Something {self, cognition} about people provides agency and identity. Selves persist through amnesia, sensory deprivation, minimal information, body-perception loss, distorted perceptions, and hallucinations.
agency
Selves have will and control and perform actions. Selves have a continuous history as agents in space and time {narrative self, agent}.
identity
People feel personal identity, unity, unique individuality, and continuity. Perception continuity implies permanent, unified, and immaterial self. Selves are aware of themselves.
subject
Selves are subjects of conscious experiences. Selves {embodied self} have proprioception related to physical body. Selves are in bodies. Selves are also objects.
self and other
Ideas of self and not-self can be innate and develop as verbal concepts develop. Organisms must categorize what they can encounter as prey, predator, self, same-sex species member, or opposite-sex species member. Knowledge of self or not-self controls action inhibition or permission. Subject, person, I, or self involves self-protection.
memory
"I am who I remember myself being" is an idea about subjective self.
reference
Self is always something and is never a property of something. Self always refers to same thing.
reference point
Self is body reference point in space and time. Observation point causes viewpoint [Gallagher and Shear, 1999] [Hurley, 1998].
soul
Self can be or have soul [Augustine, 427] [Brown et al., 1998] [McMullin, 2000] [Murphy, 1998] [Sloan, 2000].
alternatives: composite
Though they seem to have unity, selves have several functions.
alternatives: no continuity
Though selves seem to stay the same, split-brain patients, multiple personalities, and self disorders indicate that selves do not have personal identity and continuity.
alternatives: no integration
Though selves seem to have beliefs, thoughts, and memories, brain processes these concepts at myriad places, so integration is fleeting.
alternatives: no person
Though selves seem to have personality, motivations and behaviors have multiple sources.
alternatives: no unity
Though selves seem to be just one observer, split-brain patients, multiple personalities, and self disorders indicate that selves do not have unity.
alternatives: no non-physical self
Though selves seem to have unique type, non-physical substance cannot affect physical brain.
alternatives: no self
Perhaps, there is no self.
alternatives: only collection
Though selves seem to be at experience centers, they are only experience collections.
alternatives: only referral
Perhaps, self is center of three-dimensional space and one-dimensional time created by spatial and temporal referral.
causes: coordination
Selves result from body-movement and sensation covariance, which distinguishes self from background environment and other organisms.
causes: society
Psychological properties cause psychological reactions in other people, which people can recognize by comparison with their psychological properties, and so create ideas of self, others, and their relations.
brain damage
Temporary or permanent brain damage can cause loss of aspects of self [Ehrlich, 2000] [Ramachandran, 2004]. Past, present, or future can be unusable. Selves can become discontinuous. Self can seem to be outside body. People can lose will and agency. Self-awareness can end. Selves end at death.
teletransporter
Imagine that machines can analyze all body cells, molecules, and momenta and can use that information, and necessary raw materials, to recreate exactly that body and brain anywhere, with no errors {teletransporter} [Parfit, 1984] [Parfit, 1987]. Imagine also that the machines destroy original body. Now imagine that machines can destroy and re-create body parts in same places.
Selves cause effects in space and time through voluntary movements {agency, self}, while trying to reach goals and satisfy wants. Selves are highest agent and organize brain functional modules.
People need a mental image {body image} of their physical dimensions to perform actions.
Speaking in first person {first person} includes idea that "I" differs from "you" or "it". First person implicitly refers to self and intention [Gallagher and Shear, 1999] [Hurley, 1998]. First person reports knowledge about report producer. First person requires self-knowledge, just as speaking in second or third person requires knowledge about other objects.
Organisms must distinguish self and other {non-self} {not-self}. Organisms that can bite or claw need sense of self and other to ensure behavior is toward right object. Because it reverberates in body, sense information from self differs fundamentally from information from other.
Constant mind {personal identity} exists through all experience. Identity is intentions and their relations. Personal identity provides an unchanging basis for learning and adaptation. Personal identity depends on apparent conscious-experience unity, continuing goals, sustained wants, memory continuity, physical causes and effects, and connections between what people plan to do and what they actually do.
Perhaps, persons in bodies are individual subjects, are real, and have physical and psychological properties or predicates {descriptive metaphysics, self}. Selves are subjects of experience that are one mental thing {subject of experience as one mental thing} (SESMET). Experience is a series of mental states {pearl view}. Self is new each time. Introspection shows that consciousness alternates with unconsciousness. There is no personality or agent. Neural processes have mental as well as non-mental properties [Strawson, 1999].
Perhaps, selves are abstract mind-process collections. Perhaps, mind can hold different stories and memories, and these "discourses" create the "I" {discursive psychology}. If brain produces self as narrator {discursive turn}, body can have several selves [Harré and Gillett, 1994].
Perhaps, people build ego identity to oppose loss of self {ego diffusion, self}.
Perhaps, people build ideas of their capabilities and opportunities {ego identity, self} to oppose ego diffusion.
Perhaps, mind has high-level processes {executive level} that know goals and coordinate actions. Self-supervisory processes {self-supervisory level} set goals and their priorities. Using self-supervisory processes makes consciousness. Alternatively, selves are abstract concepts built by mental processes combining functional elements [Mackay, 1987].
Perhaps, selves are concept collections {memeplex, self}, based on first-person language usage [Dawkins, 1976] [Dawkins, 1995].
Perhaps, experiences depend on persons or selves {no-ownership theory} [Strawson, 1999].
Perhaps, all psychological states relate to body {unity relation}. Body and body experiences cause mental states and so create self. Self develops as body develops.
Perhaps, linking declarative memories can produce feelings {autobiographical self}.
Perhaps, object and event perceptions and responses define observer and agent {core-self}, which can use procedural memories but has no unity and is not continuous.
Perhaps, identity and agency are like stories or narratives {narrative self, cognition}. Stories have scenes and characters. Situations or problems arise, develop, and resolve. Stories can guide or suggest action. Goals, wants, and hopes organize narratives, which are self-representations.
People can recall narratives. Perhaps, multiple interconnected and independent narrative fragments are at various editing stages in various mind places.
Narratives assume unified action agents, but narratives are thoughts, not thinkers. Selves are narratives, not entities.
Perhaps, all animal minds have processes that define an overall state {proto-self, cognition} that has no unity, is not continuous, and does not use memory.
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Date Modified: 2022.0225