# The self: an Urban Legend? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 25, 2002, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810 "2002-05-25T17:27:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Drastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Drastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drastic)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2002, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/21 "2002-05-26T17:59:37Z")
I would take the tack that “self” is a function of a mode of consciousness; consciousness can function in modes where “self” is simply not perceived. Generally, modes that produce the self-function have tended to be pretty useful for critters of the human persuasion, so that’s where we spend most of our time. So, consciousness first, self second (if at all), not the other way round. The pinpoint I’m looking at doesn’t have any angels dancing on it, they’re just sort of sitting and chanting. Other pinpoints will produce different output. ---
**Author:** ![ethic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/977dab/32.png) [@ethic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ethic)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2002, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/22 "2002-05-26T20:42:47Z")
Until now I thought my brother ( **Sparc** that is) was the only one crocked in the head regarding this issue. For the past 15 years he’s been contending that he’s not so sure about his own existence. Alas, as I now see, he’s not alone in suspecting how superfluous his _self_ might be. Why escapes me entirely. Fortunately, **Sparc** has more and more come to realize how tenuous his doubt about his own existence is. He hasn’t admitted it yet. But I know my brother. And when he is uncertain about something (and he rarely is) he gets this uneasy look on his face that he tries to pretend away 😉 . Obviously those in the thread that ponder the remote possibility that our inability to quantify the self gives it a dubious quality haven’t truly meditated on the meaning of the Cartesian argument _cogito ergo sum_ (I think therefore I am). So let me explain it so that you can forever banish your odd materialistic concepts of a unaware Awareness. Descartes refused to accept anything anyone had told him, even the greatest philosophers of all times like Aristotle. This was the essence of his meditations: to doubt not just _some_ things but just about anything that came into mind. In the end of his meditations, the only thing left was the very process of doubting itself. With other words, Descartes did not only not trust anyone else. He had come to not even trust himself! But, if you follow in his meditations, the inherent contradiction of such an act must become crystal clear. Descartes hyperbolic doubt leads to such an inherent contradiction in the end that we must simply accept the fact that our ability to doubt is the one and only thing we can not doubt! Or, to put it in Descartes own words: cogito ergo sum. The _self_ is a synthetic a priori resulting from our inability to simultaneously posit the _existence_ and _non-existence_ of a thing. You don’t _just_ take it for granted. You _must_ take it for granted! It’s a truth _prima facie_ (at first glance). The _self_ is the only thing an ultimate skeptic like Descartes can’t deny. Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), the father of transcendental phenomenology, writes: > [@](#): > > The attempt to doubt universally belongs to the realm of our _perfect freedom_: we can _attempt to doubt_ anything whatever, no matter how firmly convinced of it, even assured of it in an adequate evidence, we may be. > > _Let us reflect on what lies in the essence of such an act_. someone who attempts to doubt some “being” or other, or predicatively explicated, a “that exists,” a “that is how it is,” or the like. The sort of being does not matter. For example, someone who doubts whether an object, the being of which he does not doubt, is qualified thus and so, doubts precisely the _being-qualifies-thus-and-so_. Obviously this is carried over from doubting to _attempting_ to doubt. Furthermore, it is clear that we cannot doubt a being and, in the same consciousness (with the form of unity belonging to the simultaneous) posit the substrate of this being, thus being conscious of the substrate as having the characteristic, “on hand”. Equivalently expressed: The same material of being cannot be simultaneously doubted and held to be certain. > > (The Essential Husserl, Basic Writings in Transcendental Phenomenology. pp 63-64. Indiana University Press. 1999) The idea that the self would somehow be a superfluous entity in an algorithmic Turing-like Universe is the unfortunate residue of a misplaced 19th century materialism. It’s not something you go around quantifying… ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2002, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/23 "2002-05-26T21:15:51Z")
**ethicallynot** , a “_prima facie_ truth” is like a research paper that says “It is known that …” without a cite or evidence to back it up. It is an assumption, and if your “self” accepts it without any doubt, then it is a statement of faith. **drastic** I was unclear. Biologic “self” includes such things as basic immunologic mechanisms and other tools that allowed the first multicellular organisms to stick together and keep “nonself” out. Clearly this egg came before the chicken. As neurologic complexity advanced some primitive concept of self vs nonself clearly must have existed in whatever primative form of sentience there was. Eventually enough self-referential loops evolved to allow for symbolic thought and for the ability of a mind to listen and watch itself thinking, consciousness, and with that, self became the “mode of consciousness” that you think of as its meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Sparc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Sparc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparc)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2002, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/24 "2002-05-26T21:32:22Z")
> [@](#): > > _Said my own blood_ > Until now I thought my brother (Sparc that is) was the only one crocked in the head regarding this issue. Et tu Brutus! > [@](#): > > _Said my own blood further_ > Fortunately, Sparc has more and more come to realize how tenuous his doubt about his own existence is. He hasn’t admitted it yet. But I know my brother. And when he is uncertain about something (and he rarely is) he gets this uneasy look on his face that he tries to pretend away Dream on! I’m just gathering my forces for a renewed onslaught on the constructs of gullibility. I was considering saying something about it here, if I don’t; you just wait till this years x-mass dinner. 😉 BTW, your phenomenological arguments still don’t absolve you from an infinite regression of ‘what if the thought that makes for the thought that I exist is not my own, but an illusion or someone/something else’s thought?’, but you know that already. 😛 Sparc ---
**Author:** ![perspective](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f475e1/32.png) [@perspective](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/perspective)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2002, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/25 "2002-05-26T21:45:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ethnicallynot \* > …Obviously those in the thread that ponder the remote possibility that our inability to quantify the self gives it a dubious quality haven’t truly meditated on the meaning of the Cartesian argument _cogito ergo sum_ (I think therefore I am). … > Descartes hyperbolic doubt leads to such an inherent contradiction in the end that we must simply accept the fact that our ability to doubt is the one and only thing we can not doubt! Or, to put it in Descartes own words: cogito ergo sum. … > > The _self_ is a synthetic a priori resulting from our inability to simultaneously posit the _existence_ and _non-existence_ of a thing. You don’t _just_ take it for granted. You _must_ take it for granted! It’s a truth _prima facie_ (at first glance). The _self_ is the only thing an ultimate skeptic like Descartes can’t deny. … > > The idea that the self would somehow be a superfluous entity in an algorithmic Turing-like Universe is the unfortunate residue of a misplaced 19th century materialism. It’s not something you go around quantifying… \*\* I am not doubting doubt itself. I am doubting whether the conception of a thinker is necessary for thought. The fact that “I” am doubting or concieving of non-existence of the self does not lead to a contradiction. I still think the comparison to a creator god is appropriate. For aeons people had trouble concieving of a universe without a creator. Because (they might have rationalized), if the universe wasn’t created than how could it exist? Understanding thought is hard enough, without supposing something that exists within thought yet somehow creates itself through thought. If the self created thought, than it seems to me that the self could choose not to think. But this is not the case, we think as soon as we are conscious and will continue to until we are unconscious. Thought is necessary to concieve of the self but not vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![ethic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/977dab/32.png) [@ethic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ethic)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2002, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/26 "2002-05-26T22:14:26Z")
> [@](#): > > **DSeid** > ethicallynot, a “prima facie truth” is like a research paper that says “It is known that …” without a cite or evidence to back it up. It is an assumption, and if your “self” accepts it without any doubt, then it is a statement of faith. 😕 Meditations of the kind suggested by Descartes is the evidence! The argument for the existence of the self is stated clearly and loudly in my post. What you’re essentially saying is “how can you prove anything that is a priori knowledge”. What is known a priori is know because of its self-evidence. How do you want me to prove the following axioms? p IFF p p -\> q -\> s -\> p =\> q -\> p Who else than Husserl do you want me to cite here??? The self (cognition) is the most basic corner stone of any epistemic system. Without it you can know nothing, not even that you can “know that you know nothing”. The self needs not be proven by reference to anything external. It is _in-and-of-itself_ its own proof. Essentially, it’s the ultimate tautological truth. It’s not a matter of faith. Faith presumes your ability to doubt something. If you can’t doubt it, it’s not faith… ---
**Author:** ![ethic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/977dab/32.png) [@ethic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ethic)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2002, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/27 "2002-05-26T22:31:01Z")
> [@](#): > > **perspective** > I am not doubting doubt itself. I am doubting whether the conception of a thinker is necessary for thought. The fact that “I” am doubting or conceiving of non-existence of the self does not lead to a contradiction. But, **perspective** that is “thought”. Mind is a process that applies itself to something. When you say “I’m not doubting doubt” you are indeed saying “I’m not doubting thought”. Your thinker is nothing else than the process of thinking itself. The “I” is not positing the non-existence of something else. The “I” is positing the non-existence of itself! Or, thought tries to _unthink_ thought. As **Sparc** accurately points out, it enters into an infinitely regressing situation called a contradiction. Nonetheless, it miraculously transgresses this self-referential absurdity and comes out victorious, concluding it’s own existence. It’s the ultimate bootstrapping… ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2002, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/28 "2002-05-26T22:50:03Z")
Actually, the OP’s question is not new. Centuries ago, David Hume asserted that “the self” was a fiction, that what we think of as human consciousness is little more than a collection of random impulses and sensations, vaguely held together by a reasoning center. Latter-day neurologists increasingly agree with Hume. ---
**Author:** ![Sparc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Sparc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparc)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2002, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/29 "2002-05-26T23:59:11Z")
**astorian** I think you’re mixing up ego and self. The seat and mechanics of what we perceive as I is slightly different as the existence of the same. “Do ‘I’ exist?” doesn’t beg for an explanation of what ‘I’ is. Actually to start wondering what it is demands the acceptance that ‘I’ exists. Now :sigh: **ethnicallynot** must you? I guess you do. The ‘doubt argument’ again. Fine so we’re stuck with infinite regressions of doubt. This does _not_ bootstrap into existence of I. It just means that the doubt equation has an unsatisfactory resolution in a paradox. As I have pointed out before; thinking that you do not exist is ludicrous on a practical level. However, out of a philosophical perspective it is as of yet not proven and comes down to faith. You’re as always just doing away with the problem by claiming its irrefutable evidence is that it is. Famous logic of theists and other believers; “it’s self evident that X is, hence Y.” Really??? I am skeptic enough to doubt my doubt is mine, thank you very much. Sparc ---
**Author:** ![ethic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/977dab/32.png) [@ethic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ethic)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2002, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/30 "2002-05-27T00:46:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Actually, the OP’s question is not new. Centuries ago, David Hume asserted that “the self” was a fiction, that what we think of as human consciousness is little more than a collection of random impulses and sensations, vaguely held together by a reasoning center. > > Latter-day neurologists increasingly agree with Hume. Yeah, and Humes was a corpuscularian buffoon 😉 > [@](#): > > astorian I think you’re mixing up ego and self. The seat and mechanics of what we perceive as I is slightly different as the existence of the same. “Do ‘I’ exist?” doesn’t beg for an explanation of what ‘I’ is. Actually to start wondering what it is demands the acceptance that ‘I’ exists. I wouldn’t call it ego and self but I agree that the mechanics from which it result and the self itself should not be mixed up here. What I’m contending isn’t some solipsistic rhubarb mush gone awry and totally removed from the corporeal world. All I’m saying is that the _self_ is at the basis of any form of knowledge. This thread is not about whether something exists _outside_ consciousness metaphysically speaking, which becomes more tenuous and more a matter of faith. This is about whether we can be certain about our own existence. And we can, despite **Sparc** ’s peculiar assertion to the contrary. Funnily enough, **Sparc** admits that he has to postulate the existence of self to determine whether it exists. Clearly, as I said before, he agrees with me without admitting it :D. He tries to bypass by saying: > [@](#): > > Famous logic of theists and other believers; “it’s self evident that X is, hence Y.” Really??? But that’s incorrectly formulated. It should be: it’s self evident that X is, hence X. Which is a tautology. As I said, we are dealing the most ultimately self-evident tautology here! 😉 PS. Believing I exists make me a theist 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2002, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/31 "2002-05-27T00:55:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by astorian \* > Actually, the OP’s question is not new. Centuries ago, David Hume asserted that “the self” was a fiction, that what we think of as human consciousness is little more than a collection of random impulses and sensations, vaguely held together by a reasoning center. There was also a certain wise-man from India, c.500 BC. ---
**Author:** ![Sparc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Sparc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparc)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2002, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/32 "2002-05-27T02:05:58Z")
> [@](#): > > _ethnicallynot_ > it’s self evident that X is, hence X Eh? Nah! Thought is self-evident therefore thought is??? So what? You’re equating thought with ‘I’. So you have to start with: Thought is equal to ‘I’ ergo Cogito ergo sum. But how do you come to the first conclusion? How do you know that ‘your’ thoughts are ‘yours’ they could be the nasty nightmares of a green ogre, or the messiah, or God forbid me. Theist? Yeah! Hey, you and others refuted this recently: ‘this sentence is true, therefoe god exists’ I know that God was an arbitrary example, but isn’t the logical structure to what I proposed you are saying very similar? Sparc ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2002, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/33 "2002-05-27T04:14:58Z")
Permit me to address the OP from a theological perspective (Buddhist). I apologize in advance for my lack of expertise. I don’t think you want to ground the doctrine of anatman (no-self) on Descartes. Descartes’ argument was an epistemological one: it concerned the foundations of knowledge more than an actual inspection of the nature of identity. Furthermore if one actually accepts the sort of radical skepticism implied in Descartes’ thought experiment, then one is led to doubt the outside world with greater certainty than one doubts the existence of a “thought-bundle”. To paraphrase B. Russell’s summarization, we are more certain about subjectivities than objectivities. And if one is skeptical about the existance of the outside empirical world, then discussion of evolution, etc. is pointless. The Buddha, in fact, spent a fair amount of time detailing a taxonomy of a hypothetical human. So, the doctrine of “anatman (no self)” does not mean that human thoughts/feelings/decisions/behaviors/whatever have no underlying structure. Rather, it is that the self, as commonly understood as unified, permanent, unchanging entity, is an illusion. An illusion, **DSeid** might add, borne of natural selection. The latter might form a sturdier basis for the anatman doctrine. I might add that the condition of attachment probably has strong selective advantages, though it may also advance human suffering. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2002, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/34 "2002-05-27T04:19:22Z")
**ethi** , you can’t prove an axiom. It is accepted as if true without proof and is the base of any particular epistemology. But such axioms are not accepted without any reserved doubt. And no particular epistemolgy is a perfect model of reality. The most famous example, oft quoted on these here boards, is Euclid’s parallel lines do not cross postulate … and I think that you know the rest. BTW, **perspective** ’s analogy to the universe being proof of a creator is apt. Out of curiosity, do any of the following have “selves”, and if so how are each of their “selves” different? a grain of sand a bacteria a sponge a fish a mouse a dog a chimp a whale a human Is this the same as asking if they have consciousness? As if they have souls? As if they have thoughts? Where in evolution did self start? Where in development does self appear? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2002, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/35 "2002-05-27T04:32:45Z")
_Where in evolution did self start? Where in development does self appear?_ You have to define your terms. Attachment to life starts rather early in the chain. If one believes in the mirror-test (does a creature understand that its image in a mirror corresponds to itself), then this aspect of a “self” appears rather late in the game. Dogs and dolphins fail the mirror test, for example. So I would say that different aspects of this so-called self arise at different levels of development/ evolution. I should note that Scylla has advanced a number of reasonable objections to the mirror test. ---
**Author:** ![perspective](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f475e1/32.png) [@perspective](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/perspective)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2002, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/36 "2002-05-27T04:40:41Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by ethnicallynot \* **Your thinker is nothing else than the process of thinking itself. The “I” is not positing the non-existence of something else. The “I” is positing the non-existence of itself!** [/QUOTE This may be the misunderstanding. I don’t doubt that there is an “I”. I simply want to recognize that the “I” is a construct of thought and not the other way around. So the “I”, while it is something, it is not all of thought, it is only one of many thoughts that pass through a human’s head. I’m not trying, as I think Sparc has, to suggest that the perception of reality could be decieving.This is obvious and irrelevant to me. I’m not trying to prove that we don’t know that there is nothing at all and everything might be an illusion. I’m just saying that explaining consciousness is easier than explaining how a self arises which experiences consciousness. I also think that the definition you put forward(self=thought) is incomplete and is only a small part of what many people call the “self”. Thought, at least from the viewpoint of cognitive science, requires a material body this is also identified with the self. What are emotions? Are they merely thoughts? How about our senses? Aren’t they different from thought? I do think that people take all of these associations (senses,thoughts,emotions, a body) and group them into a single unit called the “self”. However, this unit is still just a construct of thought. It is not what it represents. ---
**Author:** ![perspective](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f475e1/32.png) [@perspective](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/perspective)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2002, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/37 "2002-05-27T05:27:49Z")
flowbark, Thanks for bringing up the Buddhist angle. Anatman is very similar to the point I’m trying to get across. Although, I’m trying to make it from a pragmatic viewpoint that might be more akin a scientific brand of skepticism not an extreme Descartes type. In another thread I might find extreme skepticism useful, but I don’t think that it can effectively address the issues brought up here. ---
**Author:** ![barefoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@barefoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barefoot)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2002, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/38 "2002-05-27T05:39:43Z")
Je pense, donc je suis (I am thinking, therefore I must exist) - Rene Descartes I cannot trust anything, except the fact that I think. I know this because I think “I think”. Therefore, I must exist - I am real. I can’t be sure about anything else. The self, therefore is the only thing that exists. I’m not so sure that the universe is real, it’s merely phenomena observed by the self through what appear to be sensory organs. ---
**Author:** ![Nishroch\_Order](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Nishroch\_Order](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nishroch_Order)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2002, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/39 "2002-05-27T06:43:05Z")
I am thinking, therefore I must exist - Rene Descartes We must be careful not to associate the “I” used here with the material person. For the only thing sure here is not the existance of a “I” but the existance of thought. This “I” may very well be just a fragment of immagination. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2002, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/40 "2002-05-27T06:50:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by barefoot \* > \*\*Je pense, donc je suis (I am thinking, therefore I must exist) - Rene Descartes > > I cannot trust anything, except the fact that I think. I know this because I think “I think”. Therefore, I must exist - I am real. I can’t be sure about anything else. > > The self, therefore is the only thing that exists. \*\* Pardon me, but that’s not a warranted conclusion. Descartes’ statement doesn’t show that the self is all that exists. It merely shows that the self can be known to exist through this means. There may (or may not) be other things which one can ascertain, through other means, but Descartes’ statement does not cover that. Moreover, even if we conclude that the self is the only thing we can be certain about, that is not the same as saying “The self, therefore, is the only thing that exists.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810.md?page=3)