This is one of the better explanations of the illusory nature of the self. The closer I get to understanding this, the more impossible it becomes for me to share it. This video might be as close as I’ll get. Watch on YouTube
Tag Archives: ego
Two of my favorite “-isms”
Anyone who knows me knows of my interest in consciousness and reality (see tags below for more). When it comes to understanding reality, I’m gonna go with one of the following. (or some combination.)
Monism is the view that all reality is fundamentally one substance or principle. Everything in the universe is ultimately the same kind of thing. This can be physical (everything is matter) or mental (everything is mind), or something else entirely.
Panpsychism, on the other hand, is the idea that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the universe. According to panpsychism, all things have some form of consciousness or experience, even if it’s very basic, down to the smallest particles.
So, while both can be viewed as “unifying” theories, monism is about the nature of reality being one substance, whereas panpsychism is about consciousness being fundamental and present everywhere.
Who Is the Mind Talking to?
ineffable – (adjective) inexpressible, indescribable, beyond words, beyond description, beggaring description; undefinable, unutterable, untold, unheard of, unthought of, unimaginable; overwhelming, marvelous, wonderful, breathtaking, staggering, astounding, amazing, astonishing, fantastic, fabulous.
Mind, self, consciousness… I’ve been reading (and posting) on these concepts for a long time. The video above might be the best explanation I’ve come across. For that reason, I might leave this pinned to the top of the blog for a while.
The Kekulé Problem
“The Kekulé Problem” is a 2017 nonfiction essay by writer Cormac McCarthy for the Santa Fe Institute. It was his first published work of nonfiction. He theorizes about the nature of the unconscious mind and its separation from human language. The unconscious, according to McCarthy, “is a machine for operating an animal” and that “all animals have an unconscious.” McCarthy goes on to postulate that language is purely a human cultural creation, and not a biologically determined phenomenon. (Wikipedia)
“You may have read a thousand books and be able to discuss any one of them without remembering a word of the text.”
“The unconscious wants to give guidance to your life in general but it doesn’t care what toothpaste you use.”
“The unconscious seems to know a great deal. What does it know about itself? Does it know that it’s going to die? What does it think about that?”
The essay checked a lot of my boxes: awareness, consciousness, ego, thoughts.
The Nature of Consciousness
“In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Thomas Metzinger about the scientific and experiential understanding of consciousness. They also talk about the significance of WWII for the history of ideas, the role of intuition in science, the ethics of building conscious AI, the self as an hallucination, how we identify with our thoughts, attention as the root of the feeling of self, the place of Eastern philosophy in Western science, and the limitations of secular humanism.”
“Thomas K. Metzinger is full professor and director of the theoretical philosophy group and the research group on neuroethics/neurophilosophy at the department of philosophy, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany. He is the founder and director of the MIND group and Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute of Advanced Studies, Germany. His research centers on analytic philosophy of mind, applied ethics, philosophy of cognitive science, and philosophy of mind. He is the editor of Neural Correlates of Consciousness and the author of Being No One and The Ego Tunnel.”