The Elusive Inescapable Self- Mind Theory

Raymond Tallis introduces the self by reference to the various continuations - ego, subject or person. To add further confusion there is the question of identity, first person being and so on. But the use of the word self seems necessary if we are to engage in any meaningful philosophical discussions on the nature of human beings, notwithstanding that difficulty in defining it. What it is to be a self however will require some elaboration, beginning with defining what it isn't.

The argument goes, if you can't define it, it must be fictional. But the counter argument is wherever you go, you take yourself with you, in a kind of true sense of how we see ourselves- a matter of common sense.     

In everyday existence, Scottish philosopher David Hume dispensed with the idea by proposing human beings are a continuing entity of unfolding perceptions made up of memories.   But how would one even know that if that's all there is to human beings? How would you determine what one perception is as distinct from another? 

The classical mistake of attempting to define ourselves as subjects (as if we can step out of time) was undertaken by the enlightenment philosophers but is deeply flawed. It doesn't acknowledge the fact we are an integral part of being in the world and can't step out of that existence. Rather, we can operate in a higher order thinking that presupposes the underlying self that underpins our progress and sense of being in the world. 

Relying on the brain sciences doesn’t provide any satisfaction either. As I recall churning through the pages of the “The Executive Brain” by Elkhonan Goldberg, no mention was ever made of the word self, notwithstanding it remains an excellent book on the workings of the human brain. 

 

Tallis is scathing of some in the brain sciences that conclude we have a lack of mental depth and that all there are pictures constructed in our minds, representing an illusion- an elaborate hoax. Rather, what we see is possibly the best representation of the world. The fact we are aware of illusions and see the rich world for what it is goes against the idea of an illusion. There is a different world at the behest of the microscope, just as there is from the pictures beamed back to planet earth from Hubble, but the fact we are aware of such riches gives rise to the inescapable remarkable sense of self.

 

Indeed it would be very odd if the mind really was the brain and the self just a brain module. Page 155 the elusive inescapable self- Raymond Tallis -Seeing Ourselves.  

 

Other theories also fall short such as the Panpsychists proposing the mind was universally present at inception since they are unable to explain how it formed from a purely material brain. To reiterate, there are the previous arguments in relation to time. My body is unaware of that time, yet our sense of self allows us to exist in relation to being in time.  

 

Linas does devote some discussions on the self. So what is the self he asks on page 128 from the “I of the Vortex”: to regard the self as a very important and useful construct- but his view is it exists only as a calculated entity. In other words a convenient symbol that implies existence, but it is a category without elements.

 

This leads me on to the next topic - the mystery of human agency.