20 ms·

The ‘Real You’ Is a Myth

125 points by prostoalex 8y ago

stewbrew 8y ago
"The ‘real you’ is a myth – we constantly create false memories to achieve the identity we want" Isn't this somewhat self-contradictory? Why assume the real me has to be based on true memories -- and I don't even want to start a discussion of what a true memory, a true account (save anything subjective?) of some event could be. If we know who we want to be, we most likely also know our real me.
- boomboomsubban 8y ago
  It depends on how you define "the real you." Generally, people use it to mean some long term inner identity that defines them as a person. This is what is a myth. You seems to use "the real you" to mean your current state.
  - stephen_g 8y ago
    Would many people agree with the definition of “real you” as self-identity? I’d define the term as more as a combination of somebody’s personality and how they act and think when not consciously trying to act differently. For example, at work you might inhibit some of your normal characteristics and be more serious, or act nice to people you don’t really like when you might not do that normally. I think people can do that to such an extent that’s it’s possible that they could be deluded as to the nature of their “true” self, thinking themselves, say, kinder, or more competent in certain areas, or less racist than they actually are when their guard is down. Sometimes you need someone else or some experience to realise you didn’t really know yourself! I think current state is part of it - for example, people might become more cynical over time through their life not going the way they want. Things like that can gradually become part of the “real you” without you noticing.
    - boomboomsubban 8y ago
      >I’d define the term as more as a combination of somebody’s personality and how they act and think when not consciously trying to act differently. This article is about how personality is shaped by memory, and how flawed memory is. I'd say that definition is fairly close to the one used in the article, and there being no "real self" supports the shift over time and need for outside views that you have noticed.
  - stewbrew 8y ago
    I think it's a rather classic problem. Does it move? Is the arrow there the same arrow as it was here? How did it get from here to there? The problem here is of course cutting time into intervals where the arrow (or the self) has a state. The problem (or myth) probably lies in the eye of the beholder.
    - boomboomsubban 8y ago
      It's not a problem, the term can have different definitions when needed. In this situation, "the real me" is a personality based on past experience. This article says that definition is a myth that doesn't work with our current understanding of memory. You can now speculate if there is a "real me" that consists of something else.
vbuwivbiu 8y ago
not only that, but all perception is a constructive process based on predictions according to multiple competing models which run in parallel of which we are only aware of a few at most. As such, other people have no single or objective perception of us either.
senectus1 8y ago
I'm fairly self conscious of the fact that I am at least 3 or 4 different people. My "work" personality is a completely different one to my "Home" personality. and My Online and internal personalities are all different people as well. which one is the real me? shrug they're all real, just used for different purposes. I'm fairly sure I'm not unique in this, but then I suspect I'm better at compartmentalising than most others so maybe I am.
- chrisco255 8y ago
  What you're sort of saying, is that you show different sides of yourself depending on what role you're currently playing and who your audience is. I think we all do that to varying degrees. Some more than others.
  - veli_joza 8y ago
    It's more than that. The mind doesn't have the mental capacity to hold all of yourself at once, so when interacting with others you become fused with current role and it becomes almost impossible to juggle other roles with current one. There are many psychology studies of internal conflict when you are forced to play two or more roles at once (for example, introducing your parents to girlfriend/boyfriend). A balanced person therefore needs to have goals of different roles aligned.
- coffeemug 8y ago
  There is a classic book by the sociologist Erving Goffman (https://www.amazon.com/Presentation-Self-Everyday-Life/dp/0385094027/ https://www.amazon.com/Presentation-Self-Everyday-Life/dp/03...) that covers this phenomenon. All the world's a stage.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  The "Worlds Theory”, according to Seinfeld: https://youtu.be/uPG3YMcSvzo https://youtu.be/uPG3YMcSvzo
- kaolti 8y ago
  Some might say the real you is the one which is aware of all the other ones.
chrisco255 8y ago
Be wary of your own self-delusions. Sometimes they might be useful. Other times, they might be detrimental.
- imesh 8y ago
  But what if it's your self-delusion making you think your non-delusion is a delusion?
  - shoo 8y ago
    in that case, remain wary
messit 8y ago
The 'Real You' is not a myth, and it is not based on thoughts. It is what you truly are, and what is lost when you die.
- uncle_d 8y ago
  Or... what endures when you die.
- kaolti 8y ago
  How can you actually know what is lost when you die?
  - rusk 8y ago
    who said it's about knowing
    - kaolti 8y ago
      It was implied in the comment I was replying to.
      - rusk 8y ago
        > The 'Real You' is not a myth, and it is not based on thoughts. It is what you truly are, and what is lost when you die. I don't think it was ... if anything "it is not based on thoughts" would imply the opposite! An object "is" an object whether it knows it is or not. EDIT I think maybe you're interpreting the final clause of the sentence "what is lost when you die" as "what is lost to you" but I read it as "what is lost to others".
- gaius 8y ago
  What is real? That which is irreplaceable.
RikNieu 8y ago
Real me. Right. Which one is that? 2 Year old me? 10 Year old me? Current age me? Me yesterday? Me today? The me I experience phenomenologically or the me other people perceive, interpret and interact with? The different me's others perceive individually? Will the real me please stand up.
- madacoo 8y ago
  Would it be reasonable to define the real me as simply the perpetually mutating sum of all those things?
  - drjesusphd 8y ago
    In the play "No Exit", Sartre (through one of the characters) says "You are your life. And nothing else." It stands to reason that the "real you" never gets fully realized until you die.
  - RikNieu 8y ago
    I dunno, would it be reasonable to call a cloud that temporarily looks like Chewbacca Chewbacca? I suppose it would make sense in that particular moment in time, and in that particular context, but it's not an image of Chewbacca is it? Not really. It's just a conveniet way of refering to phenomena... happening and being perceived a certain way. In a similar way, I'd say yes, we are the "real us" at any point in time, but only in the sense that it makes convient sense in that particular moment, and only as a device to point at a set of particular processes/things happening.
- helloindia 8y ago
  Just like asking which is the real river?
- undershirt 8y ago
  "How am I not myself?" Jude Law repeats this in "I Heart Huckabees" as he slowly slips into existential crisis.
- kowdermeister 8y ago
Muha_ 8y ago
"I" is most valuable thing I have and only thing undoubtedly existing. And this thing not exists at all if I believe thats the world exists independently of me. This is not about natural sciences, it's a philosophical paradox that will never be solved.
thunderbong 8y ago
I find sometimes it's easy to be myself Sometimes I find it's better to be somebody else - Dave Matthews Band - So much to say
rusk 8y ago
Since having a child, and seeing my friends and sibs having children I have come to the conclusion that there is a large degree of our personalities are "hard-wired". It's amazing how each child comes out differently with their own personality right off the blocks. You typically see invariant characteristics persist through life. To me this is "the real you", the aspects of your personality that are with you throughout your life. If I had to put a figure on it, to avoid argument I'd say it accounts for between 30 and 50% of your behaviour. The rest is shaped by social conditioning, life experiences and the environment we find ourselves living in. But even these could be said to be mediated in some part by the initial 30%.
- hrnnnnnn 8y ago
  I read The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature a while ago and your numbers are pretty close to what Pinker says. About 50% of personality from genetics, 50% from environment, and approximately 0% from parental influence.
  - dan-robertson 8y ago
    Surely parental influence falls under environment?
    - bloak 8y ago
      Yes, of course it does. Parents choose which school the children go to, for example.
      - thorin 8y ago
        Not just that: where you live, what kind of house, is there green space nearby, what toys are there, how many people are around in the house whether you spend a lot of time with friends/grandparents, whether there is a lot of interaction with the parent or they are just left by themselves or with the TV on.
    - rademacher 8y ago
Orlan 8y ago
If anyone caught Derek Delgaudio's Off-Broadway show "In and Of Itself", he dealt with this concept. Great show, limited run just ended recently.
hrnnnnnn 8y ago
This sounds like the idea of "no-self" from Buddhism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta
- kaolti 8y ago
  It is the basis of that, not sure why would anyone downvote you.
- helloindia 8y ago
  As someone who is studying at the moment, I thought the same.
evook 8y ago
Cogito ergo est.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  "I think therefore it is"?
etiam 8y ago
Mazzoni G, Scoboria A, Harvey L. (2010) Nonbelieved memories. Abstract: This is the first empirical study of vivid autobiographical memories for events that people no longer believe happened to them. Until now, this phenomenon has been the object of relatively rare, albeit intriguing, anecdotes, such as Jean Piaget's description of his vivid memory of an attempted abduction that never happened. The results of our study show that nonbelieved memories are much more common than is expected. Approximately 20% of our initial sample reported having at least one nonbelieved autobiographical memory. Participants' ratings indicate that nonbelieved memories share most recollective qualities of believed memories, but are characterized by more negative emotions. The results have important implications for the way autobiographical memory is conceptualized and for the false-memory debate. "Approximately 20% of our initial sample reported having at least one nonbelieved autobiographical memory." and an anecdote of Piaget vividly remembering something wrong after being consistently misled by his mother as a child. Some discrepancy between that and "we constantly create false memories to achieve the identity we want". If my memory serves right it's well established in laboratory conditions that autobiographical memory is vulnerable to adversarial manipulation, but last thing I heard it wasn't at all clear that it spontaneously malfunctions under normal living conditions. I see very little in this piece that gives me reason to revise that impression.
- boomboomsubban 8y ago
  That's the research showing that memories shape personality. The research about about autobiographical memory is further down the page.
qwerty456127 8y ago
The good news is "real you" probably are not your memories - these are yours, not you. The bad news is you are probably going to forget this and have a hard time getting the clue if you lose your memory. But perhaps it may be right the opposite - maybe one with all their memory lost may automatically get "face to face" with their "real self" actually. I would love to test that given a guarantee that all my memories are going to return soon. I've heard some psychedelics can induce this experience (and the memories are supposed to return as it wears off) called "ego death" if taken in sufficiently high doses. Perhaps I have even had such an experience but I'm not sure if it was that: I've once smoked some strong weed after drinking too much booze and forgotten everything (for about half an hour) - the feeling (but no information) of self-identity remained perfectly intact but I was afraid to leave the bar as I had no idea of where do I live and how do I get there.
Fri21Sep 8y ago
I disagree. I've been keeping a journal for more than 10 years (started when I was 14 and am 25 now), where I report important events and more importantly reflect on them, and also on general concepts. Reading old entries can be very enlightening. What comes out of it is that events are the "data", while personality/identity is the "software". The data is various, but the software is the same. The consistency of reasoning between now and then is incredible. When I read the setup of an old recounting, I start reacting to it while reading it from the point of view of my now-self, and then I see that the reflection of my old-self on this event to be very consistent with that. It's naive, uninformed and a bit rebellious (probably because of teenagehood), and sometimes because of that it completely misses the point, but the direction of reflection is the same. It's not alien, it makes sense. We're reacting to events by using our software on related data. The value of experience entirely lies in the data, which can sometimes create entire shifts in perspective, but the software is the same. If you read an old journal you'll see that most reactions are the same, and for those which differ you can point out exactly what piece of data was missing in comparison to today's perspective.
- donmatito 8y ago
  Your case is somewhat particular (and is a very good thing to do). Because you have a log of past events, your memory processes can match against a reference and filter out deviations. Most people don't have such an external log/reference. Memories cannot be externally validated, only internally validated against other memories. So, small deviations can accumulate, and overtime create entirely false narratives (esp around uncomfortable or even traumatic events) You make me want to start a diary :-)
- comboy 8y ago
  Our software wouldn't be very interesting if it wouldn't be able to at least partially modify itself. But that's a very interesting experiment you are running. I wonder if you will still hold the same conclusion after next 20 years. Although, you can always say that the data is being interpreted by the software and effectively say that the source code changes but the interpreter stays the same.
- rusk 8y ago
throwayw32 8y ago
This has been dealt to death in Dharmic philosophies; I'm surprised there is zero attribution to this anywhere in this article. This is not the first such instance though; I have to wonder why standard academic ethics is not followed with anything concerning Indic traditions.
- bitexploder 8y ago
  I often find modern psychology heavily resembles ancient life philosophies. For example, CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) is, effectively, applied Stoicism. If you were to explain CBT to an ancient stoic they would just nod and agree, understanding the approach intimately.
yboris 8y ago
A related book: "Strangers to Ourselves" by Timothy D. Wilson http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674013827 http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674013827 Excellent book with excellent advice about how to proceed.
p2detar 8y ago
But what is selected as a personal memory also needs to fit the current idea that we have of ourselves. Let’s suppose you have always been a very kind person, but after a very distressing experience you have developed a strong aggressive trait that now suits you. Not only has your behaviour changed, your personal narrative has too. If you are now asked to describe yourself, you might include past events previously omitted from your narrative – for example, instances in which you acted aggressively. I have been pondering on a similar question for some time now. I have an amateurish and somewhat Jungian theory: I think the "real me" is a collection of archetypes that are constantly struggling to take control over the mind and body. These archetypes are also constantly being improved on or new ones are being acquired through life time experiences. The "I" or the consciousness is nothing more than an observer and it also has the role to create a reasonable explanation, a justification if you will, of the motives behind actions. But the motives of the "I" are entirely produced by its collection of archetypes. This, in reality, would mean that the consciousness mind has no real choice in what one does! It is the archetypes that drive us to do or say things and the conscious mind just observes and creates a reason out of our memories and knowledge. This would explain situations where, for example, one gets angry and says something that offends and hurts another person, but they would then almost immediately ask themselves "Why the heck did I even say/do that?" and the conscious mind creates a justification. After that another archetype prevails, e.g.; the one of compassion, and an apology would follow. Of course, none of this explains how archetypes came to be in the first place.
- snikeris 8y ago
  This is similar to what is presented in Minsky's Society of Mind. What you're calling archetypes, he calls agents. Question for you...I agree with your observer idea. But why have an observer? What purpose does it serve? Couldn't we make do as just a collection of agents?
  - p2detar 8y ago
    An observer could be required because of the causality nature of our reality. I would assume the observer is an agent that connects cause and effect. It could be the one thing that brings order out of chaos in reality, if by chaos we mean the collection of agents. I want to thank you about mentioning "Minsky's Society of Mind". On my reading list.
emodendroket 8y ago
Wow, the claim of the headline does not follow from what the article explains at all. OK, people craft a narrative that fits their self-conception and use memories selectively to that end, some of which are not even real. How does "the 'real you' is a myth" follow from that at all?

125 points by prostoalex 8y ago

"The ‘real you’ is a myth – we constantly create false memories to achieve the identity we want" Isn't this somewhat self-contradictory? Why assume the real me has to be based on true memories -- and I don't even want to start a discussion of what a true memory, a true account (save anything subjective?) of some event could be. If we know who we want to be, we most likely also know our real me.

boomboomsubban 8y ago
It depends on how you define "the real you." Generally, people use it to mean some long term inner identity that defines them as a person. This is what is a myth. You seems to use "the real you" to mean your current state.
- stephen_g 8y ago
  Would many people agree with the definition of “real you” as self-identity? I’d define the term as more as a combination of somebody’s personality and how they act and think when not consciously trying to act differently. For example, at work you might inhibit some of your normal characteristics and be more serious, or act nice to people you don’t really like when you might not do that normally. I think people can do that to such an extent that’s it’s possible that they could be deluded as to the nature of their “true” self, thinking themselves, say, kinder, or more competent in certain areas, or less racist than they actually are when their guard is down. Sometimes you need someone else or some experience to realise you didn’t really know yourself! I think current state is part of it - for example, people might become more cynical over time through their life not going the way they want. Things like that can gradually become part of the “real you” without you noticing.
  - boomboomsubban 8y ago
    >I’d define the term as more as a combination of somebody’s personality and how they act and think when not consciously trying to act differently. This article is about how personality is shaped by memory, and how flawed memory is. I'd say that definition is fairly close to the one used in the article, and there being no "real self" supports the shift over time and need for outside views that you have noticed.
- stewbrew 8y ago
  I think it's a rather classic problem. Does it move? Is the arrow there the same arrow as it was here? How did it get from here to there? The problem here is of course cutting time into intervals where the arrow (or the self) has a state. The problem (or myth) probably lies in the eye of the beholder.
  - boomboomsubban 8y ago
    It's not a problem, the term can have different definitions when needed. In this situation, "the real me" is a personality based on past experience. This article says that definition is a myth that doesn't work with our current understanding of memory. You can now speculate if there is a "real me" that consists of something else.

vbuwivbiu 8y ago

not only that, but all perception is a constructive process based on predictions according to multiple competing models which run in parallel of which we are only aware of a few at most. As such, other people have no single or objective perception of us either.

senectus1 8y ago

I'm fairly self conscious of the fact that I am at least 3 or 4 different people. My "work" personality is a completely different one to my "Home" personality. and My Online and internal personalities are all different people as well. which one is the real me? shrug they're all real, just used for different purposes. I'm fairly sure I'm not unique in this, but then I suspect I'm better at compartmentalising than most others so maybe I am.

chrisco255 8y ago
What you're sort of saying, is that you show different sides of yourself depending on what role you're currently playing and who your audience is. I think we all do that to varying degrees. Some more than others.
- veli_joza 8y ago
  It's more than that. The mind doesn't have the mental capacity to hold all of yourself at once, so when interacting with others you become fused with current role and it becomes almost impossible to juggle other roles with current one. There are many psychology studies of internal conflict when you are forced to play two or more roles at once (for example, introducing your parents to girlfriend/boyfriend). A balanced person therefore needs to have goals of different roles aligned.
coffeemug 8y ago
There is a classic book by the sociologist Erving Goffman (https://www.amazon.com/Presentation-Self-Everyday-Life/dp/0385094027/ https://www.amazon.com/Presentation-Self-Everyday-Life/dp/03...) that covers this phenomenon. All the world's a stage.
lotsofpulp 8y ago
The "Worlds Theory”, according to Seinfeld: https://youtu.be/uPG3YMcSvzo https://youtu.be/uPG3YMcSvzo
kaolti 8y ago
Some might say the real you is the one which is aware of all the other ones.

chrisco255 8y ago

Be wary of your own self-delusions. Sometimes they might be useful. Other times, they might be detrimental.

imesh 8y ago
But what if it's your self-delusion making you think your non-delusion is a delusion?
- shoo 8y ago
  in that case, remain wary

messit 8y ago

The 'Real You' is not a myth, and it is not based on thoughts. It is what you truly are, and what is lost when you die.

uncle_d 8y ago
Or... what endures when you die.
kaolti 8y ago
How can you actually know what is lost when you die?
- rusk 8y ago
  who said it's about knowing
  - kaolti 8y ago
    It was implied in the comment I was replying to.
    - rusk 8y ago
      > The 'Real You' is not a myth, and it is not based on thoughts. It is what you truly are, and what is lost when you die. I don't think it was ... if anything "it is not based on thoughts" would imply the opposite! An object "is" an object whether it knows it is or not. EDIT I think maybe you're interpreting the final clause of the sentence "what is lost when you die" as "what is lost to you" but I read it as "what is lost to others".
gaius 8y ago
What is real? That which is irreplaceable.

RikNieu 8y ago

Real me. Right. Which one is that? 2 Year old me? 10 Year old me? Current age me? Me yesterday? Me today? The me I experience phenomenologically or the me other people perceive, interpret and interact with? The different me's others perceive individually? Will the real me please stand up.

madacoo 8y ago
Would it be reasonable to define the real me as simply the perpetually mutating sum of all those things?
- drjesusphd 8y ago
  In the play "No Exit", Sartre (through one of the characters) says "You are your life. And nothing else." It stands to reason that the "real you" never gets fully realized until you die.
- RikNieu 8y ago
  I dunno, would it be reasonable to call a cloud that temporarily looks like Chewbacca Chewbacca? I suppose it would make sense in that particular moment in time, and in that particular context, but it's not an image of Chewbacca is it? Not really. It's just a conveniet way of refering to phenomena... happening and being perceived a certain way. In a similar way, I'd say yes, we are the "real us" at any point in time, but only in the sense that it makes convient sense in that particular moment, and only as a device to point at a set of particular processes/things happening.
helloindia 8y ago
Just like asking which is the real river?
undershirt 8y ago
"How am I not myself?" Jude Law repeats this in "I Heart Huckabees" as he slowly slips into existential crisis.
kowdermeister 8y ago

Muha_ 8y ago

"I" is most valuable thing I have and only thing undoubtedly existing. And this thing not exists at all if I believe thats the world exists independently of me. This is not about natural sciences, it's a philosophical paradox that will never be solved.

thunderbong 8y ago

I find sometimes it's easy to be myself Sometimes I find it's better to be somebody else - Dave Matthews Band - So much to say

rusk 8y ago

Since having a child, and seeing my friends and sibs having children I have come to the conclusion that there is a large degree of our personalities are "hard-wired". It's amazing how each child comes out differently with their own personality right off the blocks. You typically see invariant characteristics persist through life. To me this is "the real you", the aspects of your personality that are with you throughout your life. If I had to put a figure on it, to avoid argument I'd say it accounts for between 30 and 50% of your behaviour. The rest is shaped by social conditioning, life experiences and the environment we find ourselves living in. But even these could be said to be mediated in some part by the initial 30%.

hrnnnnnn 8y ago
I read The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature a while ago and your numbers are pretty close to what Pinker says. About 50% of personality from genetics, 50% from environment, and approximately 0% from parental influence.
- dan-robertson 8y ago
  Surely parental influence falls under environment?
  - bloak 8y ago
    Yes, of course it does. Parents choose which school the children go to, for example.
    - thorin 8y ago
      Not just that: where you live, what kind of house, is there green space nearby, what toys are there, how many people are around in the house whether you spend a lot of time with friends/grandparents, whether there is a lot of interaction with the parent or they are just left by themselves or with the TV on.
  - rademacher 8y ago

Orlan 8y ago

If anyone caught Derek Delgaudio's Off-Broadway show "In and Of Itself", he dealt with this concept. Great show, limited run just ended recently.

hrnnnnnn 8y ago

This sounds like the idea of "no-self" from Buddhism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta

kaolti 8y ago
It is the basis of that, not sure why would anyone downvote you.
helloindia 8y ago
As someone who is studying at the moment, I thought the same.

evook 8y ago

Cogito ergo est.

emodendroket 8y ago
"I think therefore it is"?

etiam 8y ago

Mazzoni G, Scoboria A, Harvey L. (2010) Nonbelieved memories. Abstract: This is the first empirical study of vivid autobiographical memories for events that people no longer believe happened to them. Until now, this phenomenon has been the object of relatively rare, albeit intriguing, anecdotes, such as Jean Piaget's description of his vivid memory of an attempted abduction that never happened. The results of our study show that nonbelieved memories are much more common than is expected. Approximately 20% of our initial sample reported having at least one nonbelieved autobiographical memory. Participants' ratings indicate that nonbelieved memories share most recollective qualities of believed memories, but are characterized by more negative emotions. The results have important implications for the way autobiographical memory is conceptualized and for the false-memory debate. "Approximately 20% of our initial sample reported having at least one nonbelieved autobiographical memory." and an anecdote of Piaget vividly remembering something wrong after being consistently misled by his mother as a child. Some discrepancy between that and "we constantly create false memories to achieve the identity we want". If my memory serves right it's well established in laboratory conditions that autobiographical memory is vulnerable to adversarial manipulation, but last thing I heard it wasn't at all clear that it spontaneously malfunctions under normal living conditions. I see very little in this piece that gives me reason to revise that impression.

boomboomsubban 8y ago
That's the research showing that memories shape personality. The research about about autobiographical memory is further down the page.

qwerty456127 8y ago

The good news is "real you" probably are not your memories - these are yours, not you. The bad news is you are probably going to forget this and have a hard time getting the clue if you lose your memory. But perhaps it may be right the opposite - maybe one with all their memory lost may automatically get "face to face" with their "real self" actually. I would love to test that given a guarantee that all my memories are going to return soon. I've heard some psychedelics can induce this experience (and the memories are supposed to return as it wears off) called "ego death" if taken in sufficiently high doses. Perhaps I have even had such an experience but I'm not sure if it was that: I've once smoked some strong weed after drinking too much booze and forgotten everything (for about half an hour) - the feeling (but no information) of self-identity remained perfectly intact but I was afraid to leave the bar as I had no idea of where do I live and how do I get there.

Fri21Sep 8y ago

I disagree. I've been keeping a journal for more than 10 years (started when I was 14 and am 25 now), where I report important events and more importantly reflect on them, and also on general concepts. Reading old entries can be very enlightening. What comes out of it is that events are the "data", while personality/identity is the "software". The data is various, but the software is the same. The consistency of reasoning between now and then is incredible. When I read the setup of an old recounting, I start reacting to it while reading it from the point of view of my now-self, and then I see that the reflection of my old-self on this event to be very consistent with that. It's naive, uninformed and a bit rebellious (probably because of teenagehood), and sometimes because of that it completely misses the point, but the direction of reflection is the same. It's not alien, it makes sense. We're reacting to events by using our software on related data. The value of experience entirely lies in the data, which can sometimes create entire shifts in perspective, but the software is the same. If you read an old journal you'll see that most reactions are the same, and for those which differ you can point out exactly what piece of data was missing in comparison to today's perspective.

donmatito 8y ago
Your case is somewhat particular (and is a very good thing to do). Because you have a log of past events, your memory processes can match against a reference and filter out deviations. Most people don't have such an external log/reference. Memories cannot be externally validated, only internally validated against other memories. So, small deviations can accumulate, and overtime create entirely false narratives (esp around uncomfortable or even traumatic events) You make me want to start a diary :-)
comboy 8y ago
Our software wouldn't be very interesting if it wouldn't be able to at least partially modify itself. But that's a very interesting experiment you are running. I wonder if you will still hold the same conclusion after next 20 years. Although, you can always say that the data is being interpreted by the software and effectively say that the source code changes but the interpreter stays the same.
rusk 8y ago

throwayw32 8y ago

This has been dealt to death in Dharmic philosophies; I'm surprised there is zero attribution to this anywhere in this article. This is not the first such instance though; I have to wonder why standard academic ethics is not followed with anything concerning Indic traditions.

bitexploder 8y ago
I often find modern psychology heavily resembles ancient life philosophies. For example, CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) is, effectively, applied Stoicism. If you were to explain CBT to an ancient stoic they would just nod and agree, understanding the approach intimately.

yboris 8y ago

A related book: "Strangers to Ourselves" by Timothy D. Wilson http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674013827 http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674013827 Excellent book with excellent advice about how to proceed.

p2detar 8y ago

But what is selected as a personal memory also needs to fit the current idea that we have of ourselves. Let’s suppose you have always been a very kind person, but after a very distressing experience you have developed a strong aggressive trait that now suits you. Not only has your behaviour changed, your personal narrative has too. If you are now asked to describe yourself, you might include past events previously omitted from your narrative – for example, instances in which you acted aggressively. I have been pondering on a similar question for some time now. I have an amateurish and somewhat Jungian theory: I think the "real me" is a collection of archetypes that are constantly struggling to take control over the mind and body. These archetypes are also constantly being improved on or new ones are being acquired through life time experiences. The "I" or the consciousness is nothing more than an observer and it also has the role to create a reasonable explanation, a justification if you will, of the motives behind actions. But the motives of the "I" are entirely produced by its collection of archetypes. This, in reality, would mean that the consciousness mind has no real choice in what one does! It is the archetypes that drive us to do or say things and the conscious mind just observes and creates a reason out of our memories and knowledge. This would explain situations where, for example, one gets angry and says something that offends and hurts another person, but they would then almost immediately ask themselves "Why the heck did I even say/do that?" and the conscious mind creates a justification. After that another archetype prevails, e.g.; the one of compassion, and an apology would follow. Of course, none of this explains how archetypes came to be in the first place.

snikeris 8y ago
This is similar to what is presented in Minsky's Society of Mind. What you're calling archetypes, he calls agents. Question for you...I agree with your observer idea. But why have an observer? What purpose does it serve? Couldn't we make do as just a collection of agents?
- p2detar 8y ago
  An observer could be required because of the causality nature of our reality. I would assume the observer is an agent that connects cause and effect. It could be the one thing that brings order out of chaos in reality, if by chaos we mean the collection of agents. I want to thank you about mentioning "Minsky's Society of Mind". On my reading list.

emodendroket 8y ago

Wow, the claim of the headline does not follow from what the article explains at all. OK, people craft a narrative that fits their self-conception and use memories selectively to that end, some of which are not even real. How does "the 'real you' is a myth" follow from that at all?