There is a Zen poem that says: "You cannot catch hold of it, nor can you get rid of it. In not being able to get it, you get it. When you speak, it is silent. When you are silent, it speaks." And the last two lines are the most important - ideas and concepts only complicate things. That's why philosophy is so bad at defining these phenomena - we can talk about it, but it doesn't make much sense. — Jake Mura

I think it makes a lot of sense, when I read "it" as "intuition". (or deep learning)

I feel that self is a special perception (apperception of Kant's term), that looks inwards into the mind, whereas all the standard perceptions look outwards into the external world. — Corvus

Light enters the eye from outside, is processed in the brain, and "I" perceive the colour red.

When "I" perceive the colour red, where is what I am perceiving exist.

I am indirectly perceiving light that exists outside in the world

But am I directly perceiving light that exists outside in the world, or am I directly perceiving a process happening inside my brain?

But am I directly perceiving light that exists outside in the world, or am I directly perceiving a process happening inside my brain? — RussellA

I don't think it is  a good idea to bring the brain into Epistemology.  Brain is, of course, the essential organ for perception, thoughts, and all the mental events to exist and function in the mind.  But it is in the realm of Biology and Neurology. 

In Neurology and Biology books, they enthusiastically and excitingly talk about how the senses bring in the external data into the retina, and how they get  converted into electrical signals, and get fed into brain cells with all the colourful photos and diagrams and graphs in the illustrations.  But that's where the story stops. 

They all go mute, or say the hard problem explaining where the brain state and the perception binds must go back to 200 - 300 years of time of Kant or Hume.  So it is not very fruitful to bring the brain into the epistemological discussion yet until the sciences made some real progress on explaining the hard problems.

If you think your perceived images of the light exist only in your mind, and that is the real existence of the light, then you are an idealist.

If you say that your perceived image of the light is the actual existence in the external world, then you are a realist. 

What are you?

This concern is different from your “The self I am trying to explore is that which is the object of thought when you think of yourself”, insofar as me thinking of myself is incomprehensible. Nothing contradictory in examining the self in general as an object of thought, but to think myself as an object of my own thought, invites the anathema of Cartesian theater. — Mww

I think I see why the confusion, and please understand the topic is not easy to articulate, and I might as well contradict myself or fail at conveying my thoughts, but know I am willing to keep trying.

Now, I think you have an idea of yourself, an idea that I think allows one to differentiate from other "selves" and other things that exist, allows one to compare oneself to that which one is not, and in such way assert one's position as a particular entity.

I wanna try a thought experiment in order to define the kind of idea I am referring to. So, imagine you are looking at yourself in the mirror, looking right into your eyes. The process of imagining this scenario generates a mental representation unique to the scenario; that is, the same mental representation will not be formed if you imagine something else, so that every time you imagine yourself looking in the mirror only the corresponding mental representation will be formed*.

In this mental representation**, there are at least three components, your reflection (or the reflection of your eyes), the mirror, and what's looking at the reflection***. When you think of each of the previous three components individually (or when you steer your attention to each, individually), I assume you form a mental representation, as accurate as possible, of your reflection, the mirror, or what's looking at the reflection. I am concern with the mental representation of what does the looking, or what calls itself "Mww."

Another attempt. We are capable to ask ourselves about our individual selves, like we are doing in this thread, somehow. We are asking about something. To be able to wonder about that something we must recognize its existence; that is, and please let me know if you disagree with the following statement, we must be able to categorize it as a distinct thing, which I do not think we would be able to do without forming a mental representation of it. So, there must exist a mental representation of something in order to be able to ask about that something. Who am I? What is it to which I refer as I? Again, I think that to reference that which I call I (either in a question or a thought experiment), I must be able to represent it (in some mysterious, elusive, but particular**** way) mentally. Now, we are not concern about the nature of such representation, but in determining what other ideas, representations, concepts, are required for its conception, if any.

Now, I am not concern with the thing that does the looking but with its mental representation when one refers to the thing that does the looking (or the thing that calls itself I).

* If I ask you to imagine an air balloon you are not gonna imagine a cavern (even if you can imagine thousands of different caverns), for example.
** By mental representation I mean a (mental/brain/whatever) state particular to the thing it represents; so that the state that represents idea A is different to the one that represents idea B, and no two ideas have the same state.
*** I am asking you to imagine yourself looking at your reflection in the mirror, not yourself looking at someone looking at their reflection (even if that someone is a "copy" of you).
**** When I refer to that which I call I, I do not think of the direction of the grain in a plank; instead, I am able to refer to and only to that which I call I.

So it is not very fruitful to bring the brain into the epistemological discussion yet until the sciences made some real progress on explaining the hard problems. — Corvus

As you wrote: The mind has two sides, i.e. the inside (self) and outside (perceptions for the external world).

The relationship between the mind and body, and how the mind can emerge from a physical brain, is part of the epistemological debate. To say that the physical brain cannot be brought into the epistemological debate is to take the side of Idealism, thereby excluding the possibility of Realism.

The Direct Realist would say that our perceptions of the external world are directly of the external world, rather than inferred on the basis of perceptual evidence.

The Indirect Realist would say that our perceptions of the external world are not directly of an external world, but are directly of an internal representation in our mind of an external world. Such a representation may or may not directly correspond with the external world that is causing such representations

The Berkelian Idealist would say that the external world exists in the mind of God.

The Solipsist Idealist would say that the external world only exists in the mind of the perceiver.

The Realist would say that the external world exists independently of the mind. They are not Immaterialists, in that there is such as thing as material substance. They can be either a Monist, where there is only one fundamental substance, the mind/body, or a Dualist, where there are two fundamental substances, the mind and the body.

The idealist would say that there is no external world existing independently of any mind, and are Immaterialists in that there is no such thing as material substance

Personally, I am an Indirect Realist, Neutral Monist and Nominalist.

I am not concern with the thing that does the looking…… — Daniel

If I’m looking in a mirror, regardless of what I perceive in the seeing, there is a phenomenal representation given to my intellectual system. This is the way the human system works: the senses relay physical information in the form of sensation, the cognitive part of the system operates in conjunction with it, and by which the representations of things perceived become my experiences.

So it is that in the case of me looking into a mirror and seeing myself, the phenomenal representation is just another set of physical information. The senses do not have the ability to discern identity, from which follows the phenomenal representation of the physical information contains no indication that I am seeing myself. As far as this goes, there is merely an appearance of some thing, presented to my senses, as is the case with every single perception of mine, without exception.

So how does it arise that the perception from the mirror is my body? From the information my senses provide, re: movement, the color of the shirt, the haircut, a veritable plethora of representations corresponding exactly with what I already know.

But no matter what, that which is not a representation from the mirror, is that to which the manifold of representations that are from the mirror, are given. The senses can never enable a representation of that which operates on, and because of, them. There can be no representation of the self given from the perception in the mirror.

I cannot see my self in a mirror. I cannot see my self, ever. And the myself I do see, is nothing but my personal empirical object, which is just my body.
————

But forget all that; you’re asking me to imagine. Fine. To imagine is to make the senses irrelevant, insofar as I can imagine looking at myself in the mirror while skydiving, in which case there is no phenomenal representation of my body, because I’m not actually perceiving it. Nevertheless, imagination does present its own representations, otherwise I wouldn’t have the mere mental image of looking in a mirror while not actually looking.

Ok, so the imagined image of me looking in the mirror corresponds precisely to the image given from the actual looking, which makes explicit the representations from imagination have at least some of their origins in experience. If I didn’t already know what a mirror is, how could I imagine looking into it? Which implies a sort of mental storage facility, which we common folk call memory, philosophers call intuition, and metaphysicians call consciousness.

Long story short…..guess what representation cannot be found in memory/intuition/consciousness, but serves as its representation? And if, even just for the sake of argument and in keeping with pure logical law, consciousness is the sum total of every representation belonging to an individual subject, and, it is thereby impossible for self to be contained in that which it represents as containing all representations, there arises an impasse, in attempting to represent the self as such.

There is a expression representing that which encompasses consciousness as the totality of representations, called “ego”. Ego, then, is a complexity, and in turn is conceptually represented by the simple, called “I”. All three of these together entail the conception of self, whereas any one of them alone does not. Hence the incomprehensibility of attempts to conceptualize a self without the apprehension of that conjunction, and upon that apprehension, the self is given, but not as a representation.

There is no thing that does the looking. There is only a systematic process by which there is that which is its object.

To say that the physical brain cannot be brought into the epistemological debate is to take the side of Idealism, thereby excluding the possibility of Realism. — RussellA

I am not denying the existence of the brain, or the involvement of the brain in mental events.  But dragging the brain into the Epistemic discussion has been always the same - nothing much in essence and nothing really fruitful to add into the conclusion apart from just muddling up the points. 

We all know it is the brain which is responsible for all the mental events. That is just common knowledge, but the rest is unknown how the brain state generates mental events or what are the mental states or events we have in nature.   We know we have mental events such as perceptions, feelings and sensations ... that is all we have to work with in Epistemology and Metaphysics. And there are plenty to investigate and discuss in the conceptual level of the topic.

There are some interesting theories by scientists that mental events may not be all 100% from the brain.  There are some Amoeba species, which don't have brains. Just visual sensors in their body, but they make movements towards their prey, eat the prey, and then return to their original location using the sensors. Knowing the preys and returning to their original location by their willed movement are looked upon as mental discernment by the Ecologists. If this is the case, then are all the mental events from the brain functions? Could brain then totally be eliminated in investigating mental events?

Most of the classic philosophers have been talking about the nature of the mind without mentioning brain. And the ancients used to think hearts are the source of mental events, not brain, and breaths are the minds and souls of the living.

The Indirect Realist would say that our perceptions of the external world are not directly of an external world, but are directly of an internal representation in our mind of an external world. Such a representation may or may not directly correspond with the external world that is causing such representations — RussellA

Indirect realist sounds like an idealist in disguise under the mask of the realist. If you say, it is just a representation of your mind, then it looks to me idealist, even if you say it is indirectly from the external world (it gave impression that the external world bit was added to try to assert you are a realist as well, not the disguised idealist :) ).

Do you believe that the external world objects are real, or just a representation of your mind? I mean do the external world and objects keep existing even if while you are asleep, or they don't exist anymore when you are out for the count?

I still think that these individual perceptions, sensations, emotions and feelings and all the mental events are not the self, but they are just a logical evidence that those mental events are under your own ownership.

The self is a special form of perception which looks inward into your mind, being conscious of all the mental events taking place in your mind. The self perception would be invisible or unknowable by all your outward perceptions. It can only be intuited via mediation or self introspection. In that sense, it is transcendental in nature.

I would like to ask you some more basic questions regarding the topic.

1. Do you claim that "I" is the same as the "self"? or is "I" a human being?
2. Do you claim that the "self" exists?
3. If the self exists, then is it a physical or mental substance?
4. Can substance be mental? or is it only physical?

I answer the questions fully aware they might make things even more confusing.

1. Something inside my body (and therefore a part of) is aware of it (my body) and its surroundings. My body plus that which is aware is referred by me as "I".

That something inside my body, which is aware, at some point during my life gains the ability to refer to itself - as I am doing right now. To do this, I think it must recognize its existence as a particular thing, it must be able to separate itself from the world, in the sense that there is an inside here and an outside there, as Vera Mont said earlier. This separation must be represented mentally so that there is a mental representation for the world and one for what is not the world. The mental representation of that something which is aware inside my body being separate from a world "background" is the self, which is different from that which is aware.

2. Yes.
3. and 4. I believe all mental substances to be physical because there is a corresponding physical process responsible for the formation of each mental substance (in addition, they occupy a physical space).

It seems that to me the self is a mental representation of that which is aware; it is an idea. However, I thought they should be considered separate (i.e., the self and its idea are different) so as to avoid going into the topic of what is or what is not the self. Again, the idea here is to focus on that mental representation of the self, the one that allows us to refer to ourselves when we do things such as describing ourselves, talking to ourselves, imagining about ourselves, etc. Like when you get angry, there is usually an object you get angry at, what do you get angry at when you get angry at yourself?

I feel that self is a special perception (apperception of Kant's term), that looks inwards into the mind, whereas all the standard perceptions look outwards into the external world. — Corvus

But dragging the brain into the Epistemic discussion has been always the same - nothing much in essence and nothing really fruitful to add into the conclusion apart from just muddling up the points. — Corvus

The self is a special form of perception which looks inward into your mind, being conscious of all the mental events taking place in your mind. The self perception would be invisible or unknowable by all your outward perceptions. It can only be intuited via mediation or self introspection. In that sense, it is transcendental in nature. — Corvus

If I correctly understand your position:
1) You distinguish between standard perceptions looking outwards into the external world, and special perceptions that look inwards into the mind
2) Within the mind are both inward and outward looking perceptions
3) The mind is somehow generated by the brain
4) The self is known by inward perception, and the self knows both inward and outward perceptions.

As both inward and outward perceptions are part of the self, then one would expect that the outward perceptions would know the inward perceptions, as they are both part of the same self. Yet you say that the outward perceptions don't know the inward perceptions.

Kant's apperception is not a special kind of perception, but is a unity of apperception that applies to all perceptions, whether inwards or outward looking.

A common epistemological question is the relationship between the mind and brain, the relationship between the mental and the physical, in asking how can the mental emerge from the physical.

If the physical brain is excluded from the epistemological discussion, then Realism is also being excluded from the epistemological discussion, as, in Realism, a material substance such as the brain does exist outside the mind.

The discussion then reduces to that of Idealism, in that there is no material substance outside the mind, no physical brain outside the mind.

When you say "all the standard perceptions look outwards into the external world.", if epistemology has been reduced to Idealism, then the external world would exist in the mind, meaning that all perceptions look inwards into the mind. In that event, any distinction between inward and outward looking perceptions disappears, such that the self does then become available to Kant's unity of apperception.

However, Realism and the physical brain cannot be excluded from the epistemological discussion.

A common epistemological question is the relationship between the mind and brain, the relationship between the mental and the physical, in asking how can the mental emerge from the physical. — RussellA

However, Realism and the physical brain cannot be excluded from the epistemological discussion. — RussellA

Could you then please explain how the brain generates the mind? Please explain in detail how can the mental can emerge from the physical.

1. Something inside my body (and therefore a part of) is aware of it (my body) and its surroundings. My body plus that which is aware is referred by me as "I". — Daniel

When you say something inside your body, is it a physical object? Or is it something non-physical? Can you see or touch it?

From your answers on 3 & 4, it seems that all your mental objects are also physical. I hope I am understanding your points correctly. Could you please explain on that? How can mental substance be also physical?

Is it even correct to say mental substance? What is substance? Can mental events be substance?

Could you then please explain how the brain generates the mind? Please explain in detail how can the mental can emerge from the physical. — Corvus

If I could explain that, then I would be world famous.

If I could explain that, then I would be world famous. — RussellA

I bought a half dozen Neurology and Psychology books on the Brain and Perception, and scanned through them over and over again for days, but none of them gave the answers. That was what I was saying in my previous posts.

Brain is the foundation of all mental events, but we still don't know answers to the hard problems. But we still have mental events, so we can discuss and investigate them in conceptual level.

X

Here I take you to be assuming that having vision, self-awareness, memory, focus, self-direction, etc.; in other words, in just being a human, that we have a self, and that that is what the self consists of. But this is an assumption and an extrapolation backwards.

Yes, you are separate from others, but the way you work is not different than me, and we have the same possibilities of experience, meaning you do not experience anything I cannot also. Of course there are exceptions, but the point is that this imposed picture is that we are a constant self (“your” “consciousness”) and that we are always special (“your” “perception”), not just rarely, having something we would ordinarily call: personal or secret.

Now we can speak of brains and processes but that is just how a human works (even including the unconscious), not how the self does (studying the human does not elucidate what it is to have a self; how that works is the task of philosophy). Classic philosophy (Descartes) created this picture of “me” out of a need for something undoubtable (as: pure), and thus this constant picture of the self is just a projection of the desire for something certain.

I don’t want to bring up my argument for the self here, as I started a discussion here claiming that the self is only formed (if at all) at times in relation to our common culture, most relevant here as taken up by @Manuel starting Here and @Astrophel here.