what is the self

[AMCrenshaw]

Is there an atheist view on the construction of the self? Is it a construct? Is there a self beyond identity? If these questions are more geared to a philosophy forum, let me know. But I'm still doing research for Kommein.

AMC

[veinglory]

Personally I would say it is more suited to the philosophy forum. But you might need to be more specific.

In reductionalist terms the self is an experience, it is a collection of perceptions we have that our existence is continuous and matched to a meta-awareness (seeing that we see, knowing that we know). All this causes us to not only have a point of view, but be aware that we have it in the way some other animals are not.

I honestly do not see how perception of selfhood relates to religious belief or the lack thereof. If you have religious belief you might leap for their to assuming the self has a soul that is separate from the body--but even an atheist will often leap to the assumption the the self has a mind that is separate from the body--which seems much the same thing.

[Sarpedon]

Hmmm.

The self is the memory sorting apparatus of the brain.

;) (not a factual statement, so no asking for references)

[AMCrenshaw]

Personally I would say it is more suited to the philosophy forum. But you might need to be more specific.

In reductionalist terms the self is an experience, it is a collection of perceptions we have that our existence is continuous and matched to a meta-awareness (seeing that we see, knowing that we know). All this causes us to not only have a point of view, but be aware that we have it in the way some other animals are not.

I honestly do not see how perception of selfhood relates to religious belief or the lack thereof. If you have religious belief you might leap for their to assuming the self has a soul that is separate from the body--but even an atheist will often leap to the assumption the the self has a mind that is separate from the body--which seems much the same thing.

I think religious belief has a lot of relevance. For a person who believes God exists, their true self might be with God. They may believe that their identity was predetermined. That whatever happens to them was the will of God. Or perhaps they find no identification with this world at all. My one spiritual teacher said that shrugging the 'flesh' brought him closer to his true self in God.

What about an atheist?

It is difficult and nearly impossible to say that we have "true" memories that make up our selves. The direction of our memories (past), mixed with desires (future) relate to, yes, a perception of continual time. But in those present moments, when we are actually in the past or in the future, we are anything but in a chronological, continuous model of time. The disruption of the present tense, into imaginary contexts (which past and future both are, to us, right now) gives way to a self that either does not yet exist, or no longer exists. So are those selves real? If they are not, is this one? How can we be sure, but to narrate it, archive it, and re-configure it something to that which it most definitely is not. That is, the self is not merely the collection of images recollected or imagined or perceived. Is it?

So perhaps what I am asking is whether or not our self exists as a real entity. Given that people communicate in shared languages, think in terms of images, words, and narratives how much of our self is ours? When people say, "memories are ours," what they are saying is that "I" had an experience only of "myself". Because if there was an experience of something else, then it's not their experience. Whatever interpretation they have is an interpretation through language (which is not theirs alone) and through the ideological/societal/philosophical climate of the time period. So, that point of view, is not "my" point of view, but "out point of view" in that I share it with something.

For an atheist, who generally does not believe in divinity, what is the self? If this is an inappropriate place for this question please move it and notify me. Thank you.

AMC

[veinglory]

I know what I think, but what I think is not representative in any way of what other atheists think because there is no athiest doctrine or recognised mainstream appraoch to the notion of the self (or on much of anything else). There is no fundamental reason for the way self is conceptualised to relate to the lack of belief in deity (there is a reason to relate it to beleif in deity, but that is a whole different paradigm and I assume you are asking my paradigm not my place in someone else's).

The connection between notions of self and deity are religious. For the religious the self/homunculus is related to the soul and so to God. For atheists it need not relate to anything. The notion of the self has not particularly significant in relation to atheist belief as far as I know.

For myself, I am a reductionalist, specifically a radical behaviorist. Within this approach there is no self (noun, entity, item), this is however self awareness (perception, cognition, action). The 'self' is a reification/category mistake relating to what we do, never something we have or are.

But I would mention that radicial behaviourists are as likely to be Christian as atheist (Sikh, Muslim or whatever)--this philosophical position is neutral in regards to religion.

From my point of view beleifs about the self are unrelated to the belief there is no/lack of belief in deity.

[Ruv Draba]

I think of self as a story told in an individual's mind that explains the difference between that which an individual can direct easily and perceive constantly (Self), and that which an individual can direct only with difficulty or not at all - and perceives only intermittently (Other). It's also the difference between that through which perceptions arrive and are held (my senses, feelings and understanding), and that which generates the perceptions (the objects I sense, feel about, learn about).

Self isn't an object but a construction around an asymmetric relationship between objects. The asymmetry is in perception and direction.

The 'I' is the Self referring to its own story. It is by its very nature, Self-interested. :)

The spiritual element of Self arises from questions like:

Since I can direct Self, how shall I choose to direct it?
Since I can perceive Other and affect it, how shall I shape the relationships between Self and Other?
Since it is apparent that Others can perceive Self, how would it be best to be perceived?
Since Others and Self have so much in common, what does my perception of Others teach me about Self? What does my perception of Self teach me of Others?
Since Self and Other change, how do these changes affect my perception of the story that emerges, and how does that perception affect how I exert influence on that story?
The story that the Self forms can create very different perceptions of 'I'. While behaviourally, one Self might be very similar to another, perceptually their sense of 'I' can be very different indeed.

[Use Her Name]

Is there an atheist view on the construction of the self? Is it a construct? Is there a self beyond identity? If these questions are more geared to a philosophy forum, let me know. But I'm still doing research for Kommein.

AMC

There are medical and psychological views of the constructs of "self." A-theist means without religion, so I expect any explanation that is not religious is atheist, in other words, secular, or even humanist.

[jillbrenna]

I would definitely check out "Thus Spake Zarathustra" by Nietzsche. Maybe it's redundant to say here on this forum, given the topic and the caliber of the participants (!), but in the "First Part" of this work, in the section titled "On the Despisers of the Body", he posits that the soul / spirit is one with the body, an interesting Eastern idea (I don't know if it's intended to be, but I say Eastern because Western religion separates the soul/body/spirit in a way that Eastern religions don't).

A quote to get you thinking, and interested in exploring this work further: "... the awakened one, the knowing one, says: 'Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and the soul is only the name of something about the body.'" I personally think this is the most enlightened/ modern/ current view, and the one still espoused by modern atheistic thinkers like Dawkins and Hitchens.

A few more thoughts: from the section before that, "Yes, this 'I', with its contradiction and perplexity, speaks most honestly of its being - this creating, willing, valuiing 'I', which is the measure and value of all things." For myself, as a "recovering fundamentalist" (someone who just left the Christian church for atheism), I think this is the best part of an atheistic view of the self: to look back and realize that all the "Strengths" attributed to religion or the "holy spirit" (god-breathed version of the self, if you will) are really found within the person themself. All the goodness, all the messages of peace, love, morality, all the "transcendance" and spirituality - the self, without God, is capable of all this glory. It's pretty cool.

I would definitely read these sections - this entire work, really! - for a truly thorough investigation of this question: much better than I could do trying to sum it up!!

A parting thought: "Always the self listens and seeks; it compares, masters, conquers, and destroys. It rules, and is in control of the 'I' too. Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage - his name is self; he dwells in your body, he is your body."

[Sarpedon]

You are right Jill. Mind body dualism is one thing I get really worked up about. I doubt any of the atheists here will disagree with you and Nietzsche, though we might think there are better proponents of the idea.

[AMCrenshaw]

I've read Thus Spake Zarathustra and am not satisfied that the self is contained within the body. In fact, it cannot be, because our definitions of our-self are derived from society, aren't they? They are, at the very least, an intertext. For example, to say that body and soul are one is to still say that there exists a body and a soul. Is this the same with people and selves? if so, what is it that makes me...me?

So I do not see the self as that which "listens and seeks... compares, masters, conquers, and destroys." Or is our self determined by biology and psychology, in this case (It is in our psych/bio nature to listen, seek, compare, master, and conquer) ?

""To look back and realize that all the "Strengths" attributed to religion or the "holy spirit...are really found within the person themself"" ---Mr Nietzsche would disagree. Might is right, the holy spirit is nothingness, and Jesus was the epitome of weakness. Whew. Almost verbatim. Frightening.

One last thing, could you describe the self in anyway? Why or why not? Is your answer dependent on belief or factual information? What are the facts?

AMC

[veinglory]

I am not a dualist but am more aligned with simpler ways of saying that (like Wottgenstein). So myself is my body *and* what it does/has done in the past (including what it thinks, feels and perceived).

[Sarpedon]

Do you mean Wittgenstein? or is this a different person?

And Crenshaw, if it is not contained in the body, where is it?

[AMCrenshaw]

If the self is the body, it is a corpse and nothing more. If it is the mind and the body then the self is a robot. But it's not, is it? So then...what? Where does this "creativity" come from that everyone talks about? What is valuing, but the citation of an-other's system of valuation?

I'm reluctant to say that the self exists at all. That what we call the self is illusory. A fake! An artifact!

AMC

[veinglory]

Oops, typo. Yes, Wittgenstein.

If the self is the body, the body is clearly alive. So it is a body, not a corpse. How would this effect what creativity is. That is to say it is the capacity to perform creative acts and it comes from genotype and phenotype doing their magical dance.

I don't know why people make a connection between not using magical/spiritual/god/homoculus explanations for what we doing and being dead or dull. Phsical live is gloroiusly active, generative and exiting without getting some kind of intangible ghost involved.

It's a bit like this, whether you think the platypus is made by God or evolution, the platypus is equally nifty. Whether I think my novel was written by my "self", my "soul", channeling my "Muse", inspiration by my "god" or an artful combination of my genotype and my environment--the book is the same.

Yes, I would say the attribution of self to some in tangible spirit world is an artifact--but the experience of self is real. (I think therefore I am=I "am" the ability to think).

[Ruv Draba]

If the self is the body, it is a corpse and nothing more. If it is the mind and the body then the self is a robot. But it's not, is it?
I see mind as the configuration of our cognition - it's just the way that we go about producing and processing the information we call 'thoughts'. The mind is not the self, but produces Self as part of the story it uses to operate.

Self is a story; it can change but not arbitrarily. It has some impact on the way that Mind operates so it's not a meaningless story. Mind produces Self and Self helps to direct Mind.

So then...what? Where does this "creativity" come from that everyone talks about?Creativity is just the Mind rearranging and recombining throughts to produce novelty. If the novelty is useful then we call it innovation. There's strong evidence in nature that you don't need much Mind to produce some innovation. A large number of animals from insects through to birds are tool-users - it's just that their rate of innovation is comparably slower than a human animal's.

What is valuing, but the citation of an-other's system of valuation?Valuing is just Mind assessing potential against purpose. Purpose arises largely from the artifact of Mind called Self, but some of it arises from intrinsic species imperatives that we don't always recognise. Since Self is a story it can borrow from the stories of others to create purpose and values, but also it can innovate its own. I think that we see evidence of both in the world.

[AMCrenshaw]

"I am my ability to think" ? But where do you get "your" thoughts? This hasn't been answered yet. The thoughts you have are not yours at all, if "you" think about it. So what is distinctly you ?

Novelty doesn't exist. Combinations and rearrangements always had the potential to exist (and for us to be aware of them). There is nothing new under the sun. Or, as a scientist might put it: energy cannot be created nor destroyed.

"it can innovate its own [purpose]"

Using an original or self-innovated language? I doubt highly that this is true. Their purpose is a citation.

I agree that the self is largely a narrative. But narratives, for the most part, are re-presentations of reality, not reality itself. In addition, narratives are artifacts. So the experience of the self is couched in terms not original to us, whose meaning is always, already determined, and ultimately communicated and recollected through narrative (artifact).

Regardless of that, we cannot deny truths in narratives, either, however little of a truth it might be. But, as far as the Self Story, what can we say is True about that particular kind of narrative?

Anything? Is there an actual self? Is it something that can be described? What I am reading is that there is no self independent of other factors, and that because of this, individuality might exist, but we would have a really hard time defining it, since each person shares so much with others.

AMC

[veinglory]

Why do I need to get my thoughts from somewhere? Thoughts are not objects, they are actions. Where does an apple get its falling? I haven't answered that question because in my world it is like saying that I haven't explained why the sea smells of strawberries. I am in a paradigm where thoughts are something you do, probably mainly an action of the brain on an electrochemical level.

The rest of that paragraphs I really didn't understand at all. I have spelled out my position. To even understand your questions I might need to know yours. Are you assuming the self and thoughts are objects that exist either on or off the physical plane? If that is assumed I have nothing to contribute--I don't see it that way.

Yes there is a self, it is the actions of my body that contribute to or are percived by me. In specific terms it is a genotype, series of experiences and some life processes. I am now repeating myself so I probably don't have much more to add.

[veinglory]

p.s. This is pretty seriously off topic for the subforum now, I think?

[Sarpedon]

I don't think so. I've been thinking about writing a piece where a guy dies, and gets his personality put onto a machine. Its not an original idea of course, but I think my take on it is. So its not as if this stuff isn't relevant to the world of writing, science, and atheism in general.

Im finding this very interesting, though I'm not participating much.

[AMCrenshaw]

First of all, since the physical plane is the only one we know exists for certain that is one I will use.

"Why do I need to get my thoughts from somewhere?" OK, so if we had brains, would we still think? They came from the brain. But our Self is not the brain, anyway. Nor, even if it were, are the thoughts that our brains collect from the external world exclusive to our brains. Meaning, there is nothing that goes on in our heads that hasn't (in some way)appeared in the universe. At birth we are, usually, engaged in some sort of society and are raised within that society. Because of this, we- referring to cogito, that thing we think of as experiencing- see a limited amount of things. "We" experience, thus, a limited amount of things. Since we are in a civilization, sometimes, we are told what to do and what not to do. We derive our conscience from our parents, or the laws of our society, and what we tend to think of as Autonomous Action is probably Conditioned Re-action. The conscience, and the mind overall, at that point, is an intertext, which is to say that it borrows thousands of different parts to make it what it is. My question is, finally, is there something that is distinct, that we do not borrow, do not share?

You say: "Yes there is a self, it is the actions of my body that contribute to or are percived by me." The self is the actions of your body that contribute to or are perceived by you. Do "you" see how that makes no sense. That's like defining one word with the word in its definition. When you answer what is distinctly You, if anything, I will be very surprised.

Sarp: "Its not an original idea of course, but I think my take on it is."

Is it your take, or the take of "your" specific time and place, history, society, biology, and psychology?


To answer your question, veinglory, "my" take on the self can be read here:

http://www.drba.org/dharma/vajrasutra.asp

ULTIMATELY THERE IS NO SELF and
CONTEMPLATING THE ONENESS OF EVERYTHING

sum up what "I" was pointing to, however feebly.

AMC

[Ruv Draba]

p.s. This is pretty seriously off topic for the subforum now, I think?

It feels more like philosophy than writing to me but I have a nontheistic writing angle on it, and here it is:

If there's no soul then the question of 'who am I' may be answerable only partially and from multiple viewpoints, because the Self is just a subjective, self-interested story. The so-called 'Johari Window' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johari_Window) captures this idea:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2c/Johari_Window.PNG

I personally find the moral narratives of many characters in fiction quite frustrating because they tend to show a limited number of panes in the window. A classic fantasy, crime, or romance character, say, is typically portrayed as either 'good' or 'bad'. If it's portrayed as good then we look through what the Johari model calls the 'Arena' pane and see lots of good things happening there. If it's painted evil then we often see the Arena and Facade windows contrasted. If it's painted tragic then we'll often see contrasts between the Arena and Blind Spot windows...

From a NT writing perspective, I believe that we need to look at the character from at least three panes to get a sense of a character's morality - and that the fourth pane (the unknown) is likely to be of keen interest too.

With that said, I'm trying to think of some writing that plays well with these issues and offhand I'm drawing a blank. Does anyone have some suggestions?

[AMCrenshaw]

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.

The Johari Window is a psychological tool about how we can perceive personality. Useful for developing narratives, representations of reality.

Sorry if these posts sound "philosophical." I didn't realize atheism was un-philosophical. Besides that point, I am researching Time and Self without God (it's going well btw), so I hope I'm not offending anyone in this sub-forum.

AMC

Ruv: It is said that writing is more philosophical than philosophy.

[Ruv Draba]

"I am my ability to think" ? But where do you get "your" thoughts?That's the eternal writer's question, isn't it? :) But I think that all writers know the answer to this. Here's my version of it, anyway:

Many of our thoughts derive from the thoughts of others. What we consider 'original' are often just reflections on our experiences, or perhaps implications, counterpositions, examples, exceptions, compositions of or holes in someone else's ideas. It's often said that there are no new ideas under the sun - and perhaps this confirms that much of our creative thinking is not original so much as simply recomposed or reinterpreted.

Theists may see their writing as divinely inspired, but I see mine as inspired simply by my experience and trying to make sense of that. If I had no experiences then I'd probably have no thoughts to write about - and no will to write it either.

Just as the book isn't the author, so my thoughts aren't me; they're an artifact of my mind, just as my Self/narrative is. Put my mind in a different situation and it would probably have different thoughts and perhaps over time, become a different Self. (Have you ever wondered what you'd be like if you'd grown up 600 years ago? When I ponder that I quickly conclude that I wouldn't be 'me' at all.)

'I think therefore I am' might be true, but that does not imply 'I am just my thoughts'.

Does all this make Self illusory? I don't think so; it just makes Self impermanent (since it's situational) and unreliable (as self-interested narratives typically are). The extent to which Self is illusory is just the extent to which we deceive in our narrative, and then uphold the deception in our beliefs - including the deception of our omniscience about ourselves. That may vary from person to person.

I don't know of that helps or not - but I hope it does, and I hope it's sufficiently writingy not to bother anyone else. :)

In terms of my writerly interest in the 'NT Self' question here it is unpacked a bit more...

A lot of fiction presents characters with either no self-deceit - or when the self-deceit occurs it's usually immediately obvious. When the characters are self-deceiving it alienates many audiences - diminishing both trust and character sympathy. Is that because we readers want to believe our own self-deceits, or is it just that we want stories to be easy to understand? Maybe it's a combination but I think a lot of the time it might simply be the latter.

As a sometime writer of NT fiction I have a lot of interest in presenting moral ambiguity and uncertainty - but I want to keep it interesting and engaging. I'm still not terribly sure how to do that.

Thanks for the book recommendation by the way. I dug into some reviews and it seems like a very unusual story.

[Ruv Draba]

I've been thinking about writing a piece where a guy dies, and gets his personality put onto a machine. Greg Egan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Egan) has written a few shorts on this in the last ten to fifteen years - especially on our appreciation of Self vs the reality of Self. You can find a couple of them in his anthology Axiomatic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiomatic_%28story_collection%29).

It can be quite easy to think about mind transfer from a theistic perspective. The 'mind' is merely an expression of the 'soul' - which is typically eternal and indivisible (except if you're ancient Egyptian maybe). If you relocate the soul (e.g. put it in a bottle or a computer) then you've clearly relocated mind and conversely in many of these stories if you relocate mind then the original body loses its soul.

From a nontheistic perspective though, it gets tricky. In Egan's stories for example, mind-duplicates ('duals' or 'jewels') are 'trained' to record the same events and produce the same responses as their hosts. From a purely behaviouristic perspective one can argue that if you have the same responses to the same inputs then you have the same Mind and hence (arguably) the same Self - since (arguably) Self is just an artifact of Mind. Egan argues just this in a couple of his stories.

But I question that strongly! It's not hard to craft two 'black boxes' that produce the same results by very different means (many of us were taught more than one way to do long division in school, for example). If Self is our inner narrative, then it will surely include some story about how we solve problems, not simply the results of the problems solved. So you could produce an effect where two behaviourally identical minds are actually two very distinct Selves. In an extreme case, the two minds could do exactly the same things and one could be highly benign while the other is highly malign (see the Johari window I posted earlier for why this can occur).

(There has to be an interesting SF story in this... I'm just not sure what it is....)

This whole question, by the way, underpins a theistic schism on salvation through thoughts vs salvation through deeds... In some religions it doesn't matter what you think - as long as you do what they tell you. (That's the behaviourist view. :)) In other religions, it doesn't matter what you did as long as you believe what they tell you. In some religions, it's important to both think and do as they prescribe. In other religions they duck the question entirely.

Personally, I think that the what and why are important. I don't believe that sustainable good arises from a malignant or deluded Self; I think that it arises from a benign but self-questioning Self. (This is also a reason that I don't believe that Self is illusory or unimportant either...)

There are some good stories you can tell about Selves self-questioning, but there are some utterly fascinating stories you can write about self-delusion. :)

[veinglory]

I don't think I wil ever get across, thoughts don't comes from the brain, they are something the brain does. Just like squints don't come from the eyes and smiling doesn't come from the mouth. Just like the color grey doesn't come from the brain. Thoughts are an attribute of the brain.

The elimination fallacy is common in biomedical science. It goes, 'I took out the bobbsie organ and the rats don't fight, there from the bobbsie organ must be where aggression is'. 99 times out of 100 something else has happened like a neuron happened to go through that area and got cut, or removing the bobbsie organ makes rats go blind.

But I get it, you want to talk about where thoughts as some kind of physical object are. All i can say is thoughts aren;t any kind of physical object--they are an action, a process. They can only be described in the way we describe other actions. the fact we 'noun' them in language is simply a mistake.

So how about we continue this with no further use of the word 'thought' only 'think' ;)

[Sarpedon]

The main difference in my story is the process. In all stories of mind going into computer I've read, or seen on tv, (I'm looking at you, Star Trek) its a virtually instantaneous process. Not in mine.

Basically, a terminally ill man gets his whole brain and body scanned at high resolution many times during the course of his illness. Then, upon his death, his brain is removed and minutely analyzed. Then, after a number of months of programming, the program is run, and there, to the satisfaction of his friends and colleagues, he is. The whole story would not be from the point of view of the character in question, which would add to the story's ambiguity. He, and the reader, would only see the communications from the computer.

[veinglory]

I think the idea of whether the real person's POV would be transfered, or duplicated is kind of interesting.

[AMCrenshaw]

Thoughts are objects- tangible or not. Thinking is an action.

[Sarpedon]

Yup, that's kind of the point, as well as the question 'and what's the difference?'

[AMCrenshaw]

right, like are actions objects. I always found that question interesting.

But "what's the difference" is, to me, the most profound question in philosophy. ha!

[Ruv Draba]

I don't think I wil ever get across, thoughts don't comes from the brain, they are something the brain does.I agree (and for other reasons I don't think that this necessarily invalidates Egan's ideas - but I still think that they're invalid). But let me keep to Veinglory's tangent:

By way of (yet another) analogy, suppose that you've written a novel and you decide to replace the plot. Where in the novel must you make the changes?

Answer: everywhere. The plot doesn't exist as a single object within the novel. Information about the plot is scattered throughout the book. If 'plot' exists in a single place at all it's probably somewhere outside the book - like in the Cliff notes. If we think of the Self as being our autobiographical Cliff notes, then we can consider our 'thoughts' as being statements in the Cliff synopsis - they're a distinct abstract summary of what's really going on.

So what?

Well, we know that you can't really appreciate the novel just by reading the Cliff notes. We also know that if you copy Cliff notes, you haven't written a novel. We also know that Cliff notes can sometimes be misleading - even outright wrong. :)

Has anyone else had a fear of having their imaginations cross-examined in a court of law?

Prosecutor: 'Ruv, did you ever imagine that you would murder your wife and flush her down the garbage disposal?'
Ruv: 'Yes. Yes I did.'
Jury: o.O
Prosecutor: 'Wait. You're saying that you actually thought about killing your wife...'
Ruv: 'No, I didn't think about it. I just imagined it.'
Prosecutor: 'So you're saying that you dreamed about killing your wife'
Ruv: 'No, it wasn't a dream.. more of a .. possibility.'
Prosecutor: 'So it was a fantasy of yours?'
Ruv: 'No, I often think about the unthinkable. It excites me.'
Jury: O.o
Prosecutor: 'So you're telling this court that you thought about killing your wife and got excited.'
Ruv: 'No, I didn't have those thoughts at all. But I was aware of the possibility.'
Prosecutor: 'So did you or did you not plan to kill your wife and flush her down the sink?'
Ruv: 'I didn't set a schedule, but I certainly knew that it could be done.'
Jury: O.O
Prosecutor: 'So you're saying that you'd planned to kill and flush your wife, but you were just waiting for the right time?'

(See... this is one reason why I'm not comfortable with the description of brain activity as 'thoughts' :D)

[veinglory]

One reason I like Wittgenstein is because he was the first to really show how language can distort thinking. Of course other people have covered this since (under terms such as reification, and category mistake). Humans seem to have a natural tendencies to 'noun' things and then a desire to 'thing' them. I am saying 'thought' is a noun in error. Therefore no corresponding things exists, just as for unicorn (although for a different reason as this was a mistranslation from monokeros/rhinoceros) or bobbsie. (Or the great example above of the 'plot' which cannot be said to exist separately from the words but it simply a meta-description of their purpose or structure).

Of course in my world there is no such thing as an 'intangible object', being a materialist that I would translation that term as 'delusion' or 'misunderstanding'. If one was to absolutely insist 'thought' did exist materially I might sigh and say it is a certain dynamic set of charged ions in the neurones of the brain.

[Sarpedon]

Oh good gracious yes. I'm so happy to see someone else on this writing forum talking about that. I've seen so many examples of people letting word choice distort their thinking. Like every time I get in an argument with our resident creationist community.

The most valuable thing I ever learned is this; The world is not what you think it is.

[veinglory]

I think you can negotiate a reasonable interaction with the world thinking all sorts of things. But it is in my nature to find parsimony a pleasing way to see and mythology/magic and interesting subject to consider--rather than one of the other four options and intermediate or utterly unrelated approaches.

[deathwizard]

The most valuable thing I ever learned is this; The world is not what you think it is.

See Surangama Sutra, below

[zornhau]

Robert E Howard gave these words to Conan:
Let teachers and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.
From where I stand, and in my writing, "self" is what you do, not what you think about doing, or would do if only etc.

[oscuridad]

The self is defined by not being everything else. If something is not of me, it is not part of my self. If something is of me, it is part of my self. Self is holistic, not dualistic.

[zornhau]

Ah, but don't you make a distinction between thought and action?

[veinglory]

Who is that adressed to? I consider thought a subset of action. There are actions that are not thoughts, but no thoughts that are not actions.

[Sarpedon]

Did one of my posts vanish?

Thought can be seen as a prepatory action. Because a thought is a manifestation of actions in the brain, it can't be said not to be an action.

[Ruv Draba]

There are actions that are not thoughts, but no thoughts that are not actions.I'm not sure, Vein. Thinking might be an action, but a thought - if it's well-defined at all - seems to be a product of action; a change arising from the thinking itself.

In terms of thinking as an action, then I believe it makes sense from some perspectives. If we observe a woman, say, sitting on a bench frowning and doing nothing else then we can say 'She's thinking'. That makes sense. She's clearly thinking because she's not doing anything else.

But if we look at thinking in terms of thinking about something then I'm not sure that it's well defined as an action. When does thinking about something start and end? All actions have a clear start and end, whether it's cooking or an eye-twitch, but cognition doesn't always work that way, except in fictional narrative.

[veinglory]

Thoughts, IMHO, don't exist. Only thinking. But I really am repeating myself here.
Nor is distinct and measurable categorisation of start and finish part of the defintion of an action (e.g. the wind) any more than it is over an object (e.g. the atmosphere).

[Ruv Draba]

Thoughts, IMHO, don't exist. Only thinking. But I really am repeating myself here.Yes - but the expression of your last post wasn't consistent with your original point, with which I agreed. :)

Nor is distinct and measurable categorisation of start and finish part of the defintion of an action (e.g. the wind) any more than it is over an object (e.g. the atmosphere).I think that the kind of action you're talking about there is the 'waves on cliff' or 'wind on leaves' action -- a force (the actor) effecting change (the acted upon). But a lot of thinking seems to effect no appreciable change at all, except within itself. So I'd believe that it's activity, but why is it action?

Edited to fit in afterthoughts:

That 'thought as action' view almost leads us to the proposition that thinking-as-action acts upon thought-as-narrative, but like you I don't really believe that. You might not agree with this, but I consider that thought-as-narrative is created to reflect thinking-as-activity. As evidence, from one period of thinking I can generate a lot of distinct, even contradictory 'thoughts', with no natural logical or chronological sequence. While I can create 'trains' of thought to express ideas to others, most of the time it is more like waves or wind... sometimes it has something to act upon (e.g. a problem), but sometimes it acts upon nothing at all; it seems to be just change for change's sake.

[Zornhau is this why you see 'self' as simply 'what is done' - because the inner wash of whys and hows are imprecise, contradictory and often too subtle to fully discern?]

Because this is a nontheistic thread I thought I'll slip in some commentary about self and sin here: thought is not necessarily intention. To have thoughts with no real intention is just imagination and to my mind at worst it's an exercise or an investigation. It's nothing to feel ashamed or guilty of -- unless you start rehearsing or entraining action.

Because this is a nontheistic writing thread, let me bemoan here how frustrated I get at writing characters' internal thinking - because I find great difficulty in expressing it as I perceive my own thinking. I get very irritated at narrators giving their characters 'trains of thought' -- while I think in that mode at times, I normally only do it when rehearsing or testing arguments. Much of the time though there's no train at all...

Joyce in Ulysses tried to render thinking as 'stream of consciousness' and while it's an interesting experiment, I find it very dissatisfying because the linearity to me feels artificial and contrived.

At the moment, my personal character-rendering style is maybe a bit like Zornhau's 'self is action' proposition -- I simply write what the character feels (i.e. the physical sensation of its emotions) and what it does (i.e. its behaviours) and leave the reader to guess the thoughts.... that's dissatisfying still but at least it doesn't feel like I'm lying to the reader.

[AMCrenshaw]

"The self is defined by not being everything else. If something is not of me, it is not part of my self. If something is of me, it is part of my self. Self is holistic, not dualistic."

But what is distinctly "Me" ? This is what I've been asking. I like that you've worked 'negatively' but is it possible, do you think, to define the self 'positively'?

Ruv: "Joyce in Ulysses tried to render thinking as 'stream of consciousness' and while it's an interesting experiment, I find it very dissatisfying because the linearity to me feels artificial and contrived."

It's narrative. A fake. Of course it feels artificial. At the same time, it's more than an experiment, isn't it? Because when Joyce wrote Penelope, he let it fly. His thoughts on the paper, within the context he created (for the story). Besides, Joyce's experiment was not to pinpoint how thoughts work, but to validate the inner experience through re-presentation of the thought process. So that's why the One-day 8 billion page narrative. That's why the "mind the clock" -isms. To disrupt pure objectivism and chronology, or The Clanging Bell (also seen in Woolf's Dalloway). His method, of course, relied on memory and thought as having a narrative quality. In relying on that, he could re-present the thought process in one way: and you named it without naming it. Metonymy. Which can be linear...

I also don't see thoughts as purely narrative; but they must be objects if thinking and thought are distinct. Either way, in order to communicate thinking or thought....well, you know.

Memories are, however, narratives in that the images have changed, or the meaning of the images has changed, due to a specific sequence of experiences. The past is not fixed after all. For the subjective mind, anyway.

AMC

[Ruv Draba]

In relying on that, he could re-present the thought process in one way: and you named it without naming it. Metonymy. Which can be linear...Sure, but metonymy is a largely poetic device. It aims to deliver feel and association at cost to accuracy and precision. To the extent that we're interested in character motivations (which I think is a good reason to care about 'self' in writing), bathing the reader in synthetic and largely banal mindchatter seems self-indulgent stylism with maybe a frisson of voyeurism. We don't normally write about human excretion unless there's linkage to some character or plot issue; why write mindchatter?

More than that... I think that on some deep, psychological level it fails stylistically too. The times when we most talk to ourselves are when we're angry or anxious. If you take any stream of consciousness excerpt from Ulysses (and especially the 'Penelope' episode) that's exactly how it looks - angry or anxious with barely a breather for respite:

...I gave it to him anyhow either she or me leaves the house I couldnt even touch him if I thought he was with a dirty barefaced liar and sloven like that one denying it up to my face and singing about the place in the W C too because she knew she was too well off yes because he couldnt possibly do without it that long so he must do it somewhere and the last time he came on my bottom when was it the night Boylan gave my hand a great squeeze going along by the Tolka in my hand there steals another I just pressed the back of his like that with my thumb to squeeze back singing the young May Moon shes beaming love because he has an idea about him and me hes not such a fool he said Im dining out and going to the Gaiety though Im not going to give him the satisfaction in any case God knows hes change in a way not to be always and ever wearing the same old hat...


Memories are, however, narratives in that the images have changed, or the meaning of the images has changed, due to a specific sequence of experiences. The past is not fixed after all. For the subjective mind, anyway.I don't know that memories are narrative. I think that they are reconstructive models used to support cognition. Some of that cognition may be narration, but a lot isn't.

And... the past is fixed, for all operational purposes. It's just that it's not fixed in Mind. :)

[Ruv Draba]

Vaguely connected to the discussion of self, I've posted something about the untrustworthiness of first person narrative (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2506685#post2506685) in another forum. I like first person, but don't trust it even when the author wants me to. I feel that the main job of 'self' is to create unreliable, intrusive narrative. It bothers me when 1P narrators don't do that. :)

[AMCrenshaw]

"I don't know that memories are narrative. I think that they are reconstructive models used to support cognition"

Key words you used are "reconstructive models," which are largely, if not always (I'm not 100% married to that idea, in any case), narratives. To support, cognition, sure, but to be cognition. I agree with your position on cognition.


To say that metonymy is a poetic device should go without saying. But you move toward a point I myself would like to make. When you say "poetic" you might mean literary, I'm not sure. It doesn't matter.

Cleanth Brooks, for example, would say that what is most poetic is what makes the least Sense. Or that poetics are always opaque. However, how can metonymy be opaque, since the association is clear, particularly in a stream-of-consciousness style narrative? Well, without context, Penelope's section is blather. It "seems" to be senseless. When we give it a context, and thus many ways to associate images, we can derive meaning from that passage.

For example, at the end of Penelope, notice how the narrator replays her engagement with Mr Bloom. There "seems" to be more to what is going on than what she is saying, but that precisely means that no more is going on, but that what she is saying includes all of the associative images and devices. Now, to say that this sort of style is self-indulgent is a matter of opinion. So here is mine: to press the opaqueness of poetry into fullness is not self-indulgent at all because it must speak to other literature - both past and future. To make the effort to validate the inner experience is an admission of an-other's inner experience. What happens is that you eventually must break down the divide between inner and outer to achieve some sort of 'salvation,' or in literary terms, resolution. I imagine the reason for "recording" the mindchatter is to show how Mr Bloom and Stephen re-present something else in addition to themselves. Mr Bloom isn't just Mr Bloom, is he? The way Stephen associates everything with Shakespeare probably isn't realistic at all, but it says something about the way intellectual people of that time period can't connect with non-intellects.

In fact, Ulysses would not be a great novel without the inner experience. It is less, to me, about the experimentation, than the delivery itself. It is poetic in that it is opaque, and seemingly nonsensical. So, to me, it succeeds in showing how the inner lives of the characters lead fiction to its resolution - even if the style is merely a model, and an incorrect one at that.

One last thing, I'm not sure how your excerpt supported the statement of how that style fails; in fact, as a re-presentation of how the psyche works, you say that Joyce was somewhat accurate.

AMC

[Ruv Draba]

"I don't know that memories are narrative. I think that they are reconstructive models used to support cognition"

Key words you used are "reconstructive models," which are largely, if not always (I'm not 100% married to that idea, in any case), narratives.The key issue here is whether memory has its own innate sequence. I believe that it doesn't - we merely apply sequence to it sometimes. My experience of straining to remember things is that memories pop up like mushrooms, with one eruption triggering others... There's no special order to this and the remembering doesn't even stick to the subject. Eventually if I choose, I can string my recollections together as narrative and try to fill in any holes of sequence or causality - or I can just remember what I remember.

Being something of a nerd about consistency, I also note that when other people recount events that I've shared, the sequence they remember is often not the one that I remember - it looks switched to me (and perhaps vice versa). When they tell the tale again much later, I sometimes see them switch sequence again. From this I conclude that the memory is being renarrated - probably to make particular points.

There are also some studies on eyewitness memories at disasters where the eyewitnesses become very attached to telling events in a particular order - even when the order is impossible and some of the events witnessed are also impossible. (Sorry that I don't have a ref handy for this one)

All the above leads me to think that sequence isn't part of the memories forming/reappearing, is not applied to memory unless the rememberer chooses to, and sometimes is not even used as a test of memory authenticity.

Or put another way, our memory reconstruction is largely associative (e.g. like a mandala) rather than sequential (e.g.like a comic strip).
To say that metonymy is a poetic device should go without saying. But you move toward a point I myself would like to make. When you say "poetic" you might mean literary, I'm not sure. It doesn't matter.We use metonymy in general literature (where it's used as garnish) and of course in conversation (where it's largely cliche), but it's in poetry where its impact is most felt.

without context, Penelope's section is blather. It "seems" to be senseless. When we give it a context, and thus many ways to associate images, we can derive meaning from that passage.The passage certainly has meaning - Molly's reflecting on her relationship with Leopold and her infidelity with Boylan. I wasn't trying to show that the excerpt had no meaning, but to question whether stylistically it's an accurate reflection of psyche. My contention is that it's not.

Here's Stephen's stream of consciousness reflection on his time in Paris from Episode 3 for comparison:
Noon slumbers. Kevin Egan rolls gunpowder cigarettes through fingers smeared with printer's ink, sipping his green fairy as Patrice his white. About us gobblers fork spiced beans down their gullets. UN DEMI SETIER! A jet of coffee steam from the burnished caldron. She serves me athis beck. IL EST IRLANDAIS. HOLLANDAIS? NON FROMAGE. DEUX IRLANDAIS, NOUS, IRLANDE, VOUS SAVEZ AH, OUI! She thought you wanted a cheese HOLLANDAIS. Your postprandial, do you know that word? Postprandial. There was a fellow I knew once in Barcelona, queer fellow, used to call it his postprandial. Well: SLAINTE! Around the slabbed tables the tangle of wined breaths and grumbling gorges. His breath hangs over our saucestained plates, the green fairy's fang thrusting between his lips. Of Ireland, the Dalcassians, of hopes, conspiracies, of Arthur Griffith now, A E, pimander, good shepherd of men. To yoke me as his yokefellow, our crimes our common cause. You're your father's son. I know the voice. His fustian shirt, sanguineflowered, trembles its Spanish tassels at his secrets. M. Drumont, famous journalist, Drumont, know what he called queen Victoria? Old hag with the yellow teeth. VIEILLE OGRESSE with the DENTS JAUNES. Maud Gonne, beautiful woman, LA PATRIE, M. Millevoye, Felix Faure, know how he died? Licentious men. The froeken, BONNE A TOUT FAIRE, who rubs male nakedness in the bath at Upsala. MOI FAIRE, she said, TOUS LES MESSIEURS. Not this MONSIEUR, I said. Most licentious custom. Bath a most private thing. I wouldn't let my brother, not even my own brother, most lascivious thing. Green eyes, I see you. Fang, I feel. Lascivious people.Again, it doesn't feel to me like a character thinking but a character narrating... Not consciousness so much as super-egoic commentary: breathless, critical, anxious, and frequently cranky or belligerent.

to press the opaqueness of poetry into fullness is not self-indulgent at all because it must speak to other literature - both past and future.If you just said 'worthy attempt', then I agree. A worthy experiment, but to me, very dissatisfying.


To make the effort to validate the inner experience is an admission of an-other's inner experience.Or, to attempt to model another's experience and get it wrong is evidence of weakness in either the author or the medium. My bet's on the medium - although in parts of Ulysses I wonder about the author too. :)

What happens is that you eventually must break down the divide between inner and outer to achieve some sort of 'salvation,' or in literary terms, resolution.AMC, do you know any psychotics? I mean folk with clinically diagnosed psychoses? I do. I know some people suffering schizophrenia, one with diagnosed paranoia, and two guys with strong bipolarity - one of whom bit the ear off his sister-in-law and another who almost killed his ex-wife. Their biggest problem - their very biggest - is that their divide between 'inner' and 'outer' has broken down. It's almost the defining character of their conditions.

What I think you're talking about is not 'tearing down the walls', but relaxing them; making them permeable and less brittle. Dropping ego-defences, ceasing to subject ourselves to inner criticism etc... All good stuff I'd say, but not to be confused with dissolving the inner/outer boundary entirely.

In short: for the whole of your life, you have to remember which fingernails are your fingernails and which are not, because if you chew someone else's they get affronted. :eek:
I imagine the reason for "recording" the mindchatter is to show how Mr Bloom and Stephen re-present something else in addition to themselves.Or the author needs to spam the reader so much to achieve the aesthetic that there's plenty of space to tuck in whatever other allusions he wants. :)
In fact, Ulysses would not be a great novel without the inner experience. It is less, to me, about the experimentation, than the delivery itself.Or alternatively: aesthetic put before audience and subject-matter. :tongue Ulysses was originally serialised and perhaps it's still best read as a series of linked short stories with a shared theme.

One last thing, I'm not sure how your excerpt supported the statement of how that style fails; in fact, as a re-presentation of how the psyche works, you say that Joyce was somewhat accurate.Only for bits of the psyche - especially that part which Freud called the super-ego. I don't think that Joyce's 'stream of consciousness' is exactly that, but rather 'stream of critique'. That's a very blathery part of the mind by its nature; it's not always running, it's not representative of the whole mind, and asking the reader to subject its waste-stream to forensic analysis can be rather unkind to the reader. :)