To start a discussion on self I am quoting from Dr V S Ramachandran, from his BBC Lectures. He says the sense of slf has 4 elements -
Emodiment or ownership - we experience our self as embodied in our body.
Continuity We experience ourselves as having continuity is time - past present and future.
Unity - Though undegoing diverse sensory and other experiences and doing many things, we experience a sense of unity. The 'me' doing all this is experienced as the same.
Agency - We experience ourselves as masters of our own actions, experiences and our destiny.
Please read on ......
V S Ramachandran.....
"But what about the self? The last remaining great mystery in science,it's something that everybody's interested in - and especially ifyou're from India, like me. Now obviously self and qualia are twosides of the same coin. You can't have free-floating sensations or qualia with no-one to experience it and you can't have a self completely devoid of sensory experiences, memories or emotions.
What exactly do people mean when they speak of the self? Its defining characteristics are fourfold. First of all, continuity. You've a sense of time, a sense of past, a sense of future. There seems to be a thread running through your personality, through your mind. Second,closely related is the idea of unity or coherence of self. In spite ofthe diversity of sensory experiences, memories, beliefs and thoughts,you experience yourself as one person, as a unity.
So there's continuity, there's unity. And then there's the sense of embodiment or ownership - yourself as anchored to your body. And fourth is a sense of agency, what we call free will, your sense of being in charge of your own destiny. I moved my finger. Now as we've seen in my lectures so far, these different aspects of self can be differentially disturbed in brain disease, which leads me to believe that the self really isn't one thing, but many. Just like love or happiness, we have one word but it's actually lumping together many different phenomena. For example, if I stimulate your right parietal cortex with an electrode (you're conscious and awake) you will momentarily feel that you are floating near the ceiling watchingyour own body down below. You have an out-of-the-body experience. The embodiment of self is abandoned. One of the axiomatic foundations ofyour Self is temporarily abandoned. And this is true of each of those aspects of self I was talking about. They can be selectively affected in brain disease".
ഇന്ത്യ
2 weeks ago
3 comments:
There are many tricks we can play with smart toys, and the brain is such a kind of smart toy, and there are some people who like to play with it ! I think embodiment as defined by you is the self, a universal physical constant as evidenced by the nature of all living beings to srive for the sustenance of that embodiment, all else having only a secondary priority. 'self' as defined by thoughts, feelings, and other attributes that are in the sphere of imagination are unique to any individual. So i think the very plasticity of the concept does not lend itself to rigorous debate. I think that enmeshing ourselves in a needless welter of imaginary phenomena and calling it the ' self ' can be thought of as self-entrapment. I know people dont think that way, but it might be better for their mental health if they thought that way. Those are my views. Thank you.
I think we need all the 4 aspects to have a complete self. Unity helps to hold our mental world in one piece. Continuity helps to remember past, understand present and plan for future. Though thoughts, moods etc are transient and evanecent, they are the spice of our mental life, and therefore most closely held by us. Thank You Sashi
hi harish, i agree that all the 4 parts of the self make life richer and meaningful. But the above adjectives are of a subjective nature, and the alacrity with which people abandon the benefits of the other parts of the self when the embodiment is threatened leads me to belief that the embodiment of the self has a pre-eminent position as an irreducible entity, however prosaic that thought may be. A perron if suddenly made a prisoner or kidnapped or in solitary confinement shows a priority to preserve the embodiment at all costs, which shows it's proximate to the other parts of the self when a cioice has to be made. Why so ? I was trying to make that point using the limited logic available at my command. This is not to belittle the erudition of renowned scholars, but an attenpt to draw out the originality of thinking of our readers opinion because thats what makes blogs interesting and stimulating. Its unfair to overburden harish with the work and i request the silent readers to weigh in with their valuable opinions, however trivial it might seem to them. Lets make this a lively blog. Thank you.
Post a Comment