Philosophy: What is the self?

[Epsilon0]

It's been a while since we had a real philosophical discussion so I thought I would start a thread about the self. You all know what I am referring to, and being just as self-centered as the other 8 billion people on this Earth, you probably use the pronoun "myself" at least 100 times a day.

But what exactly is the self. Can you define it? Describe it? Have you ever asked yourself this question?

Since I just mentioned Sören Kierkegaard on another thread, I will start by giving his definition of the self. According to Kierkegaard, the self is not a just single point - like a spirit or a consciousness, but a relation. It is both a relation to itself and to something else. (For Kierkegaard that something else is god, but we are probably too modern to subscribe to such religious views, and we will therefore leave god out of the equation for the time being).

Since the self is a relation, in Kierkegaard's philosophy, man is not a self. Man is a self only when it relates to something else.

So, the question today is as follows: is the self a closed loop that relates to itself, or is the self simultaneously a closed loop and and a synthesis between two things (i.e. the self and the other)? Or is it perhaps something altogether different?

 

[Yomyom]

I am a big fan of pantheism, and as far as I can see I don't think there is such a thing as self, I think there is fake identities, you think your someone but that's only an illusion, there is nothing behind the basic awareness of the human being that comes and goes by the universe, I learn that from my Derealization, there are times that my mind is totally empty, there is nothing there.

It's a combination between Alan Watts and mooji

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Force --- Form --- the interaction between the two over time = self.

This can be expressed in all sorts of verbose ways but the ancient Irish did it best for me on the kerbstone of Newgrange.

 

[Epsilon0]

Pantheism (from Greek pan + theos, literally translated as all + god) is the idea that god and the entire universe are one and that the universe doesn't exist outside god.

Since god is in everything, and since humans are a part of the universe, it follows that humans are a part of god.

To that I will answer by quoting Schopenhauer:

"To call the world God is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym for the word world"

Force --- Form --- the interaction between the two over time = self.

This can be expressed in all sorts of verbose ways but the ancient Irish did it best for me on the kerbstone of Newgrange.
View attachment 31851

Newgrange rings a bell. I wrote a paper on Seamus Heaney's poetry and he mentions burial mounts in some of his poems. Tell me more about Newgrange!

 

[Yomyom]

Pantheism (from Greek pan + theos, literally translated as all + god) is the idea that god and the entire universe are one and that the universe doesn't exist outside god.

Since god is in everything, and since humans are a part of the universe, it follows that humans are a part of god.

To that I will answer by quoting Schopenhauer:

"To call the world God is not to explain it; it is only to enrich our language with a superfluous synonym for the word world"

I think that Pantheism, go much before the greeks, especially in China and India

I will quote Alan Watts-
'In this universe there is one great energy, and we have no name for it.
People have tried various name for it like got like bratman like dao'

In other words- no one can explain what it means
Because you can't really explain reality by words.

 

[PrettyMoose]

The self is a mixture of genes and environment. It is an evolutionary tool that promotes survival and reproduction, our only purposes as biological robots.

 

[Erdapfel]

The self is all and nothing. The self is consciousness. The self is a seperated soul. The self is the I. In my belief, everything is connected and seperated at the same time. The self is split off from the environment during pregnancy. If the three cotyledons have not yet closed, the soul is around the body. As soon as the cotyledons have closed, there is a split-off soul in the body and the divine soul is in the environment. The body is like a prison for the soul. The self is trapped in every cell in the body, waiting to be freed from this hell and rejoined with the divine self. It is waiting to be rejoined with God. It is waiting to re-merge with paradise.

 

[lovingjoo]

In the wake of Marxism, Freudism, and de-constructivism it is considered that there's no such 'self', and if any, it would be sth very vague.

Long time ago Descartes was worshipped, but can we really say we are really 'ourselves' when we can not even be free from 'un'consciousness?.

 

[Epsilon0]

A Freudian slip is when you say "myself" and mean your mother.

In the wake of Marxism, Freudism, and de-constructivism it is considered that there's no such 'self', and if any, it would be sth very vague.

Long time ago Descartes was worshipped, but can we really say we are really 'ourselves' when we can not even be free from 'un'consciousness?.

I am glad you mentioned Freud. I find his theory about the id, ego and the super-ego very appealing. The id - the animal within, and the super-ego - the police officer who makes sure the id doesn't go berserk. It's a simple but accurate description of how we function. The self as a unity of three parts whose main function is control.

 

[ExitStageLeft]

The self is sequential perception. This is all it is.

This perception exists as an emergent property of the physiological framework of the human brain, supported by the body, which itself is an aggregate of different states. It can choose, within limits, to fill the content of that perception with any number of things, but this invariably presents itself as a series of exclusions, rather than inclusions; what is included is defined by, and in some sense composed of, what is excluded.

I choose now to exclude all things.

 

[desperateCosine20]

I agree to what Derek Parfit like to put it, that there is no such thing as "self", but rather "a mental continuity and connectedness". I think it means that our lives are made of the connections of experience between ours and others', the past and the future. What matters is how strong the connections are. People change through time, so the bond to their distant "old self" becomes weaker, that's why you are not the same person you were when you were a kid. And sometimes the connection to others is even stronger than the connection to your future self, and that may be the reason why you are willing to sacrifice your interest to help someone out. To me personally, death means that no more new experience is connected to your "current self". But I don't think that the experience is ever going to end.