Structure of the Self

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s I said above, in investigations concerning the self (as well as many other subjects) there is interplay between the subjective and the objective. On the subjective side, there is an introspective aspect which delves into ones experiences and reports on them.  But there is an objective[1] side also to this investigation: for, whatever is reported is about the ‘self’, and not really about the subject or oneself.  On the objective side, you can have philosophical and psychological or neuroscience explanations of what the self consists of.  But these are in turn based on the theorist’s own personal experiences and conjectures.  Furthermore, in scientific investigations, the subjective side must be relied upon to ratify and confirm any readings the scientist makes. And all this in turn is part of my (subjective) investigation into the self.  Thus the subjective and the objective constantly dovetail into each other.

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Let’s start the investigation (taking the investigator point of view) of the body as ‘I’, as the thinker and feeler.  When I respond to things, it is ‘me’ who is responding, not just my mind, my subject, my body, or anything as separate components of me.  I am reporting, by examining, scrutinizing and commenting whatever it is that ‘I’ as my body is doing.  When I think, it’s not just images and sounds that I experience, but those as ‘meaning’ thoughts, situations, events, people, conversations, or future situations that I imagine and such, although what I immediately have are mere fragments of sounds (sub-vocal speech sounds, or what I ‘hear’ as sounds) and images, such as images of faces, colors, shapes and so forth.  But these immediately call forth what they signify without my separating them as the ‘sign’ and ‘signified’.  This is what I mean by ‘intentionality’.  Intentionality is not just, as is conventionally understood, ideas pointing to objects.  It is making these tokens as meaningful.  The idea of meaning is implicitly contained in intentionality. 

In this intentional world, whatever I am perceiving, feeling or thinking has a response from me which includes my body, my self, my concerns, my self-image, my knowledge, my background, my beliefs and prejudices, my pleasures and pains, and so on.  I who as subject am looking at all these things, am not an empty subject, but is a complex of all these things.  The ‘I’ as a pure subject only comes into the picture only at a higher level of reflection or self-awareness.  All these discussions I made about the self are made from this investigative point of view, severed from which the self has no separate or abstract existence as a subject or witness or anything. 

All of the responses of the self arise from my past.  Some of these one might characterize as thoughts, which we are not normally aware of except in self-consciousness.  At the level of self-consciousness, we are not only aware of our responses as thoughts, but we also make comments and criticisms, evaluations, meanings, and projects on their basis.  We can indeed separate them from the purely investigative third level of the self, which presupposes them.  So really we have two sublevels of the third level, both of which are different levels of self-consciousness.  Self-consciousness at the third level can be endless, each consciousness transcended by another, and that in turn transcended by a third, and so on and so on.[2]

Such is structure of the self or my self, if you will.  To repeat: At the bottom level of the self, we have fragment such as ‘sounds’ and images and feels, and this is immediately translated as the intentional world, which is the world of myself and the world I am surrounded by.  Because the intentional world is created ‘intentionally’ by the past (or thought) imposing itself on what it perceives as the present, time is created, and past, present and future are crated with it.  This is the self who is protective of itself beyond survival needs and also offensive for reasons only thought and its products have created.  And divisions are etched into this world. 

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The Self often stays in the background and is taken for granted:  What I am or have or have even said is not in the forefront of my consciousness. This is why one may not be aware of what one already is or has, but keeps looking for ‘that’, i.e. whatever is in front of you.  ‘That’ looks more attractive, something I don’t have.  That explains various behaviors: What’s in front of me not only attracts, but makes me feel that I lack it, must have it, and so forth.  It explains, for example, the idea of the ‘double’ sex, i.e., when I am actually having sex, I think of having sex.  This is also why people keep accumulating more and more; why they are greedy, and so forth.  Your own security, which you already have, is taken for granted. Therefore, you worry about what might happen to you, and you even commit acts of violence out of that fear and greed.

Objective and Subjective Reports, Personal Bias:  Often, my point of view or opinion is full of error.  Others can easily show my mistakes and prove them to be so.  For example, I once believed mistakenly that a certain professor was prejudiced against me, and another professor carefully pointed out how he was not.  My feelings of pain or discomfort in my body which may seem significant to me, may prove to be nothing objectively speaking, e.g. under a stethoscope or a microscope. Similarly, my impressions or opinions about my consciousness may in fact be totally mistaken, especially if I take a neuroscience point of view.  For instance, I may be thinking I am consciously choosing something over another, but a neuroscience examination may show that my presumed choice was already made neurologically before I am even aware of my making a choice. 

The pleasurable or whatever body sensation I experience when someone praises me, and the painful sensation I experience when I feel the loss of something, guilt, or someone insulting me are further illustrations of bias.  These sensations are a clear indication of one’s identifications.  You can explain this objectively by invoking mirror neurons or whatever, but subjectively the facts remain.

Knowledge and Background:  Our previous knowledge operates in unknown ways, staying mostly in the background and operates through memory in processes such as recognition of the present, orientation of the person[3], self-awareness, in creating one’s self-image, in comparisons, in forming judgments, and so on, in sum, in all of one’s mental activities.  Association between past experiences and the current situation has a lot to do with what knowledge prevails.

Although I criticized the neuroscience explanations using the idea of how certain neurons or group of neurons utilize the background knowledge, I myself have no clue about how precisely my knowledge or background actually influences me or my behavior.

Person: The Ultimate Arbiter:  As Protagoras once said, “Man is the measure of all things, of things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not.” The person (i.e., you and me) is the only arbiter to decide which approach to take with regard to any issue concerning the self.  If one is a neuroscientist, naturally, he can’t deny the objective data concerning the neurons in the brain and how they affect selfhood.  Yet, the same person could and would take a totally different approach when it comes to matters of judgment regarding health, morals, politics or wealth, or personal and social relationships.  There is no one single approach which is suitable for all questions.

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Ground Zero:  There is a deconstruction that is possible with everything that hovers in the mind.  You can drop everything and let everything stand still: and then there is no time (although everything is moving or changing around you).  The tensions in the body all disappear.  There is a certain peace that dawns on you.  It doesn’t matter however long this lasts.  What is important is to note that it’s a possibility.

Now, it’s hard to imagine what a neurological basis of being in such a state would be.  Would a state exist with no activity of those relevant parts of the brain?

Does this mean that the brain’s presumed Default Mode Network (DMN) is in abeyance without any cause (and without meditation and all that)?[4]  

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One has to wonder at some point of the inquiry as to what would be a parallel or objective status of the experiences such as those I mentioned.  One might notice some change or transformation in one’s behavior and relationships, but that’s no confirmation as to the either the existence or nature of the experience.  Just because I experience no division between myself and the world doesn’t imply either that there is no such division in fact (that I am indeed in any ordinary sense different from other people).  But my feeling of the absence of division may include relating to other people, with all my intelligence guiding such relationships, without my feeling conflict with others or alienating myself from them.  In addition to what might clinically be observed about me -- such as a state of relaxation, not prone to conflict, and so on -- my subjective states or experiences may be of no relevance or make any difference to an observer.

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[1] It’s perhaps inappropriate to call this ‘objective’, if by ‘objective’ one means something available to public scrutiny. It would be more appropriate to call it the ‘object side’, as opposed to the subject side.  

[2] I think the question of the ‘I’ is unnecessarily is confused and complicated by talking about the so-called pure subject or the ego.  No wonder we cannot find any such thing in introspection: it’s all a concoction by self-consciousness. 

 

[3] Without such knowledge operating in recognition as well as a sense of self relating to things, one wouldn’t know one’s bearings in the world.  The person would be like a babe in the woods.

[4] This discussion is continued in the chapter, “The Self and Enlightenment.”