Pressure is off, according to neuroscience: there's no "real you" to be found

For about 35 years, during the religious phase of my life, the Eastern philosophy I'd embraced had a sort of mantra: self-realization before God-realization. 

Meaning, first we disciples needed to discover our true self as Soul, a drop of the spiritual ocean. Then we could proceed to the next step, becoming one with the ocean of God. Or at least as close to oneness as is possible for a soul-drop. 

The basic notion, which is shared with other spiritual approaches and also some psychological theories, was that there's a "real you" hidden inside each of us. Through meditation, prayer, introspection, therapy, or some other means, the veil that prevents us from knowing who we really are can be lifted.

Supposedly that takes quite a bit of work. It could even be the job of a lifetime, and arguably the most important goal we humans can pursue.

Eventually I began to question that assumption. I resonated with a marvelous 2005 piece from The Onion, a satirical web site, called "Search For Self Called Off After 38 Years." Excerpts:

CHICAGO—The longtime search for self conducted by area man Andrew Speth was called off this week, the 38-year-old said Monday.

“I always thought that if I kept searching and exploring, I’d discover who I truly was,” said Speth from his Wrigleyville efficiency. “Well, I looked deep into the innermost recesses of my soul, I plumbed the depths of my subconscious, and you know what I found? An empty, windowless room the size of an aircraft hangar. From now on, if anybody needs me, I’ll be sprawled out on this couch drinking black-cherry soda and watching Law & Order like everybody else.”

“Fuck it,” he added.

...Since calling off the search, Speth has canceled his yoga classes, turned in his organic co-op membership card, and withdrawn plans to go on a sweat-lodge retreat in Saskatchewan. On Tuesday afternoon, he loaded books by such diverse authors as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Meister Eckhart, and George Gurdjieff into a box labeled “free shit,” and left it outside of his apartment beside a trash can.

...Though hardened and haggard from his long search, Speth expressed relief that it was over. Asked if he had any advice for those who are continuing on their own searches, Speth had two words of advice: “Give up.”

“Trust me—there’s nothing out there for you to find,” Speth said. “You’re wasting your life. The sooner you realize you have no self to discover, the sooner you can get on with what’s truly important: celebrity magazines, snack foods, and Internet porn.”

Well, my own calling-off of the search for my self has taken a different direction. I still buy books, but they are about secular Buddhism and neuroscience, each of which is big on there not being a self to find.

But just like the fictional Speth, I find that giving up on the quest to discover the "real you" inside my head is a massive relief. It's hard to believe that I spent so much time looking for my genuine self when, from my current perspective, all along there never was such a self to find. 

It's similar to looking for my iPhone, only to discover that it's in my pocket -- the obvious difference being that with my phone, there's something to be found, whereas with my self, the thing doesn't exist.

Here's some passages along this line from my current neuroscience/psychology reading, Robert Kurzban's book Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind. 

Modularity implies that there isn't one, unified "self" in your head, that there isn't a "real" "you" in there somewhere. The intuition that there is might be useful for various purposes, but if modularity is right, then this intuition is wrong.

...Consider a recent study in which participants were shown pictures of a number of faces, including one picture of themselves, along with a set of pictures of themselves morphed with highly attractive (and unattractive) features that made them look more (or less) attractive. Participants frequently identified one of the faces morphed with the highly attractive features -- the better looking face -- as their own.

Cases like this are called "self-deception" because the subjects seem to believe something they somehow shouldn't, and the thing they shouldn't is, in some way, "good" for them. Here we expect that people see their own faces, not digitally enhanced, every day in the mirror.

Surely we know what we look like. This intuition -- c'mon, you know what you look like -- makes it seem like "we're deceiving ourselves." We really know what we look like, but we're telling ourselves that we're more attractive than we really are. 

I want to be clear that I don't know what the italicized words in that last sentence might mean. I don't know what it means to "really" believe something or who or what is doing the telling or the listening. Indeed, without invoking Buzzy or something like him, expressions like "we're telling ourselves" make no sense.

Using phrases like this is just bad psychology because it implies a little Buzzy, with "real" beliefs, who is communicating with some unspecified something.

...In all of this it doesn't seem to me that there's anything plausibly called "self-deception" going on. This labeling problem stems from the insistence in psychology on the word "self," and thinking of a unified "self" instead of a collection of modules.

As we'll see in the next two chapters, almost any time you come across a theory with the word "self" in it, you should check your wallet. Here, I don't see why being wrong in some systematic way suggests that there's any deception of any "self."

Comments

[October]

Self. Who or what is Self? If we look inside what we find. Is my name is self?
Self is what is looking at us when we are looking for self.pretty intresting.

We can stare at self but what use it is in spiritual journey.
I believe spiritual journey is what really matters to individual human being.
Other than that nothing matters.

One day we all are gonna die. If we keep this thing in mind, whole perspective to looking at life changes.

Problem is when we contemplate at self, mind comes in.Beacuse mind
came first before self.
When there was no existence of anything, a single tap into passive consciousness
Created mind. Then Mind wonders who am I? And then self comes into existence
.
We all are acquainted with our own self. We are aquiainted with our mind.

So both ingredients self and mind is there.Nothing more is required for spiritual journey.
Then why things are complicated? Because mind creates loops.and we get caught up in loops.and it takes us from self. Self inquiry leads to chaos of mind.and we get
Caught up in web of maya.
Self is caught in maya where we are lead to meaningless things.

Only solution to this is awareness of Death. Thought of death is where self
becomes prominent and can lead to meaningful inquiry .

What do you think of death? What will happen when we die? Are we dissolved into death? Sant mat says self is knotted with mind.so death doesn't provide solace.we get
Born again with the same mind continuing.

What about unexplored realms of existence.How do it relates to Death?

[sant64]

Recently read Sebastian Junger's excellent In My Time of Dying, in which he deeply explores a near-death experience. A worthwhile read for those whose reading isn't in an echo chamber. One intriguing thing Junger discovers is that science has no answer for the phenomenon of people seeing relatives when they're near death. This happens across time and geography, and there's no neuroscientific answer for why this occurs.

Another great book is Meditation for Mortal by Oliver Burkeman, which I just finished. This is one of the most practical works on how the "no-self" concept can help one live a more fulfilling life. I learned much from it.

I have no doubt that it can be worthwhile to call of the search. But what "the search" entails is open to nuance. Another book I'm reading is Eric Metaxes' Martin Luther. Luther's life is an interesting story, as before he became an infamous rebel he was an extremely devout and committed Catholic. I was struck by Luther's realization that "you can't climb a ladder to heaven." That is what he felt the church was asking him to do, and Luther evaluated his progress to that goal as completely nil. Despite all the prayer and sacraments to make himself pure enough for God, it dawned on Luther that this was a futile errand.

As many satsangis have come to learn, the same seems to be true for the Great Path of Return in Sant Mat. A certain improved quality of life is realized by the Path, but it's doubtful anyone is securing a foothold in Sach Khand. And so, I think it's quite right to take stock of one's religious search. It may be just an exercise in creating misery. But by the same token, simply giving up on the self-concept is necessarily a sustainable life solution. Meditation for Mortals recounts how Sam Harris, who's studied at the feet of all the great No Self gurus, had a mental health crisis because life wasn't going his way. Just not believing in the self doesn't make it go away.

The search error can be found in Buddhism as well. Chogyam Trungpa, for all his faults, wrote an excellent book on that topic: Cutting Through Spirtual Materialism.

Even so, this matter of the self and the search is not zero-sum. For one thing, we know that the Buddha didn't just feck off when he realized there is no self. Neither did any of his successors in any of the myriad schools of Buddhism. Again, that strongly suggests to me that "no self" is a very nuanced issue. The example of the lives of so many Buddhist masters, who didn't descend into narcissism or hedonism and instead self-lessly sacrificed their lives for others, is a powerful statement that a spiritual path is both true and necessary.

[Ron E.]

Yes, it does look increasingly likely that the brain is more responsible than previously thought. The brain regulates the bodily organs and functions: it creates our reality according to the environment we inhabit: it predicts what action should be taken before thought arises – another survival requirement – it creates mind and self from experiences: it can produce hallucinations, visions and illusions:

It can be seen that what we call the self is a mental phenomenon constructed from all the past experiences and information we have accumulated – whether these experiences are from our early life or a few moments ago. Such experiences give rise to the assumption of what can be called an essence, a ‘me’, or a ‘self’.

I’d say that the illusion of the ‘self’ phenomenon cannot be understood in isolation: we need to view the totality of the brain/body physical and mental processes; briefly detailed below: -

The Brain. The human brain has evolved to the point where it can create concepts (ideas and images) and is able to focus and reflect on them.

The Mind. The mental activity that gives rise to the ‘self’ is the mind. The mind is not a ‘thing’, an actuality; it is the name given to the cognitive processes. Because our minds are our memories and experiences (contents) we tend to feel or believe these contents are who we are – a ‘me’ ‘self’ etc.

The Ego. One aspect of the mind is called ego. The ego/mind is thought that carries the concept of an ‘I’, a ‘Me’. From this concept a separate, autonomous self’ is assumed.

Contents. The contents which are our minds are purely arbitrary and accidental; they are determined by the time and place we were born, by our parents and peers, the local religion and beliefs – and so on. We did not choose them, we is the collective ‘I’.

Identity. Our identities are derived from the contents of the ego/mind and appear to inform us who we are. The contents are memories and experiences; the building blocks of the imaginary ‘self’

Attachment to identity. The ego/mind maintains the belief of a separate ‘me’ by overly attaching itself to identities that strengthen the illusion. Religious and national identities are among the more prominent ones, but an attachment to a ‘self’ identity through being a member of a group, gang or even football team can be equally as strong. The result is a ‘me and them’ or a ‘them and us situation’.

[7 -]

book;
Paolo Panizzo Die heroische Moral des Nihilismus: Schiller und Alfieri (Relié)