Reddit reviews The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self
We found 19 Reddit comments about The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Basic Books AZ
>Self as illusion is a central view in Buddhism, for example. I know Sam Harris has studied Eastern religions, so why not just admit that some religions, at least, have something to offer?
Here is an old essay by him on the subject of Buddhism having things to offer: Killing The Buddha - Sam Harris, Shambhala Sun
Also, speaking on the matter of the self being an illusion, Thomas Metzinger's Self-model theory is pretty interesting. There are several lectures on youtube... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFjY1fAcESs
Read "The Ego Tunnel" by Thomas Metzinger.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Ego-Tunnel-Science-Mind/dp/0465020690
Then read "Being No One" by Thomas Metzinger.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/being-no-one
The Ego Tunnel is a pretty easy to digest book on the subject matter, Being No One is a pretty heavy book (literally) with lots of complicated formulations that might be very difficult to comprehend without at least some education about the concepts discussed, in it he discusses the self-model theory of subjectivity. Being No One is standard reading for any student of philosophy of the mind.
Study cognitive science.
Metzinger is a German philosopher of the mind and pretty much the leading export on these issues.
Just found a .pdf of Being No One:
http://skepdic.ru/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/BeingNoOne-SelfModelTheoryOfSubjectivity-Metzinger.pdf
The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self. Thomas Metzinger.
Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Brain. Michael Gazzaniga (neuroscientist)
Neuroexistentialism: Meaning, Morals, and Purpose in the Age of Neuroscience. Gregg Caruso and Owen Flanagan, Eds. (Part 3: Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and Meaning in Life has 6 essays by Derk Pereboom, Caruso, Gazzaniga, and others, and other essays scattered throughout the book are also pertinent)
Currently reading, and would like to finish:
Started in 2014, put down, would like to finish in 2015:
Would like to re-read in 2015:
Would like to read in 2015:
Good summary.
I'd add one more point, related to this quote. I've encountered this in another piece of fiction, and the author actually credited this in part to Metzinger's book called The Ego Tunnel. I'm guessing there's other works that touch on this too. Anyway, the gist is that the conscious self is the content of a model created by our brain—an internal image, but one we cannot experience as an image. Everything we experience is "a virtual self in a virtual reality." But this isn't philosophy not informed by science; Metzinger draws on a whole lot of studies and experiments into human cognition. Worth checking out, although it's a big honking work.
There's actually a strain of philosophy of mind and neuroscience dealing with this question right now:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Ego-Tunnel-Science-Mind/dp/0465020690
is a good example. While you might feel like "yourself" has a unifying central intelligence, and it is most certainly true from a subjective personal standpoint, analysis of the actual neural substrates and cognitive processes that generate of that sense of selfhood shows that it might actually be a very powerful illusion.
The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self by Thomas Metzinger
https://www.amazon.com/Ego-Tunnel-Science-Mind-Myth/dp/0465020690
Good, but as a student of philosophy, couldn't let this one go...
> There's a ghost that floats down into my body and gives it life. Well, no. Human consciousness is merely the belief that an information system is conscious.
"Belief" is itself a term that implies consciousness. In other words, you can only believe something if you are already conscious thus consciousness cannot arise from belief if you see what I mean. It is a referential term that is used to describe a specific (some would say fundamental) aspect of consciousness itself. For a good book on consciousness try Ego Tunnel by Thomas Metzinger.
I must say for someone who was drunk, that was damn eloquent, though you unpacked a lot of different shit there, all of which i've thought about and lost sleep over. Probably will for the rest of my life until I die, then return to the simulation to iterate a different series of joys and pains.
> Or are you saying that it must be the case that anything which can do these tasks must have a first person experience?
Closer to this, but I'm not saying that it would have to be to the level of an "experience," much less that it would necessarily entail the capacity to reflect on it or slice and dice its meaning. Even a Roomba needs some sense or internal modeling of a first-person perspective, emphasis on "some." The unit has to know where it is in relation to a ledge, for example. But even at this rudimentary level there is still the kernel of a self, because something has to be differentiated from the other somethings around which the first something must navigate.
> But why not 'we'?
Because it doesn't mean the same thing. If I lock you in a cell and don't bring you food, you'll starve. "We" (the royal we) could be well-fed and comfortable, but one of us will starve to death. This doesn't hinge on verbiage. You can use other labels if you like, but the underlying facts remain the same. A sandwich being eaten and you getting to eat the sandwich are not the same things. Only one nourishes you.
>Or perhaps there are many different experiences occuring that provide a perception as if there is one entity doing all of it and experiencing all of it.
Perhaps I'm just a Boltzmann brain and I'm imagining all of this. Perhaps this, perhaps that. I focus on how I and others actually engage the world. There is a vast sea of possibilities that we can't prove false. But I want to know how people actually think the world is, and why they think so.
>It's not clear to me what you mean when you refer to yourself.
When you cross the road, do you take care to avoid getting hit by cars? Do you pause in the middle of a busy street to parse what the "I" is you're trying to preserve from being hit by a car?
If you call the police and say someone is trying to kill you, would it make sense for them to say that it's not clear to them what you mean when you refer to yourself? I'm not asking merely if it would be appropriate in that emergency situation, rather I'm saying it would look like a silly and facile question. The question does not seem deep to me. Are you arguing for something, or trying to coax me towards an idea?
Sure, our sense of self can be looked at more closely. I particularly enjoyed Metzinger's The Ego Tunnel, and I've read a number of other books on the neuroscience underlying our sense of self. And there are indeed interesting philosophical conundrums, like the teletransportation problem for one example. But in everyday life we know what "I" and "you" mean. When we ask the waiter to bring us a salad, they know to whom we're referring. I'm using these terms in that colloquial, dictionary sense.
Two contemporary books, by western scientists, pretty much confirm the position about "self" found in Buddhist philosophy.
The Self Illusion by Bruce Hood (https://www.amazon.com/Self-Illusion-Social-Creates-Identity/dp/0199988781)
The Ego Tunnel by Thomas Metzinger (https://www.amazon.com/Ego-Tunnel-Science-Mind-Myth/dp/0465020690)
Read The Ego Tunnel by Thomas Metzinger
http://www.amazon.com/The-Ego-Tunnel-Science-Mind/dp/0465020690
there is no self there ! Aaaaaaaah !
We. Me. I.
What is an I? Where is the "thing" that is the stuff of a separate entity somewhere under your skin, behind your eyes?
The reality is that there is no center to one's experience. No separate long-lasting "me" that experiences. Only experience itself. The ego arises out of thought, and a "me" is just a concept that the thinking mind conjures up. No agent means no agency. No chooser.
While on first glance this may sounds either incredibly stupid, confusing or woo-woo. But take a look and see.
I suggest you check out this video by Sam Harris that explores the concept of "illusion of self."
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/wakingup
Or a book by Bruce Hood that scientifically explains this illusion:
http://www.amazon.com/Self-Illusion-Social-Creates-Identity/dp/0199988781
Or others:
http://www.amazon.com/Ego-Tunnel-Science-Mind-Myth/dp/0465020690/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=61R1WPTGL%2BL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR216%2C320_&refRID=0DKBDNE0ZCT2P7423FK2
http://www.amazon.com/Ego-Trick-Julian-Baggini/dp/1847082734/ref=pd_sim_14_5?ie=UTF8&dpID=41AJedx6m9L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR101%2C160_&refRID=1A6QPVE3CNXPPJFX84Z9
Once you break the spell of "self-identity", unity arises.
The Ego Tunnel, Thomas Metzinger.
Reading this book liberated me from the lingering doubts I had about the supernatural. It shows that even when an experience is vivid, compelling, or even hyper-real that it is not necessary to take it as confirmation of vitalism, dualism or any other variety of supernatural thinking. Supernature is superfluous.
Our explanations of such experiences are usually wrong because they are based on cultural assumptions and an inability to really think analytically. It turns out that human's are really bad at solo reasoning and, more often than not, fall into fallacies and biases. We extrapolate our private experiences into ontological conclusions and we are almost always just wrong. Liberated from the mill stone of pre-scientific thinking about experience, we can begin to pay attention to what is actually happening in experience without all the overlays from culture and tradition.
Most of us are so loaded up with half-understood doctrine that we have no possibility of having an experience without unconsciously and automatically overlaying it with interpretations drawn from our existing beliefs. Thus we never really pay attention to the qualities of the experience itself. We're always dealing at one layer of abstraction remove. Most of the Buddhism we've learned just gets in the way of experience in the end.
I spent the first 10 years of being a Buddhist reading dozens of books, and the second 10 years discovering that most of what I read was useless or wrong or both. Metzinger's book might help others take a shorter route. He's completely wrong about Buddhism, but it's still the most important book on how the mind words that I've read because of how it make me reconsider my own conclusions.
Um, to be honest I haven't read much from neuroscience other than Libet's Experiment and the clinical neuropsychologist Paul Broks saying, “We have this deep intuition that there is a core… But neuroscience shows that there is no center in that brain where things do all come together.”
There are some articles and books I have in my reading list, but once you get that this can be easily confirmed in DIRECT EXPERIENCE, the other materials are just superfluous, IMO. Here, I'll share them anyway.
“Who’s There?” Is The Self A Convenient Fiction?
Ego Trick: In Search of the Self
The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity
What Exactly Is the Self? Insights from Neuroscience
Neuroscience of Self and Self-Regulation
The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self
Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain
And check out The Ascent of Humanity for a thorough discussion of the implications of the separate self on lots of aspects of our (collective) lives. Eisenstein traces all of the converging crises of our age to a common source, which he calls Separation. It is the ideology of the discrete and separate self that has generated these crises; therefore, he argues, nothing less than a "revolution in human beingness" will be sufficient to transform our relationship to each other and the planet.
Very nice. Its nice to see this particular school of philosophy-of-mind getting out there. If you enjoyed this, I would also recommend the fantastic Out of our Heads by Alva Noe, and The Ego Tunnel by Thomas Metzinger.
>whether the self has an objective basis
The self is an illusion; per Metzinger’s Ego Tunnel:
"the conscious self is the content of a model created by our brain—an internal image, but one we cannot experience as an image. Everything we experience is 'a virtual self in a virtual reality.'"
This book will help you understand the neurological foundation for the sensation of self.
>and if so, life itself would not be individual existence in itself? What is biological life and why is it created?
Life is a series of complex chemical reactions driven by the energy of the sun and the earth, existing only to maximize entropy.
On the subject of the self, check out the well-researched book Ego Tunnel. It proposes, convincingly, that the self is categorically not some kind of substantial, essential invariant like a spirit or homunculus, but an experiential, transient and brittle construct (it disintegrates when you sleep, for eg) within the broader process of consciousness. There's too much to explain, so check it out.
I'll have to check that book out, and highly recommend Metzinger's The Ego Tunnel in turn.
In the context of #2 I often think about Hoftadter's I Am a Strange Loop and tangled hiearchies.
It seems like awareness arises when systems that integrate internal and external processing reach a certain amount of complexity.