THE SELF

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Section III

• THE SELF
• Egos, Bundles and Multiple Selves
• Theories of Self
• Agency and Free Will

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VIIEgos, Bundles, and Multiple Selves

• Why does it seem as though I am a single,
  continuous self who has experiences?
• Ego Theories Because I am.
• Bundle Theories It may seem this way, but there
  really is no self, and there must be another way
  to account for our experiences of self.
• Multiple Selves

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Ego Theory

• Most commonly accepted
• Sense of self is pervasive in many religions
• Hinduism, Islam, Christianity
• Substance Dualism
• Reid puts it best I am not thought, I am not
  action, I am not feeling I am something which
  thinks, and acts, and feels.

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Bundle Theory

• Buddhism
• David Hume and the bundle of sensations
• Multiple Personality Disorders
• Case of Multiple Selves

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Split Brains/Split Consciousness

• Each side has different qualities
• Both hemispheres have the ability to do things
  which the other hemispheres often lack.
• Sperry (1968) thought that these results
  revealed a doubling of conscious awareness, and
  even that his patients had two free wills in one
  cranial vault

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VIII Theories of Self

• Mind switching bodies
• Which person are you?
• Do you still hold qualities which are intrinsic
  to your concept of self
• Question of ReplicationMind, Body
• Would you do it?
• Is there any difference?

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William JamesThought itself is the thinker and
psychology need not look beyond

• The way it seems
• 2 parts of self empirical self (material self,
  social self, and spiritual self), and subjective
  self (our concept of our own consciousness and
  perceptions)
• The Passing Thought The Thought

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Neuroscientific Models of Self

• Ramachandran Ghost in the Machine
• Damasio Consciousness is developed as a persons
  life occursit is a feeling, and feelings are
  neural patterns
• GWT Global Workspace Theory Self System

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SESMETS

• Subjects of Experience that are Single Mental
  Things
• The self is something that exists for a period of
  time in which it is experiencing something.
• It is then linked to past and future selves which
  take on properties of those instances in time.
• Not an ego or bundle theory (neither continuous
  consciousness nor unlinked sets of experiences)

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Dennett

• Our tales are spun, but for the most part we
  dont spin them they spin us.
• How many selves
• gt, lt or 1 per body?

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IX Agency and Free Will

• Determinism Do we do things because we want to
  or because it is already determined that we must?
• Is everything inevitable or do we have the tools
  and the ability to make decisions about how our
  lives will go?
• Can Free Will and Determinism co-exist?
• Compatibilism vs. Non Compatibilism

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How it seems

• It seems as though we are the subjects of our own
  experiences, and that we make conscious decisions
  about what we do
• Is this just what we want to think?
• Is it all just an Illusion?
• What is the role of consciousness?

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Where is the connection

• We know there are sensory neurons, neuronal
  pathways and motor neurons
• We know we feel as though we are conscious and
  have conscious ideas and thoughts about our past,
  present and future
• We dont know from where this feeling manifests
  itself.

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Voluntary Action

• Consciousness
• Flexing your wrist, conscious action
• RP (Readiness Potential)
• Libet Are we consciously aware of our actions
  when our RP is beginning to shift in electrical
  potential in our brain?
• If our consciousness does control our actions,
  then it would seem to reason that we would have
  conscious awareness of our RP changing.

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Libets Experiment

• RPs
• Subject reports a lights position in space when
  they are aware of their will to flex the wrist.
• Conclusion RP occurs before we are consciously
  aware of our will to move
• Consciousness as a gatekeeper to the unconscious?

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1853 Faraday

• Séance experiments in 1853
• Unconscious Will
• People performed séance sessions and claimed
  spirits answered the questions they were asking
• Faraday said differently
• Card/Cement Experiment
• Sitters must have unconsciously moved their hands

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William Grey Walter

• The slide projector experiment
• Subjects told they can change slides, but changes
  in the motor cortex were ultimately responsible
• Slides would change just as the conscious thought
  occurred
• We can have control after alleven if we dont
  realize it

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The Mirror Experiment

• Subject put in front of a mirror and given tasks
• Subject is arranged so that the arms they see are
  another persons
• When the subjects are asked to perform the tasks,
  the other persons arms do the task
• Subject believes that it was their will which
  completed the tasks they were presented.

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Wegner and Free Will

• Our sense of being a conscious agent who does
  things comes at the cost of being technically
  wrong all the time.
• The experience of willing an act arises from
  interpreting ones thought as the cause of the
  act
• Requirements of Will thought occurs before
  action, action depends on thought, no other
  causes can be present

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Wegner Continued

• Illusion of Free Will requires three steps
• The brain plans actions and carries them out
• We become aware of the brains intentions to act
  without knowledge of how/why.
• Intentions
• Action occurs after intention
• Erroneous conclusion intention causes action