it qualia or evolutionary equipment, we DO take personal experience as primary. Don’t you think your idea of evolutionary equipment comes back to some tension/impulse/need born of qualitative experience? You just suggested that yourself. So why does evoutionary equipment/theory occupy some other privileged position?

    “Evolutionary equipment” is your own kind of “soul”. And that’s not a bad thing! Exploring further, it may even turn out to be in some way “correct”! But don’t schizophrenically suggest that your thing or property that answers to personal experience in fact doesn’t! That’s a recipe for a whole web of intellectual conceits.

    1. Well if you are going to use terms like “qualia” in nonstandard ways then I guess we are in furious agreement. However, any philosopher knows that qualia are not merely experiences, but the what-it-is-like-to-experience, an irreducible something or process. It is that view that I am disputing.

       1. Qualia is an irreducible something? That’s news to me. Subjective maybe. Qualitative yes. But a Kant style thing-in-itself? I think you are going overboard there. That’s one (limited in my opinion) viewpoint, and there are certainly many others out there.

21. Your iPhone was the first one I had seen and touched in RL. So it is also part of my memory.

22. John S. Wilkins: … my “consciousness” (a word that has, so far as I can tell, no actual meaning whatsoever, and should be abandoned)

    What’s the problem with the notion of “consciousness”? It is a necessary device for cognition.

    If we didn’t have consciousness then we would be unconscious or worse. Conscious provides the ability to make executive decisions. How else could it be possible to make a global decision .. get up … walk … stop … turn right …

    Global decisions become impossible problems when too many variables are introduced into the decision making ‘equation’. Too many variables introduce noise as if it were thermal heat melting a solid or causing state change from liquid to gas. The ‘executive’ or consciousness reduces the awareness to a space where a global bifurcation involving the whole body can be induced. When we are unconscious we don’t have that global bifurcation executive function available. … which leads to the interesting situation of sleep walking (… just thought of that!)

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