What is the self?

[Borachio]

OK. What is this thing you call yourself?

What do you mean when you say "I"?

How do you define it?

What are its limits?

Any answers?

Any more questions?

Social Identity

Psychology of self

<mutter mutter grumble grumble>

'Selfhood' or complete autonomy is a common Western approach to psychology and models of self are employed constantly in areas such as psychotherapy and self-help. Edward E. Sampson (1989) argues that the preoccupation with independence is harmful in that it creates racial, sexual and national divides and does not allow for observation of the self-in-other and other-in-self.

The very notion of selfhood has been attacked on the grounds that it is seen as necessary for the mechanisms of advanced capitalism to function. In Inventing our selves: Psychology, power, and personhood, Nikolas Rose (1998) proposes that psychology is now employed as a technology that allows humans to buy into an invented and arguably false sense of self. In this way, 'Foucault's theories of self have been extensively developed by Rose to explore techniques of governance via self-formation...the self has to become an enterprising subject, acquiring cultural capital in order to gain employment',[26] thus contributing to self-exploitation.

It is suggested by Kohut that for an individual to talk about, explain, understand or judge oneself is linguistically impossible, since it requires the self to understand its self. This is seen as philosophically invalid, being self-referential, or reification, also known as a circular argument. Thus, if actions arise so that the self attempts self-explanation, confusion may well occur within linguistic mental pathways and processes.

As for the theorists of the self, 'Vaknin has his detractors. Some people have criticised him for recreating narcissism in his own image':[27] - his "narcissistic self" is only his own self writ large. Winnicott too has his critics, suggesting that his theory of the way 'the False Self is invented to manage a prematurely important object...enacts a kind of dissociated regard or recognition of the object'[28] is itself rooted in 'his own childhood experience of trying to "make my living" by keeping his mother alive'.[29]

The self has long been considered as the central element and support of any experience.[30] The self is not 'permanently stuck into the heart of consciousness'. "I am not always as intensively aware of me as an agent, as I am of my actions. That results from the fact that I perform only part of my actions, the other part being conducted by my thought, expression, practical operations, and so on."

You tell me.

 

[Souron]

There is actually a sense, like sight and touch, for identifying what is part of your body.

On a different note, here's an interesting video that poses a possible answer. It might be right. It basically asserts that we identify our concept of self by the very stable region our lower brain. The video explains it better.

 

[Borachio]

You mean this, I take it. Proprioception.

And it is absolutely crucial.

 

[Lillefix]

You mean this, I take it. Proprioception.

And it is absolutely crucial.

I recently read a book by Oliver Sacks where he described a woman who lost that sense permanently. After a few years she did seem to manage quite well(but it was a very difficult process), but one of the things that struck me was that one of the worst things according to her, was that she didn't feel she owned her own body anymore. And with the body an important part of her identity.

When she looked at pictures of herself before she lost that sense, she couldn't identify more with that person and said it was as if someone had scooped something vital out of her. Sounds scary.

edit: The wiki-article actually mentions that woman.

 

[Agent327]

Self is another word for Ego.

(In the case just meantioned there's definitely something wrong with that person's Ego perception.)

 

[Borachio]

But does the self = physical body + id + ego + superego?

 

[ComradeDavo]

Myself is my body and my personality, my actions and my thoughts, my desires and my requirements. The body and the mind.

 

[Borachio]

Yes. That's the everyday kind of definition. But is it the true one?

Other people might, I don't know, suggest that the self doesn't begin and end there. But that, rather, we are a complex series of interactions between ourselves and others.

That is, what we are is in large measure as much how others see us and how we react to how others see us.

Something along those line? It's hard to sum up.

Or maybe something else again.

 

[Agent327]

But does the self = physical body + id + ego + superego?

I would say that one's body is a natural part of one's Ego. (If the body dies, so do you and there won't be much of an Ego left to speak of.)

 

[ComradeDavo]

Yes. That's the everyday kind of definition. But is it the true one?

Other people might, I don't know, suggest that the self doesn't begin and end there. But that, rather, we are a complex series of interactions between ourselves and others.

That is, what we are is in large measure as much how others see us and how we react to how others see us.

Something along those line? It's hard to sum up.

Or maybe something else again.

I do think the way other people percieve me is very different from my real 'self' as I described.

 

[Integral]

The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation's relating itself to itself in the relation; the self is not the relation but is the relation's relating itself to itself. A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two. Considered in this way a human being is still not a self.... In the relation between two, the relation is the third as a negative unity, and the two relate to the relation and in the relation to the relation; thus under the qualification of the psychical the relation between the psychical and the physical is a relation. If, however, the relation relates itself to itself, this relation is the positive third, and this is the self.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

When I say I, me, mine in causual manner it represents my outer side. My way of thinking, desires and aspirations, my body, emotions, attachments, my personality and ego.
When I seek for my true self thats something still in process of discovery and its mainly represented by my purest aspirations.

 

[Borachio]

There is actually a sense, like sight and touch, for identifying what is part of your body.

.

OK. So does proprioception extend beyond your physical body or not? When you drive a car, is it an extension of your body?

And if it is, how far can you take this extension?

Could you take it as far as the town you live in? The nation you belong to? Or the entire cosmos?

Is this going too far too fast?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

OK. So does proprioception extend beyond your physical body or not? When you drive a car, is it an extension of your body?

And if it is, how far can you take this extension?

Could you take it as far as the town you live in? The nation you belong to? Or the entire cosmos?

Is this going too far too fast?

I don't think "extension of your body" is to be taken literally. It's another body interacting with yours. Phew, that was the easy one answered .... I think.

My take on it is that myself is limited to my body, as far as I know. If I drive a car I do so by the impulses on my body. I don't actual feel the wheels touching the ground, but I feel it through my hands on the steering wheel and my bottom on the seat. If I look at the moon, I don't stretch myself towards it. That's merely photons bouncing of it into my eyes.

I also don't find any personification of myself in the nation or town I live in.

I hope I'm not being to literal here. Philosophy never has been my strong point.

 

[Borachio]

When you raise your hand you do so by the impulses transmitted to and from your brain. How is the car different from your hand?

 

[Traitorfish]

The self is the body organised as a subject. I am identical to my body; ego, conciousness, all that is a function of the body.

But what is the body? That's where it gets complicated.

edit: And I'm with Borachio- why not take it literally? Makes more sense to me than drawing lines just because things get inorganic.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

When you raise your hand you do so by the impulses transmitted to and from your brain. How is the car different from your hand?

When the car bumps into a wall, and I'm not in it, I don't go "ouch".

Spoiler :

Good question, I have difficulty specifying the difference. I think it's because my body is part of an integrated system, while the car can be considered an optional extra.

But I answered this way too fast and unsatisfactory. As I said, this stuff is hard for me to define, so that's why I'm blundering here.

 

[Souron]

OK. So does proprioception extend beyond your physical body or not? When you drive a car, is it an extension of your body?

And if it is, how far can you take this extension?

Could you take it as far as the town you live in? The nation you belong to? Or the entire cosmos?

Is this going too far too fast?

If you define self from proprioception then, no it doesn't. A car does not feel like it's literally a part of you, though you may become very comfortable with it anyway. Even prosthetics can feel weird even after extended use.

 

[Traitorfish]

When the car bumps into a wall, and I'm not in it, I don't go "ouch".

Spoiler :

Good question, I have difficulty specifying the difference. I think it's because my body is part of an integrated system, while the car can be considered an optional extra.

But I answered this way too fast and unsatisfactory. As I said, this stuff is hard for me to define, so that's why I'm blundering here.

I think that "integration" is the key word, here. What we're used to thinking of as the "body" is relatively tightly integrated, mechanically and cognitively, and this integration tends to persist over long periods of time. By contrast, a pair of shoes, a car or a pen are all quite loosely integrated, and are picked up and dropped very regularly. But that does not suggest that they are not part of the body, simply that the body is not a constant; it is, rather, a process, a network of activity that constantly changes its form from one moment to the next.

If you define self from proprioception then, no it doesn't. A car does not feel like it's literally a part of you, though you may become very comfortable with it anyway. Even prosthetics can feel weird even after extended use.

Is that true? From what I've read, it's far more blurred than this. We may not feel a car is part of us as precisely or effectively as we feel that our arm is part of us, but that doesn't tell us whether or not this experience is present.

 

[Borachio]

As I said, this stuff is hard for me to define, so that's why I'm blundering here.

You and me both.