Selfhood and Religion

Great Debates
1

If the primacy of physicalism is true, then it can be argued that the self is an illusion i.e. a product itself of the brain’s processes. Thomas Metzinger argues as such, in Being No One : The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity. A precis of, and commentary about, the book are available as PDFs.

But my goal in this debate is not quite to debate whether selves exist. Let’s take it as a given. There is no me, nor you. Our sense of self is reconstituted on a momentary basis by our substrates, and is illusory and evanescent. Hence there’s no “one” to save or deliver.

Some religions may be trivial to reorient, like Buddhism, whereas for others, it might be a death knell. How should “we” then interpret and assess the various religious doctrines?

2

Nirvana is the abolition of the self. Which is also good for Catholics, since once your self’s been abolished you can’t play with it any more.

I haven’t read that, Gyan, but it looks very interesting. It sounds like it plays the old eliminativist/supervenience physicalist game as the former side. (Eliminativist: “There is no self. It is simply an ongoing process of forming a unique string of memories in a biological computer.” Supervenience physicalist: “There is a self. It is simply an ongoing process of forming a unique string of memories in a biological computer.” One says tomayto, the other says tomahto, I say we call the whole thing off.)

I’ll let others comment on the religion aspects which don’t really interest me, but if I may ask: Did you find his arguments convincing, perhaps even to the point where you might reconsider your advocacy of panpsychist physicalism over emergentist physicalism?

3

I’m not a panpsychist. My position is simply that panpsychist physicalism is more tenable than emergentist physicalism.

As for Metzinger, it comes down to whether you accept physicalism, in the first place. Once you do, the road to “aselfhood” seems straightforward. I haven’t read the (looong) book, just browsed through it. If anything, his model gives panpsychism even a greater leg-up over emergentism, since a rock’s consciousness is no longer constrained to a phenomenal self, which is an awkward concept that trips up one’s imagination.

Frankly, a ‘self’ needs to be defined precisely in order to know what we’re arguing about. The embodied self is pretty easy to dispose of i.e. the identity Gyan is ephemeral. The ‘self’ in the sense of experiant seems a fundamental feature, and would be extremely counterintuitive. But this is all oftopic to this thread.

4

OK, I’ll drop out so as not to derail it. But do read the book if you can find time - you might find that the biocomputational apparatus and working memory mechanisms he places at the heart of the process called “the conscious self” is simply not there in rocks, or indeed in anything but the most complex of animal (or silicon) brains.

5

Like I said, a phenomenal self need not be a requirement for consciousness. In which case, rocks may possess what Chalmers calls proto-consciousness. In any case, it’s begging the question.

6

Well, you say it’s begging the question, I say that calling what rocks have “proto-” rather than “non-” consciousness is splitting hairs, really. (What’s the mechanism for going from ‘proto’ to ‘proper’ consciousness by the way - might it involve gradually more complex neural processing, by any chance? If so, we would be flinging tomaytoes and tomahtoes at each other like we were at the Bunol festival!)

Last word is yours - cheerio.

7

Of course not.

Proto- is equivalent to the universe with two elements. Non- is equivalent to the Void.

8

Sorry for the derail.

Coming back to the original topic… anyone?

9

I think it blends rather well with the teachings of Jesus:

“On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” — John 14:20

It suggests the one-ness of objective consciousness.

10

I agree with **Lib’**s comment. I think what Jesus was teaching is that we embrace the illusion that we are seperate beings.
“Whatever you do unto the least of these you do unto me”

In a book I’ve been reading, “The Disappearence of the Universe” it elaborates.

The thing I find interesting is how we work through this while still living in the illusion.

As to the OP. Certainly this idea calls for radical change in almost every major religion. Odd isn’t it that clarifying what Jesus taught could become a major threat to the religion that carries his name.

11

What’s objective consciousness?

And how must heaven and hell and judgement be interpreted?

12

I’llet Lib respend to “objective consciousness”

One-ness all but destroys the traditional concepts of Heaven and Hell, reward and punishment.
Jesus said"the kingdom of Heaven is within you." Awaking to the truth of who and what we are means letting go of fear and ego and leads to peace of mind, love, even bliss. Thats Heaven.
Hell can be described as seperation form God. I guess that means we’re already there and trying to find our way back. There is no punishment for not pleasing God or meeting certain criteria. The only “punishment” are the consequences of our own choices. If we choose to embrace fear and ego then we remain seperate.

13

For whom?

14

Whomever awakens

15

There is no ‘whomever’. That’s kinda the point.

16

Yes it is, but we lose the illusion by starting from within the illusion because thats where we are.

17

Point is, if ‘we’ lose the illusion, there is no one left to experience the ‘bliss’. If there is, how?

18

>There is no ‘whomever’.

I’m pullin’ bad philosophy outta my ass again, but I can’t help myself. I love these kinds of existential debates.

Rather than posit something called an “objective consciousness”, let me pop in the idea of a “subjective consciousness.” I think we can agree that even if we are evanescent and the idea of a consciousness separate from the body is an illusion, during the process that the brain works we exist, at least to our own selves.

So do we need “saving” if this is the case? Of course not, if there is no trace of the program after the computer has been shut off. But does the program need the input? If VS Ramachandran is right, and we do have a “God center”, then yeah, there is an aspect of our mind that “creates” God. For argument’s sake let’s just say that he’s right, and for some reason at least a few of us have evolved the need for spiritual transcendence.

In that case “God” exists as much as the construct “X := X+1” does in a computer program. Is it a objective construct? No. Is it a necessary construct for the program? Depends on the program, but in the Ramachandran mind case, it is. I don’t think it’s a bit of a stretch, then, to state that God exists on the same level as variables or even iteration.

Now what this construct DOES is a whole 'nother story. Even if saving isn’t necessarily an issue, certainly a subjective sense of salvation is for some folks, as is a subjective sense of unity, transcendence, satori or unconditional love that this construct has been created. What is so inferior about the purely subjective that we tend to relegate it to the background? We tend to dismiss it since it is difficult to communicate, but it is precisely this type of experience that creates art, for instance.

I think a question this therefore brings up is that of religion as a (pardon the word) meme. If there is this notion of “god” that is passed on from individual to individual like a variable is passed from object to object, is that notion somehow objective? If the human race were wiped out tomorrow, obviously, but if the computer runs indefinitely, and the variable keeps getting passed, what exactly then is the difference between the “illusion” of a variable and the “reality” of it?

So does a purely meatspace consciousness change religion? Of course, since ideas like “salvation” or “eternal life” would eventually be abandoned. Still, I do think the need for a subjective relationship to nature/universe would still exist, and for many that sense of unity could very easily be termed “God.”

19

Well, this thread is about reinterpreting religion, not spirituality. I figure you’re saying that spirituality can be salvaged but not religion.

20

It sure is hard to figure while we are so “self” oriented. The only analogies that make sense to me is the drop of water entering the ocean. Or perhaps the many cells of our own bodies.

Is the drop not the drop any more when it enters the ocean?
Is one cell of my body not itself when considering the whole body? Yet if that cell could believe that it was a seperate entity then it would be in the illusion.
The idea of “me, myself, who I am” is very powerful. The idea of losing the illusion can be very frightening. The idea of self fights for survival.

I believe that’s a big reason that Christianity has perverted the teachings of Jesus. It’s easier to concieve of the self continuing after physical death to be with our loved ones or walking on streets of gold for our reward.
I’m not sure a big bunch of virgins is any kind of eternal reward. How long will that last?