Science of Self (Humans)

by dhw, Monday, March 10, 2014, 18:38 (3909 days ago) @ romansh

dhw: We have in the past, I think, all accepted Ouellette's definition of "emergence" as "a system in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts".
ROMANSH: While this is a common "acceptance" of the definition of emergence -it is really more akin to synergism (antagonism is the antonym).-Why bring in a different term taken from such a specific field? The above commonly accepted definition of emergence can be applied to many different fields, philosophical as well as scientific. That is why it is so useful.-Dhw: I would argue that the self does exist, and that everyone has the ability to take his or her own decisions in certain contexts ... if we make that a defining element of "free will" ... but that neither the "self" nor "free will" are as self-contained or as free as they appear to be. 
ROMANSH: I would say we have the ability to parse the universe into you, me and not me or you - essentially creating a model. -I agree that we have that ability, and if by creating a model you mean we have a concept of what it is that constitutes a particular "self", I would agree with that too.-Dhw: The combination of brain, body, environment and experience mentioned above clearly entails factors over which we have no control, and so both our identity and our ability to take decisions are under influences we may not be aware of. Nevertheless, that particular combination is what gives each of us our uniqueness, even if we do find it impossible to separate our "selves" and our decisions from the influences that have shaped and continue to shape them.
ROMANSH: No one is arguing against uniqueness. But I am questioning what exactly does the controlling of the bioelectrochemical reactions and the underlying fundamental physics?-I think you have been asking two questions: 1) whether the self exists (you have talked of "the absence of self and the consequences of such a worldview"), and 2) whether we have free will. Clearly the latter depends on the former, but the problematical nature of free will does not mean that the attributes which make "me" do not constitute what we call a "self". -ROMANSH: In one interpretation all this bioelectrochemical/physics stuff is the thought, but compatibilists have a different definition of free will. So ultimately it is the stuff that has the free will. Libertarians (lower case l) have a more dualistic approach where the mind is somehow separate from the brain. DHW, I can't tell which of the general positions you are proposing, but to me it seems closer to the second.-I'm not proposing either. Firstly, I'm arguing that the self exists, because I can identify characteristics in myself which distinguish me from others, and vice versa. This has nothing to do with free will, because even if those characteristics are due to factors beyond my control, they are still what constitute "me". Secondly, I do not know if or to what extent I have free will, because I do not know the extent to which my decisions are governed by biochemistry, general heredity, the environment, experience etc. I don't understand how compatibilists can "escape" from these constraints without embracing the same mind/body dualism as libertarians. (What is "more dualistic"? As I see it, either the mind is separate from the brain or it isn't.) As regards dualism itself, until we have a convincing account of how materials can generate consciousness of themselves, I prefer to keep an open mind, which means that I neither accept nor dismiss the idea that some form of energy may influence our chemicals rather than the chemicals being the sole producers and controllers of that energy. This also leaves me open-minded in relation to some of the so-called psychic events we have discussed before on this forum.