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Just my opinions: "You" are the mind/conscious self, a separate construct in the physical brain. The thoughts are coming from the brain, which is constantly d

by bserge 5y ago

Just my opinions: "You" are the mind/conscious self, a separate construct in the physical brain. The thoughts are coming from the brain, which is constantly doing rather massive amounts of processing on acquired data, old and new. You don't have full control of the brain, not by a long shot. You can make a decision and it can be ignored even as you think it's "gone through". Hence, the eternal struggle with "self-control" and "willpower".

Joker_vD 5y ago
On a tangent note, Descartes famous "cogito ergo sum" ("I think therefore I am") falls into the trap of the grammar: it presupposes that the thinker, who does the act of thinking, exists. The actually undeniable empirical statement would be "cogitationes sunt", "thoughts exist", but you can't get anywhere from that without answering additional questions: for example, do the thoughts need a thinker (whatever it may be) to exist and think them, or?.. If you answer "yes", you can follow Descartes' line of reasoning. If you answer "no", no problem, there is a whole philosophical tradition of Buddhism built on that.
curun1r 5y ago
> "You" are the mind/conscious self, a separate construct in the physical brain Sam Harris has a lengthy discussion about this separation in "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion" where he looks at what we've learned from patients who've undergone a corpus callosum surgery. The TL;DR of that surgery is that it's done on people with severe seizures to sever the two hemispheres of the brain to minimize the seizures. But it also tends to (gross over-simplification incoming) create two distinct personalities in the same person, so Harris looks at essentially what gets doubled as elements that cannot be part of the self. A lot of the rest of the book also deals with the nature of self as revealed through meditative practice and drug use. It's a somewhat tedious read, but it's really fascinating stuff.

by bserge 5y ago

Joker_vD 5y ago

On a tangent note, Descartes famous "cogito ergo sum" ("I think therefore I am") falls into the trap of the grammar: it presupposes that the thinker, who does the act of thinking, exists. The actually undeniable empirical statement would be "cogitationes sunt", "thoughts exist", but you can't get anywhere from that without answering additional questions: for example, do the thoughts need a thinker (whatever it may be) to exist and think them, or?.. If you answer "yes", you can follow Descartes' line of reasoning. If you answer "no", no problem, there is a whole philosophical tradition of Buddhism built on that.

curun1r 5y ago

> "You" are the mind/conscious self, a separate construct in the physical brain Sam Harris has a lengthy discussion about this separation in "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion" where he looks at what we've learned from patients who've undergone a corpus callosum surgery. The TL;DR of that surgery is that it's done on people with severe seizures to sever the two hemispheres of the brain to minimize the seizures. But it also tends to (gross over-simplification incoming) create two distinct personalities in the same person, so Harris looks at essentially what gets doubled as elements that cannot be part of the self. A lot of the rest of the book also deals with the nature of self as revealed through meditative practice and drug use. It's a somewhat tedious read, but it's really fascinating stuff.