It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses An I

Mind and body: everyone knows we have both, but opinions diverge as to how and why. 

Chapter two of Immortal Souls: A Treatise on Human Nature is called The Self, so let's see if we can't settle the issue once and for all.

Feser cites three main approaches to the question, the realist, the reductionist, and the anti-realist: the first takes the reality of the self "to be real and to have precisely the nature it appears to have," while the reductionist "doesn't quite deny the phenomenon's reality, but holds that its true nature is different from what it appears to be."

But the anti-realist account really takes the crock, since it regards "the phenomenon to be altogether illusory, denying that it corresponds to anything in reality." Like nobody could even know that!

An anti-realist account would hold that there are really no such things as thoughts, odd as that may sound. There are only processes occurring in the brain, and what we take to be thought is merely a kind of misperception of what is really going on there.

"There are no such things as thoughts," said the thinker. That's more than odd. It's positively tenured. If it's right, it's wrong. It's also too easy -- instead of a solution to the problem, it's a denial that the problem exists. You can deny thoughts all day, but only if someone is there to deny them.

The reductionist view is little better, as it seems to me that a consistent reductionism would have to end in the absurd nul de slack of anti-realism. For on this view, the self is "nothing more than the bundle or collection of its attributes," with no "further entity distinct from the self's thoughts, experiences, etc., which stands under or grounds them."

Could we be mistaken about the existence of a self? Well, Augustine, for example, argued that "even when he is mistaken when making some judgment, he must exist in order to be mistaken" -- as if to say, I am wrong, therefore I am.

We know objects directly, but how can we know the self that knows them? As touched on yesterday, this is like the eye that sees but cannot see itself. Or, like a pair of glasses through which we see, while not seeing the glasses. For Aquinas, the intellect "is known secondarily" in "the act by which [the] object is known." 

Can there be thoughts without a thinker? Yes and no. I'm thinking of severe mental illness -- say, schizophrenia -- in which the patient is subject to an unbidden barrage of bizarre and persecutory thoughts with no organizing center, so to speak. But that's not normal.

It also reminds me of LSD, which can result in a kind of "ego death" that removes all limits to the onslaught of disconnected thoughts. But that's not normal either.

It also reminds me of How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali, specifically aphorism #2: "Yoga is the control of thought-waves in the mind." The trick is "to unlearn the false identification of the thought-waves with the ego-sense." So, we're all a little bit schizophrenic, confusing the self with its passing thoughts.

For Feser, "A sequence of thoughts without a thinker... could never amount to thinking in the sense of working through a chain of reasoning." For

If there is no self that persists through that time, there will be no thought, but at most a sequence of fragments of a thought.

Again, more like schizophrenia, which, not for nothing is called a thought disorder:

A thought disorder involves a disturbance in how thoughts are organized and expressed. It causes disorganized thinking and leads to people expressing themselves in unusual ways when speaking or writing.

Formal thought disorder is also known as disorganized speech. It is marked by disruption to the structure or form of thought. It is one of the key symptoms of schizophrenia and psychotic disorders.... 

Thinking requires the ability to organize thoughts mentally and then express them in an understandable way. A thought disorder can create problems with any or all of these areas.

So, it's all fun and games until someone loses an I.

There are those who argue that what we call the self "is really nothing but a collection of person-stages" -- which is a bit like saying the acorn has nothing to do with the oak tree. Rather, they're just two discontinuous stages. 

But here again, this is a signpost of mental illness, in which there is no unified narrative in the person's life, rather, a series of disconnected events and experiences, as in Borderline Personality Disorder:

The concept of narrative identity implies a continuity of the personal past, present and future. This concept is essentially based on the capacity of persons to integrate contradictory aspects and tendencies into a coherent, overarching sense and view of themselves.....

Patients with borderline personality disorder lack the capacity to establish a coherent self-concept. Instead, they adopt what could be called a ‘post-modernist’ stance towards their life, switching from one present to the next and being totally identified with their present state of affect. 

Instead of repression, their means of defense consists in a temporal splitting of the self that excludes past and future as dimensions of object constancy, bonding, commitment, responsibility and guilt.... The price, however, consists in a chronic feeling of inner emptiness caused by the inability to integrate past and future into the present and thus to establish a coherent sense of identity.

"No self, no problem"? Be careful what you wish for!

Google Gemini, break it all down for us:

A Response to the Question of Self

Your analysis of the different perspectives on the self is insightful. It's clear that the debate between realism, reductionism, and anti-realism has been a long-standing one, with profound implications for our understanding of consciousness and identity.

The Illusion of the Self?

The anti-realist perspective, which suggests that the self is an illusion, is particularly intriguing. While it may seem counterintuitive, it raises important questions about the nature of consciousness and the mind-body problem.

However, as you rightly point out, this view faces significant challenges. If there is no underlying self, then who is it that experiences thoughts and feelings? Who is it that perceives the world? It seems that the very act of questioning the existence of the self presupposes its existence.

The Reductionist Approach

The reductionist approach, which attempts to explain the self in terms of physical processes, is another popular perspective. While it has made significant progress in understanding the neural basis of consciousness, it still falls short of providing a complete explanation.

As you note, reducing the self to a mere collection of physical processes fails to account for the subjective nature of experience. The "hard problem of consciousness" remains unsolved, and it is unclear how physical processes can give rise to subjective experiences like joy, sorrow, and love.

The Realist Perspective

The realist perspective, which affirms the reality of the self, seems to be the most intuitive and commonsensical view. It aligns with our everyday experience of ourselves as unified, conscious beings.

However, the realist perspective also faces challenges. How can we reconcile the unity of the self with the diversity of our experiences? How can we account for the continuity of the self over time, despite the constant flux of our thoughts and feelings?

A Middle Ground

Perhaps a more nuanced approach is needed, one that acknowledges the limitations of both reductionism and anti-realism. It may be that the self is both a product of physical processes and a unique, irreducible entity.

As you suggest, the concept of a "person-stage" can be helpful in understanding the continuity of the self over time. However, it is important to note that these person-stages are not entirely disconnected. They are linked by a thread of memory and self-awareness.

Conclusion

The question of the self remains one of the most profound and enduring mysteries of human existence. While we may never have a definitive answer, the ongoing exploration of this topic continues to shed light on the nature of consciousness and the human condition.