# 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:** 3
**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, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/41 "2002-05-27T07:06:31Z")
> [@](#): > > 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.” Right, Mea Culpa, how dumb can I get ??!! What I meant was, we can be certain that the self exists, but there is insufficient data to conclusively say if anything else exists or not. > [@](#): > > 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. To the contrary, the thinking entity is the only thing we can be sure about. On the other hand, I can’t be sure that this keyboard, monitor, my material body or desk exist - they are merely observed phenomena which may or may not exist. ---
**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, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/42 "2002-05-27T13:49:20Z")
**flowbark** , The point of the excecise is to get us each to illustrate how we define our terms. Mirror test? _Why_ would anyone use that as a test of “self”?? It tests visual processing including upper level visual cognitive functions, it tests other cognitive milestones, but self? A blind man therefore has no self. A 4 month old has no self? My take remains that self has levels of interrelated meaning. ---
**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, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/43 "2002-05-27T14:17:10Z")
Forgive me for being a busybody but… Dseid, flowbark’s answer of "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. " is a reply to “Where in evolution did self start?” (i hope flowbark agrees:P) It is not meant to prove existance of self. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2002, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/44 "2002-05-27T14:25:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Latter-day neurologists increasingly agree with Hume. That is just about the spookiest thing I’ve ever heard. I’d like a cite. ---
**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, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/45 "2002-05-27T16:12:18Z")
I would like to see more positive theories about what the self is. Descartes’ posits a very limited self that is simply the creator of a thought. This is not what most people take the self to be. From a scientific standpoint there is much more to explain than an isolated thought that posits it’s own existence. In fact, attributing the thought to a self simply creates a more complex question: how was the self created? If someone could go beyond saying that a self creates thought, and try to explain **how** a self can create thought and **why** it is necessary, then we will have the sort of debate that I was trying to start here. ---
**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, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/46 "2002-05-27T16:12:46Z")
> [@](#): > > _Said Nishroch Order_ > Dogs and dolphins fail the mirror test :Beeeep: Wrong! [Dolphins](http://quantrm2.psy.ohio-state.edu/injae/course/612/dolphins_nyt.htm) were recently shown to pass. ---
**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, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/47 "2002-05-27T16:21:25Z")
> [@](#): > > _Said Nishroch Order_ > Dogs and dolphins fail the mirror test :Beeeep: Wrong! [Dolphins](http://quantrm2.psy.ohio-state.edu/injae/course/612/dolphins_nyt.htm) were recently shown to pass. ---
**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, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/48 "2002-05-27T16:21:36Z")
I would like to see more positive theories about what the self is. Descartes’ posits a very limited self that is simply the creator of a thought. This is not what most people take the self to be. From a scientific standpoint there is much more to explain than an isolated thought that posits it’s own existence. In fact, attributing the thought to a self simply creates a more complex question: how was the self created? If someone could go beyond saying that a self creates thought, and try to explain **how** a self can create thought and **why** the self is necessary for thought, then we will have the sort of debate that I was trying to start here. I hope this only gets posted once ---
**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, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/49 "2002-05-27T18:03:25Z")
> [@](#): > > That is just about the spookiest thing I’ve ever heard. I’d like a cite. Absolutely! As far as I’m aware neurologists are concerned with the underlying mechanics of thought. Many are like mathematicians that don’t concern themselves with the phenomenological aspect of their discipline. All of them fall short of explaining “self” through their science. Buy I’m sure, to quote the OP, most don’t _deny the existence of self_. Who would this be that you’re talking about? For example, Prof. Gerald Edelmann doesn’t claim mind isn’t there, merely that TNG (Theory of Neural Groups) is the Darwinistic mechanism from which it arises. So, I join Libertarian: Cite, please! ---
**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, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/50 "2002-05-27T18:40:51Z")
I think nuerobiololgists can deny or not deny a self and it won’t affect their discipline. Just like physicists can believe or not believe in god. A skeptic though (and not all physicists are skeptics), would say that god is not necessary to form physical explanations of the universe. So why believe in it? The necessity and nature of the self is an ongoing debate in cognitive science. Ray Jackendoff, or at least in my understanding of his views, proposes that the self, as we concieve of it, is not necessary for consciousness. The self is a more fragmentary than it appears. Donald Perlis has a different view. The self and it’s nature is currently up for debate in the science of mind. That’s one of the reasons I thought it might be fun to bring it up here. ---
**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, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/51 "2002-05-27T20:29:21Z")
**Perspective** , you’re extending the question into the whole realm of philosophy. The issue become so wide that it’s difficult to attack. Descartes meditations may not tell us much about anything beyond THOUGHT. But it’s a very good starting point. It says “thought exists”. Edmund Husserl goes on to demonstrate that in a phenomenological sense, Descartes doubt is not a thought act of NOTHING, but the ABSENCE OF SOMETHING. He call this positing of non-being _parenthesizing_: > [@](#): > > …we so to speak “put it out of action,” we “exclude it,” we “parenthesize it”. It is still there, like the parenthesized in the parenthesis, like the excluded outside the context of exclusion. > > (_The Essential Husserl, Basic Writings in Transcendental Phenomenology. pp 64. Indiana University Press. 1999_) Your claim is that self is more than thought. Well, it is and it isn’t. Think, for example, of the concept _Earth_. It takes only one single thought act to apprehend our entire planet. In this moment of thought, the _Earth_ appears to us as an undifferentiated whole. Now try to go beyond that and decompose it into all its constituent parts in one single instance. Try to immediately _understand_ it. Perhaps your thought act will attempt to encompass something along the lines of “globe, oceans, continents, tectonic movements, biosphere, humanity, history, Marx, London, Portobello Market, mushrooms, poison, hemlock, Socrates…”. Eventually the set of constituent parts becomes too large to keep all particulars in mind simultaneously. We have what I call _collapse of unity_. You loose sight of _Earth_ as a whole. Essentially, you can’t see the forest for all the trees. To _know_ something requires the ability to: 1. Apprehend it in a single thought act as a unified undifferentiated whole. 2. Decompose it into its constituent parts over multiple thought instances. As soon as you meditate on _self_, it’s unity collapses, making it feel as if your analysis (decomposition) is insufficient. And it is. What you need to do is switch between various levels of _decomposition_: whole, part, whole, part, etc. Thought acts are what constitute mind. But mind is still phenomenologically greater than a bunch of random mental acts. Then you go on to ask where self arises from. Obviously we have everything ranging from the most obscene solipsism to foolish materialism that refutes it all together. I don’t know what you mean by _positive_ theory by the way. A cushy feely sort of theory that may not be true but satisfies our emotional need? OK: the self is a soul among many others that is eternal and ultimately loving. It needs not arise from anywhere because it was always there. 😛 I’m presuming you mean non-solipsistic theories where self arises from a larger context rather than vice versa. Even Descartes meditations point to the truth that there is an absolute beyond the self. It is an _inherent aversion_ to contradictions that causes us to conclude that we (the thought process) exist. Something beyond the self imposes a way of being on us, namely the act of not being in existential contradiction to ourselves. _Inherent aversion to contradictions_ therefore seems to represent an unquestionable external framework in which we (the mind) operate. Considering that we arise from such an absolute framework, and the vast number of phenomenological occurrences over which we have no apparent control, it can be presumed that some essential mental phenomena (namely those representing corporeal events) are the result not of our own actions but events within this absolute framework which isn’t to be equated with ourselves. From here on its all about explaining the nature of the external framework, otherwise known as the Universe. Now, interestingly enough, even if we do believe that self arises from a corporeal world, _knowing_ that corporeal world is a phenomenon exclusively privy to the domain of mind. We can only speak of epistemic systems in the context of an aware self. As Kant showed us, we will never know the Universe _in-and-of-itself_ outside of our consciousness. Nevertheless, we can describe how that external world acts upon the mind. To us, the two become virtually the same. I know I have so far failed to address _why_ self comes about. But at least I hope I have made it clear that asking this question only makes sense because it is there. So at least we can refute the statement in the OP “shouldn’t a skeptic deny the existence of the self”. We can also refute the statement “shouldn’t a skeptic deny the existence of the other”. It ain’t much, but at least it’s a start… ---
**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, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/52 "2002-05-27T20:41:11Z")
**perspective** : _I would like to see more positive theories about what the self is._ Me too. Personally, I’m not sure what we’re talking about. **Sparc** ’s link (thanks, btw) gives a justification for the mirror test: > [@](#): > > Scientists have long known that children begin to recognize themselves in the mirror at around 18 to 24 months. That mirror self-recognition, many researchers say, usually marks the beginning of self-awareness, introspection and the ability to perceive the mental states of others. > > In 1970, Dr. Gordon G. Gallup Jr… devised a “mark test” to determine whether other animals were capable of recognizing themselves in the mirror. If test subjects marked with a dye go to the mirror and examine the mark, they are believed to exhibit self-recognition. > > Confronted with a mirror, many animals either ignore it or respond to it, often aggressively, as if it were another animal, Dr. Reiss said…Until now only chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas have used mirrors to investigate their own bodies and passed the “mark test,” the researchers said. “Self-awareness/ self recognition” is arguably an aspect of a self. Another element might be an inclination (not necessarily dominant) to defend oneself. These sorts of properties are observable. They may or may not be necessary for consciousness. Another sort of self might be a master controller that makes decisions or a “dominant ego”. This may or may not exist (although if it does not we would need an alternative model of human decision making). Still another sort of self is a semi-permanent, unchanging entity that manages the life of an individual. This, IMHO, is a misconception. It is also fairly close to the way many (most? almost all?) of us perceive ourselves. Bottom line: Until I know how **perspective** defines “self”, I won’t know whether it exists or not. I acknowledge that this is a difficult question. For this and other reasons, the study of consciousness is wide open, IMHO. **perspective** : \*The self and it’s nature is currently up for debate in the science of mind. \* Do you know of any reasonably up to date surveys of the field? (Article length). ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2002, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/53 "2002-05-27T21:06:58Z")
> [@](#): > > I think nuerobiololgists can deny or not deny a self and it won’t affect their discipline. Just like physicists can believe or not believe in god. Oh, I agree with that, Perspective. I merely reeled at the notion that a _majority_ of neurologists have embraced Hume’s weirdness. I know for a fact that at least one, V. S. Ramachandran (author of _Phantoms in the Brain_) definitely doesn’t. He has conducted (and witnessed) experiments that seem to show a relation between the limbic system and spiritual awareness. It appears that stimulation of that system can cause spiritual awareness even in skeptics (or atheists). Ramachandran cautions the reader (see the chapter titled “God and the Limbic System”) not to draw the conclusion that man invented God with his brain, since it could be equally reasonably argued that God gave man his limbic system as a mechanism for apprehending Him. ---
**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, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/54 "2002-05-27T23:33:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ethnicallynot \* > Descartes meditations may not tell us much about anything beyond THOUGHT. But it’s a very good starting point. It says “thought exists”. Whew… glad to have that one out of the way. > [@](#): > > Edmund Husserl goes on to demonstrate that in a phenomenological sense, Descartes doubt is not a thought act of NOTHING, but the ABSENCE OF SOMETHING. He call this positing of non-being _parenthesizing_: I’m confused about what you mean by “Descartes doubt”. In the context of this thread most of the talk has been about what Descartes didn’t doubt. Please elaborate. > [@](#): > > Thought acts are what constitute mind. But mind is still phenomenologically greater than a bunch of random mental acts. I’m not saying that thought is random, but that it’s organization doesn’t come from what we percieve to be the self. A dandelion, for instance, is more than a random agglomeration of cells. It grows according to its genetic pattern and environmental variables. But it has no self. The self is a symbol like any other. When we consider everything that is the self(try to look at it as a whole), we might think that we are self-aware. But really, we’ve just created another concept like “dandelion”. When I look at a dandelion and concieve of it as a whole I suppose I’m “dandelion aware” but there’s nothing magical about that. The notion of the self and self awareness gives us an illusion of power. But thought is an unconscious human function much like breathing. We can hold our breathe for a while and think we have control, but eventually we would pass out and start breathing without making the choice to do so. We can choose to think about something, but eventually our thoughts turn to other things. And how they turn to other things is generally a result of decisions that we are unaware of. When we wake up from sleep, do we think “now I am conscious, what will my first thought of the day be?” (note that we just had our first thought of the day before we even chose to have one) Of course not, we’re never at a loss for what to think next. Yet many of us are not consciously aware of what we are going to think next and we don’t need to be. The self does not organize thought, it is a byproduct of it and is contained within thought. I realize this might seem to contradict my earlier talk of the self being more than thought, but remember, I was talking about the properties of the _concept_ of the self. When I say “byproduct” please don’t think that I’m saying that the notion of the self isn’t important to our thought patterns. Our minds revolve around this confusion between the symbol and its referent. But this can be studied in cognitive science much the same way religions can be studied without actually becoming a convert. > [@](#): > > I don’t know what you mean by _positive_ theory by the way. I just wanted someone posit something in particular, instead of just asserting the existence of something that was undefined. > [@](#): > > It is an _inherent aversion_ to contradictions that causes us to conclude that we (the thought process) exist. Something beyond the self imposes a way of being on us, namely the act of not being in existential contradiction to ourselves. Somehow you haven’t quite convinced me of this. Please keep trying though, its good stuff. This much more of the kind of argument I was anticipating. You’ve outlined a more complete and careful proof for the self.But I don’t think I understand why you think that the self is the originator of thought other than that is the only possibility you’ve considered besides randomness. ---
**Author:** ![perspective](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f475e1/32.png) [@perspective](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/perspective)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2002, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/55 "2002-05-28T00:00:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by flowbark \* > Still another sort of self is a semi-permanent, unchanging entity that manages the life of an individual. This, IMHO, is a misconception. It is also fairly close to the way many (most? almost all?) of us perceive ourselves… > Bottom line: Until I know how **perspective** defines “self”, I won’t know whether it exists or not. The idea you called a misconception is similar to what I’m trying to say should be doubted. My idea of the self is just that it’s a symbol, a convenient reference point for language, but a difficult thing to study if we confuse it for an actuality instead of a representation. > [@](#): > > **perspective** : \*The self and it’s nature is currently up for debate in the science of mind. \* Do you know of any reasonably up to date surveys of the field? (Article length). Not sure what up to date is. A lot of my ideas about issues in the science of mind comes from the book “The Embodied Mind” which is a few years old. I don’t know what’s changed since then. ---
**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 28, 2002, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/56 "2002-05-28T03:35:28Z")
**perspective** : Thanks for the cite. I had some fun googling around, although I lack the expertise to evaluate what I found. The cognitive scientist Daniel C. Dennett wrote two reviews of The Embodied Mind (1992) by Francisco Varela (1946-2001) and others: the reviews are [here](http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/edelman.htm) and [here.](http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/varela.htm) A piece by Varela, along with commentary by assorted head-scratchers (including Dennett) is [here.](http://www.edge.org/documents/ThirdCulture/t-Ch.12.html) Varela is an [Enactivist](http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/enactivism.html). Enactivism is described [here.](http://plato.acadiau.ca/courses/educ/reid/enactivism/) ---
**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 28, 2002, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/57 "2002-05-28T03:50:51Z")
How about [Science April 22, 2002](http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/296/5566/308)? The abstract - > [@](#): > > Self-Representation in Nervous Systems > Patricia S. Churchland\* > The brain’s earliest self-representational capacities arose as evolution found neural network solutions for coordinating and regulating inner-body signals, thereby improving behavioral strategies. Additional flexibility in organizing coherent behavioral options emerges from neural models that represent some of the brain’s inner states as states of its body, while representing other signals as perceptions of the external world. Brains manipulate inner models to predict the distinct consequences in the external world of distinct behavioral options. The self thus turns out to be identifiable not with a nonphysical soul, but rather with a set of representational capacities of the physical brain Some snippets - > [@](#): > > Descartes proposed that the self is not identical with one’s body, or indeed, with any physical thing. Instead, he famously concluded that the essential self–the self one means when one thinks, “I exist”–is a nonphysical, conscious thing. At this stage of scientific development, the Cartesian approach is unsatisfactory for three reasons: (i) psychological functions generally, including conscious thoughts such as “I exist,” are activities of the physical brain (1, 2); (ii) aspects of self-regulation (e.g., inhibiting sexual inclinations), and self-cognition (e.g., knowing where I stand in my clan’s dominance hierarchy), may be nonconscious (3); and (iii) as the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) realized, there is in any case no introspective experience of the “self” as a distinct thing apart from the body (4). Introspection, Hume concluded, reveals only a continuously changing flux of visual perceptions, sounds, smells, emotions, memories, thoughts, feelings of fatigue, and so forth. > > … > > This remarkably diverse range of uses of the self-concept motivates recasting problems about “the self” in terms of self-representational capacities of the brain. Doing so deflates the temptation to think of the self as a singular entity and encourages the idea that self-representing involves a plurality of functions, each having a range of shades, levels, and degrees. Further, it broadens the inquiry beyond humans to other species, suggesting that varying levels of coherencing operate in all nervous systems of any significant complexity. The reformulation also sets the stage for designing experiments to determine more precisely the types of self-representations nervous systems have, how they are connected to one another, and the nature of their neural substrates (6). > > … > > Self-representations may be widely distributed across brain structures, coordinated only on an “as-needed” basis, and arranged in a loose and loopy hierarchy. > > … > > The most fundamental of the self-representational capacities probably arose as evolution stumbled on solutions for coordinating inner-body signals to generate survival-appropriate inner regulation. > … > > An appealing hypothesis defended by Damasio (12) is that the self/nonself distinction, though originally designed to support coherencing, is ultimately responsible for consciousness. According to this view, a brain whose wiring enables it to distinguish between inner-world representations and outer-world representations and to build a meta-representational model of the relation between outer and inner entities is a brain enjoying some degree of consciousness. … On this hypothesis, the degrees or levels of conscious awareness are upgraded in tandem with the self-representational upgrades. Interesting point of view, neh? ---
**Author:** ![perspective](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f475e1/32.png) [@perspective](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/perspective)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2002, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/58 "2002-05-28T03:52:23Z")
I just want to express that my views here, while inspired by Varela, are not his views. The same with Jackendoff. I’ve definitely been inspired by them, so if I’ve said anything particularly smart it’s their fault, everything else is probably mine. 1946-2001? Varela is dead? ---
**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 28, 2002, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/59 "2002-05-28T04:07:46Z")
Varela echos some of the same themes: biological self manifests in minds as metaphysical self - > [@](#): > > I’m interested in the nervous system, cognitive science, and immunology, because they concern the processes that can answer the question of what biological identity is. How can you have some kind of identity that simultaneously allows you to know something, allows cells to configure their own relevant world, the immune system to generate the identity of our body in its own way, and the brain to be the basis for a mind, a cognitive identity? All these mechanisms share a common theme. And self in the cognitive system is a function of that looping constantly reupdating infinite regress … > [@](#): > > this funny, screwy logic where the snake bites its own tail and you can’t discern a beginning. Forget the idea of a black box with inputs and outputs. Think in terms of loops. … In several contemporary complex systems, the inputs and outputs are completely dependent on interactions within the system, and their richness comes from their internal connectedness. Give up the boxes, and work with the entire loopiness of the thing. I couldn’t agree more. Think of the mind as a chaotic (massively nonlinear) system subjected to external drivers, finding various attractor basins or resonant states, and you start to get there. ---
**Author:** ![perspective](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f475e1/32.png) [@perspective](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/perspective)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2002, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810/60 "2002-05-28T06:47:52Z")
Nice post **DSeid**. It’s too bad that '“Science” wants me to pay to see the mag online though. Let me see if I can digest what you’ve provided. Churchland states that the self is “identifiable…with a set of representational capacities of the physical brain”. Later I’m guessing that she is supporting this idea through the “hypothesis defended by Damasio” which states " the self/nonself distinction… is ultimately responsible for consciousness." Notice that the _distinction_ between self/nonself is being credited, not the self. The brain makes “a meta-representational model of the relation between outer and inner entities”. So a model is made by the brain, a part of that model is the self. But unless we are cognitive scientists in a particular state of mind, we don’t see the model as a model, we see the model as the self and identify with it. That is the mistake that we are hardwired by evolution to make. If we posit the model of self as the source of thought we continue to make that same mistake. We do not identify with “a set of representational capacities of the physical brain” this is an explanation of the self experience not the experience of self. “How do you feel today Bob?” “Same as everyday Tom, I’m a set of representational capacities of my brain” The experience of self, the self we identify with, is not the source of thought. Cognitive science can fruitfully explore how a brain creates representations of the self/nonself precisely because it recognizes that they are representations resulting from a physical source. If science had to explain the experience of the self before it explained representation it would be left with a hall of mirrors. The fundamental distinction between self/nonself is unconscious and precedes the conscious experience of the self. BTW I noticed the post on Varela when I previewed. I can respond later after some rest. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-self-an-urban-legend/110810.md?page=4)