I am a philosophy student with an interest in the debate between religion and science. I am a big fan of Professor Polkinghorne's books and would like to ask him a question.
I recently read a book called Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction by Dr. Susan J. Blackmore. The book suggests that our sense of a single "self" "I" or "soul" is illusory and that our current knowledge suggests that the feeling of a stream of consciousness, selfhood and free will are illusions resulting from the processes of the brain. The book advocates not thinking too much(and claims that our thoughts are mostly "Daft and Pointless" anyway) and learn to enjoy the lives we have no control over. As a Christian I find that this idea conflicts with my beliefs but I do not know enough about science to judge its validity. Is our idea of an "I" illusory?
To have an illusion presumably means that somebody believes something that is untrue. It is therefore hard to see in what sense the idea of a self really could be entirely an illusion. It’s a bit like saying the idea that we have a body is an illusion because in fact we have arms, legs, internal organs etc...
Blackmore is over-influenced by Dawkins and Dennett.
Showing posts with label Self. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Self. Show all posts
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Do we have personal continuity? and if not, how can we have souls?
The objections to our idea of a self (to repeat wikipedia) is that: that the intuitive concept of self is an evolutionary artifact. In the monkey-riding-a-tiger model of consciousness the brain models its own unconscious processes just as it models other people. This modeling makes the assumption that the model will continue to apply through time, and so assumes they are the same person they were yesterday. This leads to the intuitive sense of self. The sense of ‘self’ has also become part of our language, part of our concept of responsibility, and the basis of self based morality.
According to this line of criticism, the sense of self is an evolutionary artifact, which saves time in the circumstances it evolved for. But sense of self breaks down when considering some rare events such as memory loss, split personality disorder, brain damage, brainwashing, and various thought experiments. When presented with these imperfections in the intuitive sense of self and the consequences to this important concept which rely partly on the strict concept of self, people tend to try to mend the concept, possibly because of cognitive dissonance. Critics of personal continuity believe that this leads to extending the concept of self beyond its practical application and justification.
It is logically impossible to have the illusion that you have a mind: because an illusion is a false belief held to be true and only entities with minds can hold beliefs.
No doubt all our ideas are to some extent products of evolution: neuroscience itself is. This has nothing much to do with whether it is true.
The soul is the essence of who we are – not a separate physical object.
I was playing Beethoven’s 10 Violin Sonata (with Ruth Palmer) on my 55th birthday. As it happens her Strad is older than the Sonata, my piano much younger. But it is the same sonata as the one Beethoven wrote. If we were playing it on the violin that was originally used, and from the original MS, it would be amazing, but it would still be the same sonata and would make (intrinsically) no difference to the music. Indeed it could be that my piano and her violin are far better instruments than the ones on which the sonata was originally performed. That is a bit like the Resurrection: our music on better instruments with strings that don’t break or go out of tune.
Or in the immortal words of John Donne: “when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated”
According to this line of criticism, the sense of self is an evolutionary artifact, which saves time in the circumstances it evolved for. But sense of self breaks down when considering some rare events such as memory loss, split personality disorder, brain damage, brainwashing, and various thought experiments. When presented with these imperfections in the intuitive sense of self and the consequences to this important concept which rely partly on the strict concept of self, people tend to try to mend the concept, possibly because of cognitive dissonance. Critics of personal continuity believe that this leads to extending the concept of self beyond its practical application and justification.
It is logically impossible to have the illusion that you have a mind: because an illusion is a false belief held to be true and only entities with minds can hold beliefs.
No doubt all our ideas are to some extent products of evolution: neuroscience itself is. This has nothing much to do with whether it is true.
The soul is the essence of who we are – not a separate physical object.
I was playing Beethoven’s 10 Violin Sonata (with Ruth Palmer) on my 55th birthday. As it happens her Strad is older than the Sonata, my piano much younger. But it is the same sonata as the one Beethoven wrote. If we were playing it on the violin that was originally used, and from the original MS, it would be amazing, but it would still be the same sonata and would make (intrinsically) no difference to the music. Indeed it could be that my piano and her violin are far better instruments than the ones on which the sonata was originally performed. That is a bit like the Resurrection: our music on better instruments with strings that don’t break or go out of tune.
Or in the immortal words of John Donne: “when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated”
Are selves a delusion?
Recent findings seem to suggest that we have no "self", but phenomenal self models,as argued in this book. How can we have souls if this is true?
This is a bit like saying that we do not have bodies because we have arms and legs, or that a string quartet does not exist because there are 2 violins, a viola and a cello.
You “soul” is the essence of who you are. If it turned out that this essence were in some sense essentially composed of many modules this is not a problem.
However the idea that the self is a delusion raises the question of what/who is being deluded, so it rests on very weak philosophical foundations.
Scientifically it may well be that our idea of our selves is composed through a number of complex and disparate mechanisms, indeed it is hard to see how it could be otherwise. But philosophically it makes no sense at all to describe this as an illusion:
a. The conclusion “the self is an illusion” cannot possibly follow from an observation like “the self arises through the interaction of a number of complex and disparate mechanisms”. With the possible exception of elementary particles, everything arises through such interactions. Metzinger might as well say “the body is an illusion” or “the brain is an illusion”.
b. To have an illusion presupposes that there is a conscious self which holds the false belief. If there were no conscious selves there could be no illusions.
Each of these objections is in my view catastrophic for Metzinger’s philosophical position.
This is a bit like saying that we do not have bodies because we have arms and legs, or that a string quartet does not exist because there are 2 violins, a viola and a cello.
You “soul” is the essence of who you are. If it turned out that this essence were in some sense essentially composed of many modules this is not a problem.
However the idea that the self is a delusion raises the question of what/who is being deluded, so it rests on very weak philosophical foundations.
Scientifically it may well be that our idea of our selves is composed through a number of complex and disparate mechanisms, indeed it is hard to see how it could be otherwise. But philosophically it makes no sense at all to describe this as an illusion:
a. The conclusion “the self is an illusion” cannot possibly follow from an observation like “the self arises through the interaction of a number of complex and disparate mechanisms”. With the possible exception of elementary particles, everything arises through such interactions. Metzinger might as well say “the body is an illusion” or “the brain is an illusion”.
b. To have an illusion presupposes that there is a conscious self which holds the false belief. If there were no conscious selves there could be no illusions.
Each of these objections is in my view catastrophic for Metzinger’s philosophical position.
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