Sum Over Histories: The Self And Illusion (I Have the Body Of John Wilkes Booth)

People much, much smarter than I have been discussing, since at least the early 20^th century, and probably before then, the concept of the self. Neuroscience, which has pinpointed most functions to a certain part of the brain, is struggling to find exactly where consciousness “occurs”, where our sense of self is created. This has led many (well at least some) psychologists, neuroscientists and philosophers to suggest that the self is an illusion.

But as Julian Baggini points out, in his short but engaging Ted Talk , we might have just as much trouble defining what makes a watch a watch. Of course you can take a watch apart, disseminate it, say this does that, and this does that, but the individual components do not make a watch unless placed together correctly. Likewise, many the things that we understand craft our concept of self, things like memory, belief and knowledge, we have a decent understanding of. The minute and second hands are lying on the table before us, we know how they work, but we are seemingly unable to put it all back together to create the fully functioning watch. Next to these disseminated bits, we have the fully functioning thing, wondering what the mystical component that makes it all work is.

In the mechanical view and analogy of the brain just presented, it suggests that consciousness is akin to a missing cog, a mechanical puzzle piece we are still looking for.  However, what we are looking for may just be a connection, a central process of combining things like memory, belief, knowledge and language together. It is at least worth considering that the “self” is a sum greater than its parts. The question remaining of course, is how all these come together, cause if we are to maintain a mechanical view of the brain, this information must be linked.

As you can see, I rather neatly talked myself in a circle there, highlighting the problem neuroscientists are currently encountering in their “search for consciousness”. If we maintain a mechanical view of the brain, there is, at the very least a pathway missing, there is something to physically look for.

Going backing to Julian Baggini, we have an interesting problem at hand. With the current pool of knowledge, it would appear that the self is an “illusion”, but our self is something whose existence we are keenly aware of. In a strict and technical sense it may be an “illusion”, but there is always a gap between theory and practicality. If there is one thing we can determine, it is that our existence is absolute, even in a matrix like scenario. We don’t even have to be aware of our existence to exist. As stupid of statement as it sounds, dogs and cats exist, and yet in all likelyhood their concept of self is limited.

Our self exists, it is real, even if it is not yet “tangible”. We can change as our memory changes, our beliefs change, our knowledge changes. These things cause a change of self, but this volatility of self, lets called it, is surely only evidence against it being an illusion. The logical extrapolation of our self being illusion is that we don’t really exist, and that’s just absurd.      

Notes:

1) This a work in progress so to speak, as the act of writing this has made me realize what a mindfuck of an issue this is, so while I will only ever edit this post for the sake of factual correctness (or attach note noting a change of opinion/viewpoint), expect more post on the same topic in the future. 

2) I know what "Sum Over Histories" refers to. It was a clever interdisciplinary title, nothing more.
3) I Have The Body Of John Wilkes Booth