I'm sure there are more versions. Add on if you like. — frank

Neat topic.

Better to stop at Anscombe.

Notice how many of the threads here are about self, but take the first or second definition as granted? All that silly stuff about starting with perception and the thing-in-itself only has traction if one ignores the fact that we are ineluctably embedded in community.

All that silly stuff about starting with perception and the thing-in-itself only has traction if one ignores the fact that we are ineluctably embedded in community. — Banno

In a way, the Cartesian self belongs to both religion and science. When we want a theory about the self that goes beyond art and poetry, we immediately conjure this isolated Perceiver. It comes from wanting to say something. :grin:

In a way, the Cartesian self belongs to both religion and science. — frank

I don't agree with the latter. Science is also an essentially communal activity.

Science is also an essentially communal activity. — Banno

So is religion. If you noted Michael's support for indirect realism, it was based on science. Science bears the marks of its Cartesian heritage

If you noted Michael's support for indirect realism, it was based on science. — frank

As is the rejection of indirect realism from Austin.

Are you taking your own thread off topic?

Are you taking your own thread off topic? — Banno

Could be. Another version of the self is the world itself. If you want to know who you are, listen to what you say about the world. The world is a mirror.

The Cartesian outline of the self has obvious faults, so what does it have going for it? In the OP I say that Cartesianism gives us a self that's available for analysis, both philosophical and scientific

But probably the more powerful anchor to the dualistic self is morality. Morality places the lone self on a pedestal. It's the image of this isolated entity that forms the horror surrounding abortion. We imagine the powerful emotions of love and hatred must have a substantial seat and object.

I'm sure there are more versions. Add on if you like.
— frank
Neat topic.

Better to stop at Anscombe — Banno

Have you read Charles Taylor’s Sources of the Self?

So this isn't exactly a logical entity, it's not disconnected from the world, but since Anscombe was a student of Wittgenstein, it's not something that comes with a theory. — frank

Must it necessarily lack a theory? Reading your description of it, I was thinking that "you just do" is giving up too easily. Do you know of any philosophers who have accepted Anscombe's basic idea of the self and attempted to place it within a larger context?

Wikipedia says this about Taylor:

The best account of human life, Taylor argues, must account for the moral sources that orient our lives. Such an account should explain the strong evaluations we make about particular modes of life and seek to identify the constitutive good upon which such strong evaluations about qualitative distinctions in moral value are made. By constitutive good, Taylor refers to a good "the love of which empowers us to do and be good."[5] The constitutive good—whether it be a belief in reason over desire, the inherent benevolence of the natural world, or the intuitively benign nature of human sentiment—orients us towards the evaluations that we make and the goods we aspire towards. — wikipedia

I agree with Taylor here, but think about the way it conflicts with this passage from the Tractatus:

5.632 The subject does not belong to the world but it is a limit of the world.

5.633 Where in the world is a metaphysical subject to be noted?

You say that this case is altogether like that of the eye and the field of sight. But you do not really see the eye.

And from nothing in the field of sight can it be concluded that it is seen from an eye. — Tractatus

Must it necessarily lack a theory? — J

No. We can hypothesize, theorize, draw diagrams with different perspectives about intention, we can get scientific, religious, etc. It's possible that every one of these trails will lead to insurmountable conundrums for the very reason Wittgenstein explains: Tractatus 5.632 "The subject does not belong to the world but it is a limit of the world."

What I'm curious about is the different dimensions to our myths about the self. Why do we always fall reflexively back to a Cartesian perspective? I agree with Taylor above that morality and the emotions associated with it are the real power source for the self. My question is: is that always going to be a Cartesian self? I think it might be that everytime we go to explain the self, we'll automatically conjure some kind of independent soul. What do you think?

So my goal will be to continue with both Taylor's and Hagberg's thoughts and see what happens to the Cartesian self as we go. Can I maintain Wittgenstein's mysterianism? What happens if I try?

Add on if you like. — frank

I don't want to distract from your discussion, but I wanted at least to mention this. I won't take it any further if you're not interested.

I think one of the places where philosophy runs up on shoals of science is on the subject of consciousness/self. They tend to get mixed up. This is from "The Feeling of What Happens" by Antonio Damasio.

Incidentally, [core and extended consciousness] correspond to two kinds of self. The sense of self which emerges in core consciousness is the core self, a transient entity, ceaselessly re-created for each and every object with which the brain interacts. Our traditional notion of self, however, is linked to the idea of identity and corresponds to a non-transient collection of unique facts and ways of being which characterize a person. My term for that entity is the autobiographical self. The autobiographical self depends on systematized memories of situations in which core consciousness was involved in the knowing of the most invariant char- acteristics of an organism's life-who you were born to, where, when, your likes and dislikes, the way you usually react to a problem or a conflict, your name, and so on. I use the term autobiographical memory to denote the organized record of the main aspects of an organism's biography. The two kinds of self are related. — Antonio Damasio - The Feeling of What Happens

So, how, if at all, does this type of description fit into this discussion?

So, how, if at all, does this type of description fit into this discussion? — T Clark

It makes the diagram bigger. Damasio sees identity as an ever changing aggregate. For instance, if you're staring at a woman and you ask yourself who you are, the answer might include the idea of being male, because that's what you are relative to her (or the opposite if you're female).

But if you're staring at a butterfly, your identity might change to include mammal. A rock: you're alive, and so on.

This ever-shifting collage is identity, and it's somehow made available to the "main distribution board" called the core self.

I think Damasio would be across or orthogonal to Davidson, Chalmers, and Wittgenstein. I dont know if he would sit with the behaviorists or not.

By the way, if anyone knows of a book that has this kind of diagram in it, let me know. I'd like to see it.

I think Damasio would be across or orthogonal to Davidson, Chalmers, and Wittgenstein. — frank

Do you think Damasio's description is consistent, or possibly consistent, with each of the three views you described in the OP?

Do you think Damasio's description is consistent, or possibly consistent, with each of the three views you described in the OP? — T Clark

It's sort of a third viewpoint. It's not mysterian or Cartesian. I guess my theory is that Cartesianism is lurking in the shadows unless he's a behaviorist, which he might be. I'll have to investigate further.

unless he's a behaviorist — frank

I don't think there's any way Damasio could be described as a behaviorist. He's about as anti-behaviorist as I can imagine. He explicates what is going on inside the black box of behaviorism.

I don't think there's any way Damasio could be described as a behaviorist. — T Clark

You may be right. Would you say he's reductionist wrt consciousness?

You may be right. Would you say he's reductionist wrt consciousness? — frank

He's a cognitive scientist, and he is primarily interested in the neurological and structural aspects of mental processes, including consciousness. I often use him to make my case against the "hard problem." Does that make him a reductionist?

I have read Damasio's The Feeling of what Happens. I've also read Anil Seth's Being You, and I preferred the latter. Seth's decomposition of the self looks like this.

• Bodily self: the experience of being and having a body.
• Perspectival self: the experience of first-person perspective of the world.
• Volitional self: the experiences of intention and of agency.
• Narrative self: the experience of being a continuous and distinctive person.
• Social self: the experience of having a self refracted through the minds of others.

I am not entirely happy with Seth's account of the self (which is a chapter, not just 5 bullet points!) but I find it easier to understand Seth than Damasio. It would be nice to have some kind of diagram where Damasio's and Seth's ideas appeared fairly close together, because they are of the same general type, and the three in the OP appeared somewhere else.

I do take the hard problem seriously, and (unlike @T Clark) I would not use either of their accounts to argue against that. Seth says he's interested in the 'real' problem of consciousness, not the hard problem.

We could start with three headings:

1. Consciousness is at least potentially explainable
2. Mysterian (it's not explainable)
3. Don't know or don't care

It would be normal for any scientist to pick number 1. We might divide scientists by whether they believe science as it currently stands is capable of explaining it, that is, do we just need to complete work on the models we have? Or are we going to need new paradigms?

I think most religions offer some type of theory of consciousness in that they explain why it's here and what it's for.

Mysterians are philosophers like Kant, Wittgenstein, and Chomsky.

Now that I've looked further (with help from my friends), I don't see Cartesianism lurking as profoundly as I thought.

How would you characterize the difference between Damasio and Seth?

I do take the hard problem seriously, and (unlike T Clark) I would not use either of their accounts to argue against that. Seth says he's interested in the 'real' problem of consciousness, not the hard problem. — GrahamJ

I wasn't presenting Damasio's work as the correct view on consciousness, I was using it as an example of a type of description. I asked

So, how, if at all, does this type of description fit into this discussion? — T Clark

My question is: is that always going to be a Cartesian self? I think it might be that everytime we go to explain the self, we'll automatically conjure some kind of independent soul. What do you think? — frank

I think of different selves as being nothing more than different kinds of disposition or orientation. Do we need a notion of soul to understand that or simply the notions of distinctively individual awareness, focus and intelligence?

It would be nice to have some kind of diagram where Damasio's and Seth's ideas appeared fairly close together, because they are of the same general type, — GrahamJ

FWIW, this simple diagram is from Research Gate*1, and not directly related to Damasio or Seth. It does show Mind & Body as separate categories (boxes) within the general concept of subjective Self.

The Self-Concept is an object of internally-directed conscious attention, not an external material object as represented subjectively by the brain. To represent Introspection you can rotate the externally oriented "I" Arrow to point toward either Mind or Body.

Everything within the dashed circle is imaginary. Ironically, the material body can be seen as external to the self, or vice-versa, as in the Body Transfer Illusion*2. I suppose the Conscious Observer is the mysterious Me*3 in the middle. :nerd:


Diagram : Structure of the self.

*1. ResearchGate is a European commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shanyang-Zhao/publication/278066526/figure/fig1/AS:391771524747264@1470417018018/Structure-of-the-self.png

*2. Body Transfer Illusion :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_transfer_illusion
You Tube : https://youtu.be/sxwn1w7MJvk?si=tsKNydlCLjFNkRXt

*3. Self/Soul :
The brain can create the image of a fictional person (the Self) to represent its own perspective in dealings with other things and persons.
This imaginary Me is a low-resolution construct abstracted from the complex web of inter-relationships that actually form the human body, brain, mind, DNA, and social networks in the context of a vast universe.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page18.html

FWIW, this simple diagram is from Research Gate*1, and not directly related to Damasio or Seth. It does show Mind & Body as separate categories (boxes) within the general concept of subjective Self. — Gnomon

I don't know about Seth, but Damasio's model of the self is based on specific anatomical structures and neurological and mental processes. It's not that I think the model you've shown is wrong, but it is not comparable.

What I know of Taylor appears in your quote, so feel free to fill in the details of what I don't know.

How is Taylor not consistent with Cartesianism? Taylor says we cannot offer a meaningful description of the human condition without describing our drivers for moral behavior. To be sure, our desire for morality and appreciation of it is unique among the other creatures in the world, or, if not truly unique, hyper developed comparatively. For that reason, I'd agree with Taylor regarding the idea we must analyze morality if we want to analyze people.

What I don't see though is why I could not be a Cartesian and fully agree with Taylor. Cartesian dualism posits a mind that has a free will that is subject to moral evaluation. Wouldn't Descartes agree with Taylor's assessment of the significance of understanding morality if one wanted to understand humanity then?

Per Descartes, if the self is defined as having free will, and it is through this free will that morality arises, then to understand the self would require an understanding of morality, and this would be in agreement with Taylor, true?

My reaction to all of them.

1. I recall someone saying way back that the truer interpretation of Descartes was "I doubt therefore I am". Intention is merely a means of throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks. The information gleaned from such actions ripple out dependent upon our temporal attention. A child may have no real intention when throwing a ball other than 'play'. The excess energy/time is basically a kind of freeform 'experimental' moment (play).

Maybe this self is a result of the subject/object, cause/effect structure of thought. To explain a thing is to divide it into parts and then relate the parts. — frank

I think it is more or less a much further reaching aspect than that. I think how we can see chain reactions from a particular instances allows us to delineate some sense of 'self'. If we only think in of and about the moment there is no 'self'.

2.

It's directly known and language is a tool for expressing the (pre-existing) content of this internal realm. — frank

The old issue of what is meant by "language". If you are referring to this kind of here written form rather than something much broader, then no. "Language" is not really about expressing anything much, it is just a vehicle for passing information NOT understanding it.

I think this self might play a role in the emergence of a mechanical, materialistic perspective. The self, once broadcast all over the world as divinities, is now relegated to the nowhere of the psyche. It's either a soul that partakes of holiness, or it's a figment of the imagination, so this is the self of behaviorism. — frank

The preliterate aspects of so-called religious practices are key. It is all about mnemonics and imagination. Literacy helped in many ways and hindered in others.

3. I would just put it that the 'self' is underpinned by the temporal retreat of attention. We drag ourselves around imagined/representational 'landscapes' and when the agent absconds from the 'dragging' we possess self-realisation.

The "self" is then, basically, the experience of the temporally felt gap between loci. Think of memory palaces, flims or novels. They are contained as a whole and understand as a whole rather than as atomised words, sentences, characters, plots or themes. It is felt holistically as much as it is partitioned - yet in relation to - from the whole.

Obviously, a part is a part because we have a relation to the whole. If not we see nothing. Even an absence is a part of the whole because it is perceived as a hole not a whole.

It would be normal for any scientist to pick number 1. We might divide scientists by whether they believe science as it currently stands is capable of explaining it, that is, do we just need to complete work on the models we have? Or are we going to need new paradigms? — frank

I'd pick 1, but I don't like the much misused word paradigm. I agree with Chalmers that we need to add an extra ingredient to science, and I think that can be done without upsetting existing science. Maybe split (1) into: (a) nothing new needed (b) an extra ingredient needed (c) something more revolutionary needed.

↪GrahamJ How would you characterize the difference between Damasio and Seth? — frank

Damasio's selves are more hierarchical. The proto-self is at the bottom, the core self builds on that, and the extended self (which includes an autobiographical self) builds on that. The proto-self is unconscious, the others go up towards consciousness.

Seth's bodily self seems to be at the bottom, and his social self at the top, the other three seem to sit alongside one another (in my view). In all these selves, most of what goes on inside them is unconscious, but some of each one, including the bodily self, is conscious, so there isn't the same sense of moving up through selves towards consciousness. It is easier to understand what each of Seth's selves achieves for an organism.

Diagram : Structure of the self. — Gnomon

That is a diagram of something else, but it is good to see reputation being mentioned. (I might say more later.)

I wasn't presenting Damasio's work as the correct view on consciousness, I was using it as an example of a type of description. — T Clark

Fine.

Diagram : Structure of the self. — Gnomon
That is a diagram of something else, but it is good to see reputation being mentioned. (I might say more later.) — GrahamJ

Here's a Diagram of the Self as proposed by Damasio --- also from ResearchGate. It's much more complex than the previous image, but may be more like what you had in mind. Click or Double-click the image to enlarge.

Did you look at the You Tube video? How do you think the Body Transfer Illusion is related to the Self Concept?

How would you interpret the Reputation element of the diagram? Does it refer to how a person sees himself, or to how the person thinks others see himself? This might be relevant to President Trump. :smile:

Three stages of self - Damasio
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Three-stages-of-self-Damasio-17_fig3_282489228

Three stages of self - Damasio — Gnomon

Thanks for the link. Note that the figure you provided is not Damasio's, it's one of the other figures from the linked article.