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> self who is analyzing the event is considered to be distinct from the self who experienced it I have hard time following this, how can there be two selfs in

> self who is analyzing the event is considered to be distinct from the self who experienced it I have hard time following this, how can there be two selfs in a single mind. Is the observer more nobler entity with higher self restraint than the entity being observed who is more emotional and lower self control?

maroonblazer 7y ago
You've never had the experience of reflecting on an action you took in the past and felt a tinge (or worse) of regret? It's the same thing.
stevenjohns 7y ago
The self analysing the event, as I understand it, is considered to be reasonable. The self who is experiencing it is emotional. It is the same distinction between “heart” and “mind”. I wouldn’t call either of them nobler, depends on the situation.
derefr 7y ago
One of the goals of mindfulness meditation is the "realization" that your stream of consciousness—the output of the "self who is analyzing the event"—is essentially just a sensory stimulus like any other. There is an agent in your head, thinking—an agent you have raised and constantly train and identify with very much, sure—but then there is you, separately, observing that thinking coming out of that agent. You, the thing that experiences qualia, would still exist even if that agent didn't! You just wouldn't be able to ponder or focus-on or decide-to-react to anything; only to passively sense and experience things as they happen. From your perspective as the perceiving agent, it'd just seem that a sense was shut off. Once you have this perspective, you become aware that you don't have to identify with the thoughts coming out of the thinking-agent, or even to listen to them. You, the perceiving agent, can "tune out" the thinking agent's train of thought, just as well as you can tune out a five-year-old babbling in your ear. (And, helpfully, the brain has feedback mechanisms that make tuning out the thinking agent cause it to "speak" less. Unlike the five-year-old.)
- StavrosK 7y ago
  As someone who doesn't have a "speaking agent", that's not exactly how it works. I still have the thoughts, I just don't narrate them to myself. I can still think fine, the thoughts happen before the narration anyway. Your CPU doesn't stop processing just because you turned off the screen.
  - derefr 7y ago
    You're talking about a separate thing. The "speaking agent", or the analyzing agent, is also the predictive agent, and the goal-biasing agent. These are all one "thing." That "thing" is the subsystem of the brain that gets woken up by activity on dopamine receptors, and attempts to model the world (with a bias toward predicting world-states it would like to see, and can make real by predicting a future that requires it to have enacted certain motor commands, which it then enacts to attempt to unify this prediction with reality. Further reading: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/06/book-review-behavior-the-control-of-perception/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/06/book-review-behavior-t...) We have drugs that lower the activity level of this subsystem—dopamine antagonists (i.e. antipsychotics) and, at a lower level, AMPA-receptor antagonists (i.e. anticonvulsants.) At high doses, these drugs produce a state called "delirium", where the affected person will just sit and stare at the wall (or whatever you put them in front of), doing something if they are coerced to, but otherwise doing absolutely nothing—not blinking, not changing their visual focus, not shifting due to discomfort. You can also get a state of delirium from brain damage, or in some forms of depression. That is what I mean when I describe the effect of having your analyzing-agent cut out. "You" are still there—you are still conscious, and can still perceive the world!—but no thinking is happening. No predicting, no world-modelling, no goal-pathing or choice-weighing or executive-function-ing. You are a passive, judgement-less qualia sponge. (Technically, this isn't even the "true" death of the thinking agent. These people can think; they can respond to direct questions, they can solve problems if you force them to do so with threat of immediate harm, etc. What's actually happening is that the goal-biasing is gone, so their perceptual-control agent is just attempting to predict the future that'll happen if it does nothing—and then unifies the motor-command stream with that future by doing nothing.) (Amusingly, a Buddhist would say that a person in a state of acute delirium has attained enlightenment.)
LeonB 7y ago
There can be at least two selfs very easily. There is me, the wise guy who set the alarm so I can wake up early tomorrow and is distinct from the lazy me who won’t wake up the next morning. Then there is me, the nice guy who deserves to sleep in this morning and is distinct from the malicious beast who set the damn alarm last night and is intent on ruining my morning. Completely different people.
- namanyayg 7y ago
  I completely concur with dual-think/multiple selves, but your example talks about two different selves at two different _times_, not at once as OP assumes.
  - LeonB 7y ago
    It’s really system 1 and system 2 fighting, the temporal aspect just makes the drama more striking.
  - henriquemaia 7y ago
    If I understand correctly, you don't need to think these two (or more?) selves as mutually exclusive. It's just that when in certain contexts, e.g., when one is setting the alarm, this self has the appropriate conditions to be the dominant one (the laziness feeling bundle is not yet present). The other self, the lazy one, is still there, but its voice is not strong enough to overpower the first. By contrast, in the morning, the reverse is also true, only this time the lazy voice is completely empowered by the comfy environment -- the other self just not having enough power to break through through the thick wall of comfort attached feelings the body is experiencing at the moment. To put more simply, both (or more?) are there at the same time. but one is active, the other latent.
    - LeonB 7y ago
      Exactly.
    - namanyayg 7y ago
      I was looking at it as time causing neurotransmitter changes (leading to sleep) and the resulting self being manipulated due to being in a sleepy state, but I see now how your explanation makes sense too.
jvanderbot 7y ago
I suggest you skim through these lectures. https://www.coursera.org/learn/science-of-meditation https://www.coursera.org/learn/science-of-meditation It touches on the connections between mindfulness and modern understanding of the mind. Most important, it talks about this problem, that you are not aware of the amout of decisions and input/output data is hidden from you, and how much of your life is narrating outcomes, rather than deciding them. Fascinating stuff. Makes me feel like a batch of hidden layers struggling for consensus with one tiny human-interaction module that tells a consistent story about why certain outputs are weighted, and that story is called "free will and personality".
rramadass 7y ago
It is actually even better. The "Samkhya System" from Hindu philosophy posits a three-layer mental model as follows; 1) Buddhi - This is is discriminating and reflective part of consciousness. This can be called as the "observer". 2) Ahamkara - This is the individual ego part of the consciousness. This is the "I" which gives you identity. 3) Manas - This is the part of consciousness which takes in the sensory inputs, forms the impressions and feeds it to "Ahamkara". "Samkhya" is THE oldest of the ancient Hindu philosophies and hence its mental model has influenced Vedanta, Buddhism, Yoga etc. which all came after it.
teddyh 7y ago
> how can there be two selfs in a single mind. Oh wow, do I have a YouTube video for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8 (You Are Two, by CGP Grey)
donecarejustsav 7y ago
No, i don't think so. But, dictionary definition, popular opinion, respectable / appreciated opinions. I can identify the impossiblity of objectivity inherent in the question, but doing so is dismissive. Sometimes sure, people are immature, unreasonable, careless. I can't understand the mentality that acts with malice to others out of what comes from hatred of the self. Your statement does not imply the this but it suggests it. The philosophy of self acceptance is pure torture, but it would be less so if thought - obvious effort - was itself valued. It being non obvious affects some, not others. Someone said preaching is moral violence, once. A puzzle with no solution, or identification of solutions yield, possibly, equivalent problems. Tautological to suggest the solution can not be identified by the observer, but, provably incomplete, yet, believed to be the standard to measure against.
adrianmonk 7y ago
I think the wording should be taken literally. It isn't that there actually are two selves, it's that there are considered to be two. Obviously on some level you know the selves are one and the same. The idea is: don't apply this knowledge within the thought process about whatever issue you're trying to decide. In other words, you can integrate / resolve all this knowledge into one cohesive whole (person X needs to decide whether to buy a new car, person X is me --> I need to decide whether to buy a new car; what should I do) or you can block that resolution process and proceed as if it is not yourself (person X needs to decide whether to buy a new car --> what should person X do).
sn9 7y ago
Sam Harris's Waking Up is actually a great short read about both the neuroscience behind the self and meditation and how meditation can help you become more aware of how the self is more a useful fiction than an irreducible thing.

maroonblazer 7y ago

You've never had the experience of reflecting on an action you took in the past and felt a tinge (or worse) of regret? It's the same thing.

stevenjohns 7y ago

The self analysing the event, as I understand it, is considered to be reasonable. The self who is experiencing it is emotional. It is the same distinction between “heart” and “mind”. I wouldn’t call either of them nobler, depends on the situation.

derefr 7y ago

One of the goals of mindfulness meditation is the "realization" that your stream of consciousness—the output of the "self who is analyzing the event"—is essentially just a sensory stimulus like any other. There is an agent in your head, thinking—an agent you have raised and constantly train and identify with very much, sure—but then there is you, separately, observing that thinking coming out of that agent. You, the thing that experiences qualia, would still exist even if that agent didn't! You just wouldn't be able to ponder or focus-on or decide-to-react to anything; only to passively sense and experience things as they happen. From your perspective as the perceiving agent, it'd just seem that a sense was shut off. Once you have this perspective, you become aware that you don't have to identify with the thoughts coming out of the thinking-agent, or even to listen to them. You, the perceiving agent, can "tune out" the thinking agent's train of thought, just as well as you can tune out a five-year-old babbling in your ear. (And, helpfully, the brain has feedback mechanisms that make tuning out the thinking agent cause it to "speak" less. Unlike the five-year-old.)

StavrosK 7y ago
As someone who doesn't have a "speaking agent", that's not exactly how it works. I still have the thoughts, I just don't narrate them to myself. I can still think fine, the thoughts happen before the narration anyway. Your CPU doesn't stop processing just because you turned off the screen.
- derefr 7y ago
  You're talking about a separate thing. The "speaking agent", or the analyzing agent, is also the predictive agent, and the goal-biasing agent. These are all one "thing." That "thing" is the subsystem of the brain that gets woken up by activity on dopamine receptors, and attempts to model the world (with a bias toward predicting world-states it would like to see, and can make real by predicting a future that requires it to have enacted certain motor commands, which it then enacts to attempt to unify this prediction with reality. Further reading: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/06/book-review-behavior-the-control-of-perception/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/06/book-review-behavior-t...) We have drugs that lower the activity level of this subsystem—dopamine antagonists (i.e. antipsychotics) and, at a lower level, AMPA-receptor antagonists (i.e. anticonvulsants.) At high doses, these drugs produce a state called "delirium", where the affected person will just sit and stare at the wall (or whatever you put them in front of), doing something if they are coerced to, but otherwise doing absolutely nothing—not blinking, not changing their visual focus, not shifting due to discomfort. You can also get a state of delirium from brain damage, or in some forms of depression. That is what I mean when I describe the effect of having your analyzing-agent cut out. "You" are still there—you are still conscious, and can still perceive the world!—but no thinking is happening. No predicting, no world-modelling, no goal-pathing or choice-weighing or executive-function-ing. You are a passive, judgement-less qualia sponge. (Technically, this isn't even the "true" death of the thinking agent. These people can think; they can respond to direct questions, they can solve problems if you force them to do so with threat of immediate harm, etc. What's actually happening is that the goal-biasing is gone, so their perceptual-control agent is just attempting to predict the future that'll happen if it does nothing—and then unifies the motor-command stream with that future by doing nothing.) (Amusingly, a Buddhist would say that a person in a state of acute delirium has attained enlightenment.)

LeonB 7y ago

There can be at least two selfs very easily. There is me, the wise guy who set the alarm so I can wake up early tomorrow and is distinct from the lazy me who won’t wake up the next morning. Then there is me, the nice guy who deserves to sleep in this morning and is distinct from the malicious beast who set the damn alarm last night and is intent on ruining my morning. Completely different people.

namanyayg 7y ago
I completely concur with dual-think/multiple selves, but your example talks about two different selves at two different _times_, not at once as OP assumes.
- LeonB 7y ago
  It’s really system 1 and system 2 fighting, the temporal aspect just makes the drama more striking.
- henriquemaia 7y ago
  If I understand correctly, you don't need to think these two (or more?) selves as mutually exclusive. It's just that when in certain contexts, e.g., when one is setting the alarm, this self has the appropriate conditions to be the dominant one (the laziness feeling bundle is not yet present). The other self, the lazy one, is still there, but its voice is not strong enough to overpower the first. By contrast, in the morning, the reverse is also true, only this time the lazy voice is completely empowered by the comfy environment -- the other self just not having enough power to break through through the thick wall of comfort attached feelings the body is experiencing at the moment. To put more simply, both (or more?) are there at the same time. but one is active, the other latent.
  - LeonB 7y ago
    Exactly.
  - namanyayg 7y ago
    I was looking at it as time causing neurotransmitter changes (leading to sleep) and the resulting self being manipulated due to being in a sleepy state, but I see now how your explanation makes sense too.

jvanderbot 7y ago

I suggest you skim through these lectures. https://www.coursera.org/learn/science-of-meditation https://www.coursera.org/learn/science-of-meditation It touches on the connections between mindfulness and modern understanding of the mind. Most important, it talks about this problem, that you are not aware of the amout of decisions and input/output data is hidden from you, and how much of your life is narrating outcomes, rather than deciding them. Fascinating stuff. Makes me feel like a batch of hidden layers struggling for consensus with one tiny human-interaction module that tells a consistent story about why certain outputs are weighted, and that story is called "free will and personality".

rramadass 7y ago

It is actually even better. The "Samkhya System" from Hindu philosophy posits a three-layer mental model as follows; 1) Buddhi - This is is discriminating and reflective part of consciousness. This can be called as the "observer". 2) Ahamkara - This is the individual ego part of the consciousness. This is the "I" which gives you identity. 3) Manas - This is the part of consciousness which takes in the sensory inputs, forms the impressions and feeds it to "Ahamkara". "Samkhya" is THE oldest of the ancient Hindu philosophies and hence its mental model has influenced Vedanta, Buddhism, Yoga etc. which all came after it.

teddyh 7y ago

> how can there be two selfs in a single mind. Oh wow, do I have a YouTube video for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8 (You Are Two, by CGP Grey)

donecarejustsav 7y ago

No, i don't think so. But, dictionary definition, popular opinion, respectable / appreciated opinions. I can identify the impossiblity of objectivity inherent in the question, but doing so is dismissive. Sometimes sure, people are immature, unreasonable, careless. I can't understand the mentality that acts with malice to others out of what comes from hatred of the self. Your statement does not imply the this but it suggests it. The philosophy of self acceptance is pure torture, but it would be less so if thought - obvious effort - was itself valued. It being non obvious affects some, not others. Someone said preaching is moral violence, once. A puzzle with no solution, or identification of solutions yield, possibly, equivalent problems. Tautological to suggest the solution can not be identified by the observer, but, provably incomplete, yet, believed to be the standard to measure against.

adrianmonk 7y ago

I think the wording should be taken literally. It isn't that there actually are two selves, it's that there are considered to be two. Obviously on some level you know the selves are one and the same. The idea is: don't apply this knowledge within the thought process about whatever issue you're trying to decide. In other words, you can integrate / resolve all this knowledge into one cohesive whole (person X needs to decide whether to buy a new car, person X is me --> I need to decide whether to buy a new car; what should I do) or you can block that resolution process and proceed as if it is not yourself (person X needs to decide whether to buy a new car --> what should person X do).

sn9 7y ago

Sam Harris's Waking Up is actually a great short read about both the neuroscience behind the self and meditation and how meditation can help you become more aware of how the self is more a useful fiction than an irreducible thing.