The self as illusion

For a long time I wanted to find my "true self." Then I got all enthused about calling off the search.

The Buddhist notion of neither-this-nor-that fascinates me. Something else. None of the above. Think outside the box. Even more, blow the fucking box to smithereens.

Searching. Finding. Real self. False self. God. Devil. Masters. Disciples. Wisdom. Ignorance. Good. Bad. Right. Wrong.

More and more, I have the sense that It is something else entirely. By “It” I mean the root, the core, the kernel, the center that we’re all spinning around and never finding.

Now, though, I'm beginning to suspect that there's no root, no core, no kernel, no center to me. I've never been able to locate one. And neuroscience has come to a pretty firm conclusion that such couldn't exist.

Here's what Kevin Nelson, M.D., has to say in his book, "The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain: A Neurologist's Search for the God Experience."

Through localizing brain function, the behavioral neurologists had shown that who we think we are is a complicated and rather fragile synthetic process orchestrated by our brains. When something interferes with that process our reality and sense of self quickly and dramatically fragment.

While most of us view our "self" as concrete and coherent, akin to, say, Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of the Mona Lisa, to a neurologist the self is more like Picasso's cubist portrait of Dora Maar, his lover and muse: a fragmented amalgam of fractured planes.

Or, if you prefer Impressionism, our view of the self is a little like a water lily by Monet: at a glance it appears coherent, but up close you realize its harmonious appearance is an illusion, that the object you saw at a distance is actually a bundle of discrete and unconnected parts.

This conception of self is both disturbing and exhilarating.

I don't particularly like the idea that I don't exist -- at least, not in the way that I've become accustomed to thinking was true. Meaning, the entity that I feel myself to be, "Brian," isn't as distinctly solid and real as my sensing of myself from the inside of me.

But there's a positive side to being a shape-shifting, insubstantial, ever-changing conglomeration: like Janis Joplin sang, freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. If self is an illusion, I've got no self that'll be lost when I die, or any reason to worry that my self might have an unpleasant afterlife if I don't embrace some form of religiosity now.

Thanks to a Twitter tweet by someone I follow, this morning I came across a Nour Foundation video of a panel discussion on "To Be or Not to Be: The Self as Illusion."

I watched the first 10:30, most of which featured Thomas Metzinger -- who wrote "The Ego Tunnel," a book I gave 5 stars to (that link contains pointers to five other posts I wrote about The Ego Tunnel).

Metzinger says that the brain/mind is not an entity, but a process.  He responds to the moderator's introductory comment about the self being an illusion in an interesting fashion. The big question, he says, is "who has all these states of consciousness?"

In other words (so far as I understand Metzinger), there is no one at home inside our heads to realize the self is an illusion.

At about the 8:30 mark, Metzinger speaks about our ancestors' primal urge that can be expressed as You Must Not Die! Of course, that powerful emotion would have been felt wordlessly by virtually all of the species which preceded the evolution of Homo sapiens.

Now, though, the cerebral cortex enables us to anticipate and articulate the prospect of our death even when we're not in mortal danger. This, says Metzinger, creates a chasm between we feel should not happen, our dying, and what we know will happen, our dying. We humans are the first animal to understand that we will die.

And thus springs one of the roots of religion. A tap root, in my opinion, because it supports and nourishes a central tenet of virtually every faith: continued existence of the self, or soul, in an afterlife.

This is a comforting belief.

However, comfort isn't a reliable guide to reality. Such is the quandary of the human condition -- when it is fitting to embrace what makes us feel good, even if it isn't true, and when truth should be faced head-on no matter the emotional consequences.

Comments

[Mike Williams]

" The big question, he says, is "who" has all these states of consciousness?"

Metzinger says there is no one at home inside our heads to realize the self is an illusion.
quote poster

Who am I, or Am I a Who ? A La Ramana Maharshi. How can such a simple question
lead to enlightenement ?

Because the answer to this question is
that by which knowing, all else becomes
known.

It causes a complete revolution in
the brain.

It takes more courage to tackle this question then any other endevor in life.

This is why U. G. Krishnamurti said,
If people knew what enlightenment was,
they would not touch it with a ten foot
bardge poke."

Consciousness is temporal and runs in
flahes of microseconds. It is not
permenant. It is like the frames on a
movie film. It has been declared a delusion
by Dr. Susan Blackmore.

The Grand Delusion.

That is why a magician is needed,
not a Guru.

To realize no self, is to realize there
is no hope of everlasting life.

Only a deadly honest true seeker ventures
on to such ground.

It is the ultimate death.

It announces the Supreme Futility.

Mankind is the insane God believer.

So, we destroy the earth with our
Supreme vanity.

The earth is an insane asylum.

We are an animal that evolved....
only to go mad.

[Nietzsche]

Than what would you answer to Descartes that argued: I can doubt anything exept the fact that I can doubt. Therefore I must exist?
I agree that our identity can shift to anything like Sartre showed we can identify with the objects and become like living zombies.
I'm not speaking about our self image that is a mental illusion but about the feeling of self that can take many shapes.
Jung talked about the process of individuation that was acompannied by dreams about circles or rings. The ring is an archetype of the Self, and the process of individuation was described by Jung as a shifting of the identification from the outside of the circle to the centre. He didn't argue that the centre does not exist but that our present identification is an illusion. So his argument is more that we can view life from the ouside in, normal identification with the body. Our from the inside out what means that we identify with something not material. Call it the soul.
Another example is the thinking experiment with a blind girl that studied everything about seeing. She new all the equations and descriptions. But the first time she saw light she experienced something new that she did not know before. Therefore subjective experience is more that objective experience. And that something is what distinguishes zombies from us. Read Chandler about the distinction between us and machines.

[Nietzsche]

I meant Chalmer, it was a long time ago that I studied that :)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/

[Juliano]

so who is a serial killer then, for example? How will s/he learn if not for some kind of self?

[jon weiss]

The Mad Hatter running around looking for his center that can't resolve until he vanishes?

Brian you wrote: "Now, though, I'm beginning to suspect that there's no root, no core, no kernel, no center to me."

The problem may be the fabricated I is looking a for a center but refuses crucifiction. It is a scary matter. A bit of voidness here and there, well OK as long as I can come back and chat with my girlfriend, have a beer and watch the 49ers.

[tucson]

Many years ago I took some LSD (one of many times back then). This particular experience was seminal. All the pieces and components of what formed 'me' in my mind:

memories, friends, relationships, knowledge, objects, my body, thoughts, ideas, became fractured similar to Picasso's cubist stuff.

All these components of "me" were sort of floating in space helter skelter, separate and disjointed. At first I was panic stricken as this "break up" occured until nothing was left. It was a sort of death. There was no locus of assembledge. No 'me'.

But despite this breaking up of 'me' into fractals, there remained a formless matrix that was aware and alive, but not as any sort of form or aspect that could be described. It simply was. It definitely was.

As 'I' settled into this awareness I became more comfortable and found that nothing was lost except a temporary amalgamation of this formlessness into form. I saw that creations were formed by "crystalization" of this formlessness into intricate, vast, symetrical mandalas of conception... Universes that would manifest as dreams and then dissipate into limitless luminosity like bubbles emanating from and back into a cosmic infinity.

I saw that was how creation worked, that I and each one of us from bug to man were one of these mandalas, interwoven and yet individual, manifesting infinitely out of the "aliveness" of the formless super-matrix, if you will.

Reincarnation was understood as everything being everything in timelessness. There was nothing that anyone, anything had never been or would be. It was all interlinked, interwoven in a flowing flux, all time, all life, all forms. Eternally and in an instant.

Let me tell you this was way cool and "I" basked in it immeasurably.

Eventually, the little pieces of 'me' began to rejoin bit by bit until finally I was I once again.

For days I felt weightless as if a huge burden had been lifted off my back. Mundane concerns were dealt with in an attitude of lightness and confidence that all would fall together as it must, and it did.

As time went by this sort of wore off and I gradually returned to my former self much the way cement gradually hardens and holds the bricks together. It was not a bad thing.
It's just how things work.

The "matrix" is always there in and as us forever. We are it and it is us. No difference.

Don't worry. Enjoy your life. All is well.

Peace.

[Dogribb]

Can you fit the thought..

"I don't particularly like the idea that I don't exist"

..into the thought of Brian ?

[Mike Williams]

To Be ...... or Not to Be

Do we have a choice ?

I think ... therefore I am ?

But, is the "I" permenant, or temporal ?

According to Dr. Susan Blackmore consciousness
is temporal and exists in micro seconds.

Continuous consciousness is described by her
as a delusion on continuity and in fact does
not exist.

Consciousness did not cause the universe,
it was an end product, or an effect
of evolution.

Nietzsche had predicted this.

The rapid fire of the neurons creates
the illusion consciousness moves continuously.

Our existance exits in flashes.

Those micro flashes identify with the body
experience.

The micro flashes appear to us as if
we are the screen watching and feeling
all experiences.

We feel as if is is our Self.
An experiencer. A noun.

But, we in fact a verb, not a noun.

Consciousness is a verb, not a permenant noun.

We have identified our temporal consciousness
with a Greater Consciousness. That greater
Consciousness does not exist.

Nor does our little 'self' have a Greater Self
to be identified with.

Neither consciousness, nor a self exists,
according to Susan Blackmore.

The Guru capitalizes on these old hat
fabrics of ancient rhetoric to enhance
themselves.

Science has debunked them.

People still think these are issues
and don't realize science has already
debunked the Guru.

The self and Self we would like to identify
with do not exist.

Yet we claw for an eternal life after death.
We will not let go of Heaven or Anami.

We feel we must exist at all costs forever.

We lash out at those whom tell us there
is no forever for us.

The greatest fear in the world, is the fear
we will not exist forever.

That fear has created religion and Gurus.

Can you live without fear ? Can you let go ?

Knowing this is all there is for you ?

Can you live knowing your consciousness
is as thin as a piece of paper, which only
a few drops of water disolves ?

Can you live knowing you were only an illusion ?

That you are an illusion ?

This is why enlightened people don't want
people to become enlightened.

Enlightenement is not something wished on
ones best friend, it is something wished
upon ones worst enemy.

All hopes and dreams are shattered.

One is left "hanging on the Gallows".

Logic does not work when talking to satsangis.

I had to do a study of hypnotism to find out
how to deal with people whom believed in crazy things.

It turns out you must talk to these people
by discussing their fear instead, without them realized you tactics.

Until you can get rid of their fear, there
is no possible way for them to discuss logic.

[jon weiss]

Tucson -- experienced something very similar so can esp. appreciate your description here. Thanks.

Mike Williams you wrote:

"Consciousness did not cause the universe,
it was an end product, or an effect
of evolution."

We can't neatly separate the universe known through the senses from the universe known through ostensibly trans-sensual experiences. In either case we are watery, electro-magnetic creatures who may not be in a position, logically speaking, to appreciate the whole enchilada.

[jon weiss]

Mike Williams also wrote above:

"The Guru capitalizes on these old hat
fabrics of ancient rhetoric to enhance
themselves."

What if an alien handed me a 300,000 page mathematical formula that was the first of a billion 300,000 page documents explaining this whole thing euphemistically titled God? Could "i" relate to that? Who (me, glorified chimpanzee) is asking is more significant than the answer. We are barely above sniffing butts...albeit we like to imagine otherwise.

[Raven]

But even nothing is something....right?

Life is thoroughly a mystery. I'm convinced that science, nor philosophy, nor religion will ever figure it all out....and that's the way it should be. Of course, in the mean time, the never ending search is alot of fun. Who would want to do away with so much fun? Not I... ;-)

[tucson]

Mike Williams wrote: "We have identified our temporal consciousness with a Greater Consciousness. That greater Consciousness does not exist.:

--It seems to me our temporal consciousness is the greater consciousness and the other way around. Maybe we don't like the word consciousness. What is consciousness? Call it aliveness, energy, or whatever. It is being. Being is not a noun. It is a verb. It is a process, an effervescence that pulses in microsecond microbursts, ever unfolding, sizzling and percolating as life.

[Mike Williams]

" But even nothing is something....right?"
quote Raven

That is correct. Our universe creates space as it expands. Only outside our universe is nothing.

Space is something tangible even when it is empty
to our eyes. The three laws apply to space.
electromagnetism, gravity and another force.

True emptiness only lies outside our expanding universe. It can never be experienced by us.

We are woven in the fabric of space, which is
something, not nothing.

[William_Nelson]

Silence speaks...but "you" gotta learn to hear it! Once "you" hear silence like a roar your searchings and yearnings will simply be understood as playful activity full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

[Quizzle]

I like this.