NEUROSCIENCE AND THE SELF
It is often claimed that what we think of as our “self” does not truly exist. Neuroscientists, for example, find no trace of this self within the brain, no brain structure or process identifiable as “who we are”—something (or someone) that is thinking our thoughts, in charge of our actions, directing events, a stable and enduring entity that uniquely defines our existence—and is the answer to the question, Who am I?
There is no I.
There is, in other words, no homunculus inside our brain, no little man or woman that is ultimately “us.” The brain is simply creating an illusion of a self, a consistent story or narrative, when in fact there are only flickering and fleeting thought processes, and a shifting, ephemeral awareness of varying levels and sensations. There is no “I” doing the thinking, someone behind the experiences, in charge of our being.
The self, then, according to this line of reasoning, is only an illusion. Or, to borrow a phrase from Einstein, once again (see our last post): the self is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
We stubbornly persistent, however, once again, strongly disagree with this conclusion.
There is a self, a real, physical entity that is “who we are.” It is not an illusion, it is not a trick of the brain. There is a stable and enduring entity that uniquely defines our existence, and is the answer to the question, Who am I?
The problem, as usual, is the lack of a clear definition of terms.
THE EPHEMERAL SELF
If we define our self as a mental process, for example, doubt and confusion are unavoidable outcomes. Mental processes are ephemeral, fleeting, continuously floating in and out of existence. Is this who we are? Is this our being?
If we define our self as an awareness, on the other hand, as is quite tempting and popular among modern humans, existential quandaries will always overwhelm us. Is awareness an identity? By this we mean, does it have a personality, does it have a life of its own? Is awareness an entity—a physical thing—or is awareness a process—the activity of a physical thing? Is it something we can identify with, or is awareness how we identify with our world, and our selves?
If you believe you are your awareness, ask yourself this: What happens to “you” when you fall asleep, and you are no longer aware? Do you simply “disappear”? Every night? What concept of self is that?
No, we stubbornly persistent need a clearer definition of self. We wish to reexamine and redefine the fundamental assumptions about our existence, and our self—for the sake of our own self, our own existence, and our own peace of mind.
We are not the mental processes of our brain. We are not thoughts, we are not feelings, we are not our sensations, we are not our awareness. We are the figure behind the curtain—the one who is aware, the one who has the thoughts, the one who experiences the sensations.
We are an interdimensional being peering into our lower-dimensional—no, wait, sorry, just kidding.
That was a flight of fancy. That is not who we are.
Now, we might actually be a higher dimensional being, as we described in our last post, peering down into our lower-dimensional existence. But that is not who we are—the ones living within our normal, human, everyday world.
In this post we are staying closer to home, for the sake of immediacy, clarity and simplicity. Then we will revisit this higher possibility at the end.
THE ENDURING SELF
So, who am I?
The answer here, in our ordinary world, we find, is perhaps as equally shocking as that interdimensional being, equally revolutionary and breath-taking:
We are our physical, human body.
This is who we are. This is our self.
Our body has an awareness; it has thoughts, and feelings, and experiences, and memories of the past (past body states), and anticipations of the future (future body states). It is grounded in the present moment. It is a real, physical entity, and it is the answer to the question, Who am I?
I am my body. This is who I am; this is my self.
We are not a homunculus, a little being inside our brain; we are our body, a big being outside our brain—a being that has a brain.
For its survival and well-being, the body is continually shifting its awareness through various body processes: from thoughts to feelings, from sensations to memories, from seeing, hearing, and tasting to anticipations and more thoughts. Mental processes are fleeting and ephemeral because the body needs to be aware of many things at once—if not simultaneously, then quickly, sequentially. Its awareness roams ceaselessly, prioritizing, evaluating.
Then, when we sleep, the body periodically stops producing self-awareness altogether, so that it can tend to other body processes and functions.
THE SELF AND THE BRAIN
The same philosophical problems arise when we accept, without question, another scientific conclusion: We are our brain. This is the other popular, widespread belief of our modern age. The brain, after all, is the seat of awareness. The brain controls our body. But putting the brain before the body is equally, existentially wrong.
Does the brain control the body? Or does the body use the brain, to focus awareness, to integrate sensations, to regulate various body processes?
Which came first, the body or the brain?
The body evolved first, many millions of years ago, as a single-celled organism, which became a multicellular organism, which slowly evolved the beginnings of a brain. Then the brain evolved, with the body, in order to help with the survival and well-being of the body. This is the only reason why the brain evolved; it is the only reason why the brain exists: for the survival and well-being of the body.
The body has a brain. It also has a heart, and a stomach, and hands and feet, it has organs and structures evolved for survival within our physical world. We are no more a brain than we are our heart, or our hands. The body is a single, holistic organism. It is all of its parts, all of its organs, all of its thoughts and feelings and sensations.
The body is more than its brain. The body is more than its awareness. The body has a brain, and an awareness. It exists beyond our brain, and our awareness, simply because these belong to the body, are organs and processes of the body—not the other way around.
Modern humans are complex and complicated creatures, so complex it is easy for us to become confused about our very existence, so confused we can ask the ultimate question, Who am I? The confusion arises because it is tempting for us to identify with our awareness, or our thoughts (or our brain), rather than with our body—to the point where we may even come to the amazingly lopsided conclusion that our awareness (or our brain) has a body. With this backward and upside-down beginning there automatically emerges all of the confusion and doubt, all of the angst and despair plaguing us modern, human primates.
The body comes first; body organs and processes are secondary features of this living being. Our body is who we are, as a single, integrated, holistic individual. Our body is alive, it has a personality and relationships and feelings, it interacts with and responds to the world, a world that shaped and molded its structure and form through millions of years of evolutionary pressure.
When we react and respond to other people, it is their body we are reacting and responding to, not their hidden brains, and not some ephemeral awareness floating somewhere near their body. We assume they are their body, and that this body (if we think about it at all) has an awareness and a brain.
When we see someone asleep, we do not think, Oh, they are not here right now, they have disappeared. No, we assume they are there, sleeping, alive and well, whether conscious or not.
It only seems logical to assume the same existence for ourselves, as we do for others.
THE SELF AND FREE WILL
Identifying with our body offers a unique way around another popular, ambiguously scientific conclusion: Free will is an illusion. There are experiments that suggest this, in which subjects are asked to randomly choose something, or to do something (lift a finger, perhaps), that demonstrates their free will, and it is discovered that the brain becomes active several seconds before we think we have spontaneously made this decision to act, or to choose. Free will, then, is an illusion of the mind. We are governed by unconscious thought processes, and we only think we are choosing; we only have the illusion of free will.
But this only makes sense if we define our “self” as our conscious awareness, with the body as an afterthought. In reality, the body is making decisions all the time without its conscious input or awareness. The body becomes conscious of its final decisions and choices as it is acting and responding to its physical environment. Of course our awareness needs the body’s analysis and introspection in order to decide anything, otherwise “who” is deciding? An imaginary homunculus inside our brain?
Or the real homunculus outside our brain?
Our body is not an automaton, mindlessly following the dictates of our mind or our brain. The body is a living organism that has been reacting to and surviving within a physical world far longer than our present human awareness has been around.
Awareness is not a thing, a physical entity; it is a dynamic process. And it is our physical body that is creating, controlling and experiencing that process.
SELF AWARE
For those who choose to identify with their awareness, rather than their body, they might make this argument: The body is only a thought in the mind, after all, an idea or mental construct. We can never actually be aware of the entire body at any one moment, all of its sensations and functions and unconscious thought processes. It therefore lacks the immediate, experienced existence of our awareness—that experience that led Descartes to conclude: “I think, therefore, I am.”
It is true that we can never be aware of all of the body’s systems at any one time—but that does not mean the body does not exist. It does exist, within the physical world, and it reacts and responds to that world as a living, holistic organism. The fact that we can never be aware of its entire being at any one moment only demonstrates how the body is more than its awareness, how that awareness is only one part of the body’s functioning and how, in fact, awareness is an active process of the living body.
Now, it is also true that our human awareness has reached such a level of sophistication that it is able to become aware of its own existence, so that we are aware that we are aware. This feedback loop creates human consciousness, one of the most endearing aspects of our humanity. But we need to be careful, here; we need to be clear in our thoughts about what exactly is what. Being aware of our awareness does not mean that we are that awareness, that feedback loop. No, we are a physical body that is aware that it is aware, that can separate its own existence from the rest of the universe.
Perhaps that separation is itself the ultimate illusion, but that is the subject for another time.
BEYOND SCIENCE AND THE SELF
To finally round out our discussion: Many people believe we have a soul. And this is a legitimate, reasonable belief—but it does not answer any of our questions. Are we our soul, or do we have a soul? If we have a soul, who is this us who has it? Our human body? Something else? If we are our soul, then what happens to “us” when we fall asleep? Do we go somewhere? Do we stick around in the body? In either event, why do we not remember this, if this is “who” we are?
Does a soul sleep? Why would an ephemeral, insubstantial soul need to sleep?
The biggest allure to believing in a soul is that the soul does not die when the body dies—it is eternal. It exists above and beyond the physical world we perceive with our senses. The soul is “who” we are, not some three-dimensional body that suffers and dies.
But this description of the soul has an uncanny resemblance to the one we gave of our fourth-dimensional beings in our last post. We are not claiming they are one and the same, but we are pointing out that the differences between these two just might, ultimately, given enough time (and scientific progress) blur to the point of obscurity.
Many more people, of course, believe in the soul and God, a Being who created souls, and is in charge of their existence and judges their ultimate fate. Interestingly, we also touched upon this subject, teasingly, perhaps, at the end of our book, The Stubbornly Persistent—Melting the Frozen River of Spacetime. In doing so we bring up the inevitable possibility that the distinction between our scientific world and our religious world are not as separate as everyone currently believes.
It is unavoidable we will return to this subject again, in one form or other, sometime in the future. But to close, for now:
We are our physical, human body. This is who we are. This is our self. It is real, and it exists.
We exist. We are not an illusion.
In fact, beyond science, beyond religion, beyond all of the noise and chaos, all of the doubt and confusion of the world—we stubbornly persist.