"Is There a Me – Consciousness and the Sense of Self"
Introductory disclaimer – these notes were taken in the first place for my own use; they are not intended to be comprehensive – I would be happy to deal with any questions people may have, as best I can, through the N.U.F. Forum. MK.
Anthony Freeman (An Anglican priest and theologian, Freeman edits "The Journal of Consciousness Studies")
There is a wide gap between the ordinary person's view of the self (an entity) and the current scientific view, expressed for example by Francis Crick, that the 'self' is only the behaviour of neurons.
The idea of 'soul', for all its religious overtones, is less biblical than Platonic – scripture rather refers to the (impersonal) 'breath of life'. Christianity is heir to two incompatible approaches – the Hebrew and the Greek. Thomas Aquinas sought to reconcile them by arguing that, since (as far as he knew) humans could think without apparent bodily change, the human soul could therefore survive death – if so, it couldn't have come into being with the body, therefore it was created by God.
Descartes equated the human self with the mind – the famous cogito ergo sum. This both freed science from religion and also denied that consciousness was a proper subject for scientific study. But even Descartes had to admit, as Aquinas had before him, that in practice minds and bodies were interdependent. Cartesian dualism was hegemonic for 300 years until Gilbert Ryle demolished it as "the ghost in the machine" – "one big mistake". And so the study of consciousness became scientifically respectable.
There are two aspects of self-awareness: (1) the "core self" – the sense of personal identity here and now; (2) the same sense over time – the "narrative" or "autobiographical" sense.
The principles giving rise to the sense of self are ownership – if 'I think X' I can only be wrong about 'X', not about who thinks 'X' – and agency – I always know the difference between when I lift my arm and when you lift it for me. Thought and movement are inter-connected: self-awareness is a function of the whole organism and its environment. 'Expectation' theory of bodily movement: 'matches' stay below the threshhold of consciousness, 'mismatches' (e.g. the staircase has one more or fewer tread than expected) are brought into consciousness – a 'prediction and feedback' loop – perhaps thinking is also an action or movement of this type. This could explain schizophrenia: the schizophrenic fails to match his thoughts as his own. Even if the neural correlates of this process (cf Crick, above) could be mapped, this would not prove that consciousness was no more than neural correlates.
In ordinary language, we believe we have an enduring personal identity – the 'autobiographical' self. The 'ego' theory sees this as an enduring existence but the problem with it is how to relate it to the physical (and in particular the brain). The 'bundle' theory – named after Hume's argument that all he could find within himself (introspection) was 'a bundle of sensations' - denies the entity: the self is an illusion. Daniel Dennett, noting that any notion of the 'enduring' self depends on memory, which is also a creative process, refines the 'bundle' theory by analogy with the physical centre of gravity of an object & calls the self 'a centre of narrative gravity'. Another view would be that the self is the product of the narrative.
The 'soul' – defined as a disembodied being having free will (and therefore consciousness) – is however not (at present) a scientific concept. Scientists recognise the 'core self' conceptually, but the regard the experienced 'enduring self' as an illusion – albeit supported by society – it may not be scientifically true, but it's still the best show in town. Of course, an illusion presupposes an illusionist – either there is a 'tiny sliver' of self, or else (Dennett's solution) narrative and self 'spin' each other.
J. R. Searle said: 'brains cause minds' [Personal note: this is very close to my own view that 'mind is what brain does' – MK]
Memory of course is checkable, and there is of course the social dimension – who I am is in large part determined by social interaction.
Susan Blackmore (Freelance writer, lecturer and broadcaster.)
Illusions – for example, optical illusions, in which our visual systems 'see' things that aren't there – exist. Similarly, personal experience seems to be located in the brain, but there is no brain area which corresponds to it. As William James put it: 'the thoughts themselves are the thinker'. This pervasive illusion of the 'self' can be escaped through drugs (nitrous oxide and LSD were given as examples), and unitive spiritual experience, whether or not 'trained' by meditation.
As the Buddha put it: "actions exist and so do their consequences, but the person who acts does not."
N.B. Concept of the "meme" – the cultural/behavioural/thought equivalent of the "gene" – key feature is the copying process.
[Personal note: I found this presentation unsatisfactory, hence the brevity of my notes – MK]
Julian Baggini (Philosopher and writer)
Even if we think the self doesn't exist, we are still left with some sense of self – 'I strain'. We should cure ourselves of it, but we can't…
There is a philosophical problem known as 'individuation' – how do you pick something out in order to study it and how do you know you are still talking about the same thing at the end as you were in the beginning? This is the issue for "bundle theory" – one move might be to talk about 'personhood' rather than 'self' – after all, we recognise 'persons' more easily than 'selves'.
Following Kierkegaard, 'personhood' may be considered to have different dimensions: the aesthetic – the fleeting, 'here and now'; the ethical – which transcends moments and instances. Introspection is an aesthetic experience, but we also have an intuitive sense, if only through memory, of transcending the moment. Any account of personhood must do justice to both aesthetic and ethical dimensions. Kierkegaard's religious dimension (more specifically, the figure of Christ) is a combination of the two which makes no sense – it is a combination of contradictions.
The 'bundle' theory can lead to 'animalism' – the continuity of the physical body (leaving aside the issues raised by cell death and replacement) as a condition of identity – but what makes identity personal? In this view personhood is not a thing but a pattern – in Douglas Hofstadter's pun 'the soul is greater than the hum of its parts.' Everything depends on brain function – the patterns make the sense. The patterns are usually but not necessarily internal – as when a dead person lives on in other people's memories. Attachment is a form of unification – hence the pain of grief. This view weakens the division between self and other, but even though it sounds more spiritual it is still a scientific view. Its language does not require or imply any sort of supernatural account.
However, the problem of the continuity of identity over time remains – suppose the 'Tardis' malfunctioned and produced two Doctor Whos rather than one at its destination? But what persists over time is not identity but continuity. If I lived for 1,000 years could I really say I was still the same person? The 'I' that I am right now is fading every moment and changing. The concept of 'I' is only formally, not materially necessary. Some sort of identity is presupposed in all cultures, tho' the nature of personal identity may (and does) change from one culture to another.
This is not a problem – as Hume put it: 'reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions'.
The reference to illusion is rhetorical hyperbole – alternatively one might – noting too that ordinary language isn't always precise – say that we give different accounts of personhood for different purposes.
Panel discussion (Above speakers + Don Cupitt, theologian and 'inspirer' of Sea of Faith Network)
Susan Blackmore argued that in her – more radical – version of the 'bundle' theory, personhood is not continuous – consciousness is not a stream – and the idea of personhood is only an act of faith.
Don Cupitt, commenting on the ethical implications of the 'bundle' theory, said that he regarded society as a theatre rather than a market. He held a social conception of self: we are who we are in relation with each other.
Anthony Freeman thought that responsibility did not depend on free will because we hold ourselves responsible whatever other people think. Don Cupitt noted that in Christian theology Judas Iscariot is condemned even though he only followed his essential nature.
In response to the question 'is the self the problem Christianity is trying to solve?', Cupitt said that asceticism sought to unify the self by bringing the passions under the domination of reason (Buddhism taught differently) – perhaps, like Kierkegaard, we can have too much self-consciousness – religion needs to balance denial with self-affirmation. Freeman thought religion (not specifically Christianity) is a way in which humans try to make sense of life (including personhood). Blackmore said she found her 'selfhood' painful and difficult. Cupitt noted that western scriptures contained a great deal of biography, Buddhism hardly any – he didn't know which he preferred.
Question from audience: 'what does "know thyself" mean?' Cupitt saw the self as an interpretation of the evidence of behaviour; but there is no one true interpretation. There is no single authentic me. Baggini, whilst agreeing that there is no 'one true self' or 'one true history' said that there are distorted, mistaken accounts – e.g. Holocaust denial. However, there is a difference between knowing that there is no one true self and not knowing that. Freeman did not accept the idea of destiny or vocation (conforming to a pre-existing pattern) – what matters is not the path I've taken, but what I now do with my knowledge of it. What matters is what we do as we live each moment. Cupitt noted that the concept of authenticity itself is very modern. Blackmore thought that there was no evidence that delving into the past was helpful (as in psychotherapy) – what helped was the construction of new social skills with which to move forward.
A member of the audience suggested that 'memes' seemed to have more agency than the 'self'. Baggini said that in the ordinary experience of speech, we aren't aware of words coming out. Blackmore noted Dennett's view that 'selves' are just bundles of memes. Cupitt wondered if the (ordinary language) separation of nouns and verbs might not be misleading – we just are the lives we lead. The 'problem of consciousness' is primarily conceptual. Freeman, whilst preferring to do without the concept of 'meme', agreed that consciousness monitored rather than produced language. (Blackmore holds a stronger version of this position – that consciousness doesn't produce action either.) He thought that we are all philosophers – the only difference is whether we are amateur or professional, good or bad philosophers.
In response to a question on the nature of free will, Cupitt distinguished between negative freedom (absence of coercion) and positive freedom (having the resources to act).