The idea of the "Self" is as dead as a dodo. Almost all scientists and philosophers who deal with questions of the brain and consciousness are in agreement about this, at least, in regard to the idea of the Self most ordinary people have, based on their own subjective experience: a feeling that somewhere inside myself is someone who is me, the "real me", the most essential part of my being, the part that observes and experiences the world out there, and which conducts a constant inner dialogue with "myself" inside my own head. In other words, my "Soul", the part which, depending on my belief-system, either expires completely after "my" death, or goes to Heaven (or Hell), or, if I believe in reincarnation, finds a new existence in some other body, in some other time.
That is the way most people experience things. That is the way I experience things. Yet Science now tells me that it is all an illusion. That my self-consciousness, the experience of my Self, is merely a construct of the brain, a flurry of electrical and chemical activity across a few billion synapses in my head. A useful tool for survival maybe, but not in any way independent of the physical world, being instead an exclusive product of my body and brain. When my brain dies, so does my soul.
Science also tells me that am guilty of the heresy of Cartesiansism, the teaching (originally formulated by René Descartes) that the mind and body are divided, that the former operates on quite another dimension from the latter, there being no physical link between the two (except perhaps in the pituitary gland). Countless books on consciousness that have flooded the book market in recent years tell me in no uncertain terms that Cartesianism is as dead as God and History, or at the very least "old hat". My fondly held ideas about whom I really am, about the nature of my eternal Soul - ideas that I had always thought were based on pretty substantial ground: more or less "objective" study of the behaviour of my own mind - these are now shown to be but a pitiful sham, a cultural hang-over from the past, and not in any way related to reality (however, there are a few neo-Cartesians around who propound the opposite view, eg. David Chalmers in his book The Conscious Mind, where he points out that "the hard problem" of explaining subjective experience is not diminished by refusing to look at it )
All this comes as a shock to most people. The conventional idea of the Self is closely linked to the sense of identity upon which we build our lives. It is, after all, the "core" of our being. If the "Self" is an illusion, then "I" must also be an illusion. I have been duped by myself. A gulf of awful uncertainty opens at my feet. The question: Who on earth am I?, can only be answered by: You are not a Who, but a What.
Luckily things are not that bad. What Science is striving towards, by attempting to demolish the conventional idea of the Self, Cartesianism and all, is the development of a new concept of Self, one that more closely approximates to the picture of "how things really are" being built up by recent advances in brain and consciousness research.
Maybe the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater, valid ideas of consciousness together with those that we could well do without. On the other hand, what we are really seeing may be only unreasonably extreme swing in one direction of thought by researchers intoxicated with the brilliance of their own discoveries. If that is so then we can be certain that the pendulum will swing back again in due course, as it always does.
Yet there is always the possibility that the enthusiasts may be right. Maybe we are experiencing a real revolution in knowledge, in consciousness, something as radical as the invention of agriculture. Nothing will ever be quite the same again. For good or ill, we are forming a totally new human-being out of the melting clay of the old. History shows that anyone who resists that kind of revolution is likely to be pressed flat into the ground.
So let us look as some of these new ideas. Especially at the way they relate to each other, horizonally across the almost impenetrably tough, yet transparent membranes that still divide the natural sciences. These days, the real advances are made, not so much by the specialist at the spear-head of research, as by those who follow close behind: the multi-disciplinary teams of thinkers (or individuals with the intellectual capacity to move freely between disciplines) who strive to link the apparently irreconcilable, seeking meaning in the very incongruities that so perplex the specialist. The cry of "eureka" only comes when two or more bits of existing and hitherto unrelated knowledge suddenly fall into a new and astoundingly beautiful pattern.
Fundamental to the new, emerging idea of the Self are the concepts of "multiplicity", and "representation". The Self is not One but Many. Furthermore, this many-sided "being" must be seen almost as a work of art, a representation of a Self, rather than an actual Self. The artist in this case being the brain itself, one of the most intricate and advanced pieces of natural, multi-media technology to be found in the known universe. In other words, we have nothing to be ashamed of, but instead, something to marvel at, and to strive to understand to the best of our ability.
What follows is an example of the kind of multi-disciplinary cross-over link mentioned above, where two or more ideas fertilise each other and produce a third, more complex, even radically different in nature. The link is beween two ideas of the Self, put forward by a philosopher (Daniel C. Dennett) and a researcher in Artificial Intelligence (Marvin Minsky). These are further linked to Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences, topped up with a breath-taking jump across into the discipline of astronomy.
No one could maintain that any of these theories describe the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Even in association they only hold a pitifully fluttering candle up to the darkness of what we may presume to be a cavernous space of endless proportions. Nevertheless, they are stimulating, and what is more, seem to relate to what we know from our own subjective experience of life. Anything that doesn't hold true in life is not much use to anyone.
"PANDEMONIUM"
- group dynamics
of the Self -
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Analysis leads to Interpretation leads to
Evaluation leads to Action leads to Behaviour.
Groups of neurons in the brain (different
tribes of "Me"), operating below the level of conscious
awareness,
advocate different courses of action in response to outer
stimuli.
Minsky´s idea of the Self, as described in his book The Society of Mind, consists not of one entity, but many - a large number of more or less independent "selves" - what Minsky calls "agents". The working part of the brain consists of millions of nerves (neurons), linked together in groups or clusters. On the simplest level, these clusters of neurons are devoted to specific, very limited tasks, such as identifying lines, shapes, or colours seen by our eyes in the surrounding world. They are mere cogs in the machine, a kind of vast editorial staff, each worker dealing blindly with only one tiny function in an enormously complicated, but extremely fast process of analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and finally, response. Only a relatively small part of this process has been mapped. Using various machines (eg PET scanners), researchers are able to note where in the brain neural activity is taking place when the subject of the experiment is engaged with one or other simple tasks.
Electromicroscopic photo of clusters of
neurons
in the visual cortex of the brain
When neurons clusters operate in larger groups, they create entities (agents) that can behave as though they had a form of primitive intelligence. They represent different strategies or patterns of behavioural response to impulses coming from the outside world. Each agent struggles for control of the body which is their common abode. Sometimes they find themselves in opposition (a confusing experience for their human host), sometimes they collaborate (giving rise to a sense of internal harmony). Sometimes several gang up together against the others, which can lead to a kind of internal civil war. They can be seen as so many "mini-minds" or shards of the Self.
The reason why our conscious mind is so convinced that we have only one Self is largely because our agents can only communicate with us indirectly. Either through feelings (emotions) and dreams, or, more directly, via the voice in our heads . Since this voice is always our own, we presume that it has a single source. In reality, it is as though there were but a single microphone, shared between all the agents. Sometimes one holds the microphone, sometimes another. The voice may be the same, but the speakers are different. Minsky calls his model "Pandemonium", after the Great Hall of Hell where the damned are gathered before being finally pitchforked into the everlasting fire.
Minsky's "agents" struggle for political control of
the body
which is their common abode
The beauty of this model is that it explains much of what we know from everyday experience (even though it was originally formulated to explain why brain neurologists could not find any specific place in the brain where the Self might conceivably exist). We often feel ourselves to be the subject of inner conflict between opposing wills. This is especially so when it concerns critical decisions of an ethical nature. One of our "voices" suggests that "No one will notice", another that "It doesn't matter if no one notices, it's wrong anyway", and a third: "Since everyone else is doing it , why should you care". Maybe even a fourth, interpolating "What would mother have said?". Or a fifth: "Look at Jan, whom you really admire; he does it all the time". The final decision is usually a compromise of one kind or another (the agents make a deal). Sometimes one of the voices carries the field completely, silencing the others. You only hear the voice that advocates action ("No one will notice"), or alternatively, only the voice that insists that "it's wrong anyway". Whatever advice you choose to follow (it's here that "free will" comes in), the other, silenced agent will not remain inactive. If you carry out the action, the ethically correct agent will continue to nag at you with the wisperings of a bad conscience. If you abstain, you are likely to hear a distainful voice now and then, pointing out the good things you have missed by being so damned moral.
This internal debate is certainly not inaudible. We hear the different voices, even though they only speak to us with our own voice. This is certainly a device of the brain, protecting us from knowing too much, as usual, in the interests of survival. . Imagine your consternation were the agents to speak with different voices. It could drive you mad! Literally. In the schizophrenic (and saint) who hears voices, the internal membrane that shuts off the normal conscious mind from experiencing the full debate has probably become partly penetrable. The individual actually hears what he claims to hear - different voices in his head.
ROLE-PLAYING IN THE
MIND
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CONTENTS
If we look more closely at the
nature of the agents taking part in the debate described above, we can see
that each has a definite character. They are almost as distinctive as the
characters in a play. Indeed, it is quite possible to dramatise such a
decision-making process, and play it out on a stage. Moreover, most
ordinary plays are just that - the playing out of an internal
drama, a drama that takes place in the mind rather than in reality. To see
this, you have to accept the convention that the stage represents the head
(brain) of a single individual, and that the different roles in the play
you are seeing are the different "agents"of the (playwrite's?) Self,
acting out a drama of life - not neccessarily any particular drama "out
there", but an archetypical drama that could as well be taking place
(is taking place) in your head as any other. A typical internal
drama of conflict and confusion, indecision and resolve, that always
preceeds any action in the outer world. This is a very fruitful way of
relating to theatre. Incidently, the same principles apply in the case of
dreams. Successful dream interpretation, as far as such is possible, is
always based on the assumption that all the different characters in the
dream are but aspects of the dreamer himself.
The diagram above illustrates the relation between eight different, hypothetical "characters" or, in Minskys terms, "agents", in the mind of an individual. Each represents a different modality, a different response strategy in situations of choice. In the middle is the field of conscious awareness. This field is the place where the voices of the different characters are heard, as the internal voice of the individual. Here, decisions are made and actions in the outer world initiated. It is the field of the "active self", the character whose "style of action" has been accepted by the conscious awareness as being appropriate for the situation to be dealt with at that particular moment. Everything else outside the circle enclosing the field lies in the unconcious, and is inaccessible to the conscious mind. In the example shown above, it is apparent that the individual in question is having a good time; the joyful and generous self has taken over the active field and steers his or her responses to the outer world.
To be noted is that each "character" or "agent" is backed by memories. In fact it is the memories that create the characters. In other words, our characters are the result of the unconscious action of repressed memories from specific, sometimes traumatic experiences at different times in our lives, from birth onwards. Even earlier. The most fundamental, memory-creating experiences in our lives occur before birth, during the nine months of gestation in the womb (see further, the writings of Stanislav Grof). These, together with our genetic inheritence, determine the basic nature of our internal characters and the balance of their strengths in relation to one another. Their relative strengths today, however, are largely determined by the sum total of our life experience since birth.
If a part of you (one of your "agents") is mean and jealous, it is because some experience or experiences earlier in your life have given you good reason to be so obsessively possessive. You are afraid of (once more) losing something or someone you love. If other parts of you are angry and agressive, cold and detached, or logical and hard-working, then these characters too are the result of earlier experiences. Something made them that way, driving them to fight against the other characters of your Self, producing forceful arguments for their own particular solution in any situation where choices must be made. They do this for your own good. Each are convinced that their solution is in your own interest, in the best interests of your survival. This is just as true of those parts of your Self that are loving and caring, joyful and generous, engaged and attached. The formative memories in this case being of situations, events and people in the past that give you good cause to act in a less defensive manner in the present, experiences that above all taught you that in the long run it pays to act lovingly and generously to others. Obviously there are important lessons to be learned here in regard to the upbringing and education of children.
MULTIPLE
INTELLIGENCES
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This diagram is based on Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligence . Gardner's idea is that the traditional view of intelligence covers only one aspect of the total scope of intelligence possessed by the human being. Unfortunately, it is precisely this aspect - Logical, Mathematical Intelligence- that until recently most intelligence tests sought to grade, and is the aspect that still receives pride of place in the school system. According to Gardner, these seven (eight, if the idea of "spiritual intelligence" were to be included) different aspects of our total consciousness (they could also be called "agents") should be treated with equal respect. The one is only superior to the others in situations where its particular genius is of most use. Musical, Aural Intelligence, for example, is obviously the one to access when singing in the bath. Exclusive use of Logical, Mathematical Intelligence in that situation would not get the singer very far (see example above). On the other hand, use of the musical/aural mode while filling in one's tax returns, instead of the more appropriate logical/mathematical mode, would be likely to have dire financial consequences.
Most situations demand the application of several different intelligences in combination. The Active Field in the middle of the diagram is where this mix takes place, and where the resulting "multi-intelligence" is focussed on the problem at hand. Some intelligences - eg: Bodily Kinesthetic Intelligence - operate more or less independently of our conscious minds. When the top-seeded tennis player smashes the ball back over the net, placing it within a centimetre of the white line (on the winning side of the line from his point of view), he is using his Bodily Kinesthetic and Spatial, Visual Intelligences in combination, but without consciously thinking about what he is doing. Indeed, if he allows certain of his other intelligences to interfere - eg: Logical, Mathematical Intelligence - he will probably miss the target. This is the "no thinking" method of the Zen archer.
Intelligences are grown, like plants. Every intelligence begins as a basic "inclination", being part of our genetic inheritance, but unless acted upon by experience, upbringing and education, this intelligence will atrophy. It is a question of memory, as in the previous diagram. The different agents and intelligences of our Self begin as basic inherited tendencies, but they only become really powerful forces in our consciousness to the extent that they have been stimulated by experiences of one kind or another.
Inter-personal and Intra-personal Intelligences need a word of explanation. Inter-personal Intelligence is the (developed) gift of dealing in a subtle and diplomatic way with the dynamic forces that operate among groups of people. Intra-personal Intelligence is the (developed) gift of dealing in a subtle and diplomatic way with the dynamic forces operating in one's own psyche. Some people are especially good at the one, some at the other. In particular, understanding the mechanisms of one´s own mind (Intra-personal), and mastering the art of balancing and steering their operation in life, is a rare and valuable skill. This skill is fundamental, being, among other things, a prerequiste for effective use of Inter-personal Intelligence. "Know thyself" is the alpha and omega of wisdom.
"I" AM
THE CENTRE
OF MY OWN NARRATIVE GRAVITY
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In his book, Explaining Consciousness, the philosopher Daniel C. Dennett goes to great lengths to persuade the reader that the traditional idea of the Self is completely erroneous. After 400 pages of more or less convincing argument, he then turns to the task of explaining what the Self really is. In this, his problem is to find a theory of Self that takes into account the lack of any centrally placed entity in the brain that could conceivably fulfil the functions of a Self, for this is what he maintains modern science has unequivocably shown. Dennett's solution - a kind of decentralised Self - proves to be even more interesting than might appear at first sight.
Dennett sees the Self, not as a static phenomenon, only operating in the present, but as a dynamic process stretched out over time. A kind of snake, wriggling its way through time and space in the company of millions of other similar snakes, the selves of everyone else on the planet. Yet again, less like a snake than a story - a dramatised narration or tale, possessing, as do all good stories, a beginning, a middle, and an end. The story of a life. This is the Self.
."Our fundamental tactic of self-protection, self-control. and self-definition is ... telling stories, and more particularly concocting and controlling the story we tell others -- and ourselves -- about who we are ... Our tales are spun, but for the most part we don't spin them; they spin us.
"These strings or streams of narrative issue forth as if from a single source ... their effect on any audience is to encourage them to (try to) posit a centre of narrative gravity." (Dennett, p. 418)
"A self, according to my theory, is not any old mathematical point, but an abstraction defined by the myriads of attributions and interpretations (including self-attributions and self-interpretations) that have composed the biography of the living body whose Centre of Narrative Gravity it is." (Dennett, p.426)
In other words, Dennett takes a concept from physics - the centre of gravity of a system of rotating bodies - to explain the invisible, non-existing, but all important central point that is the focus of his model of the Self as a story, narration, or tale, spun throughout the life-time of the individual from birth to death.
This Self is the sum total of everything that the individual thinks, feels, or does in the world during his or her own life. Neither does the story end with death, at least not immediately. Dennett sees the works of an individual - the effect of his or her own actions in the world around - as part and parcel of the Self. Only when the effect of this life on people and things has finally subsided into nothing, can the Self truely be said to have "passed away".
The act (and art) of living is therefore the act (and art) of spinning the tale of your own life. In that swirling stream of narrative, the experience of being or having a central Self has no longer any real meaning. If the central Self has any existence at all, it is not as the spinner of the narrative (the tale spins itself), but as the invisible focus of the action of spinning (rotation). As Dennett puts it, "I" am the Centre of my own Narrative Gravity.
Dennett draws no far-reaching conclusions from this model of the Self. He leaves this question for others to tackle. However, he does recognise that people tend to be worried by the disappearance of the traditional idea of the Self, feeling that this also implies the loss of a sense of conscience. "If a self isn't a real thing, what happens to moral responsibility?", he asks rhetorically (Dennett, p.429).
In answer to his own question he admits that "the task of constructing a self that can take responsibility is a major social and educational project". However, he steadfastly maintains that the best defence of moral responsibility and free will is to abandon "the hopelessly contradiction-riddled myth of the distinct, separate soul". All we can do, according to Dennett, is to understand "the ways in which brains grow self-representations, thereby equipping the bodies they control with responsible selves when all goes well".
Regarding the education of children, he emphasises "the importance of drama, story-telling, and the more fundamental phenomenon of make-believe in providing practice for human-beings who are novice self-spinners". (Dennett, p.428).
At the end of his book, Dennett emphasises that far from "explaining" consciousness, as the title of his book might suggest, he has merely begun to scratch the surface. However, he is convinced that consciousness will eventually be explained, although not without considerable struggle over a great many years.
He further remarks that his own attempt to throw light on the subject does not replace a metaphorical theory, the "Cartesian theatre", with a non-metaphorical theory, ie a literal, scientific theory. Instead, he has merely replaced one family of metaphors with another. This is inevitable. As he points out: "Metaphors are the tools of thought. No one can think about consciousness without them".
Looking at Dennett's idea of the Self in the light of what has gone before, it should be clear that both Marvin Minsky's concept of Agents and Howard Gardner's concept of Multiple Intelligences fit very neatly into the picture. Looking at the two diagrams shown earlier, It is possible to imagine the circle of "agents" and the circle of "intelligences" placed one above the other, rotating around their respective, yet common, central "active fields", rather as the planets and Sun rotate around the centre of mass of the solar system. The space in the middle - the "active field" - is empty until filled with the activity (energy) of the moment, fed in from the surrounding circle of intelligences and agents. The moment passes, transformed into action in the outer world, affecting people and things in the immediate environment, an expanding ripple of energy that reverberates outward from centre to periphery, leaving traces of its passing wherever it goes.
Within the mind, our intelligences and agents remain constantly a part of us, even though they are only occasionally, and incompletely accessible to our conscious awareness. They continue to rotate around our "centre", which, as Dennett points out, is "an abstraction defined by the myriads of attributions and interpretations (including self-attributions and self-interpretations) that have composed the biography of the living body whose Centre of Narrative Gravity it is."
Were we to attempt to draw a picture of these relationships, following Dennett's line of thought, it would look something like this:
The Self of an individual
seen as a narration or tale, spun
throughout the entire span of his or her own life, from birth to
death.
Around the Centre of Narrative Gravity of this Self rotate all
the individual's thoughts, feelings, and actions in the
world.
The strange thing is that this image of the Self looks remarkably like another picture (see below) drawn by myself in quite another context. The drawing of what I call "the Solar Screw", shows the solar body and planets rotating around the centre of mass (centre of gravity) of the solar system as it coils its way through glactic space on its 250 million year orbit of the galactic centre. This is a completely legitimate way of portraying the solar system, having the advantage of showing the movement pattern of the system. It differs radically from the picture we see in most popular astronomy books - the solar system laid out flat like a roulette wheel - since this latter is a convention adopted by illustrators for the purpose of showing how the planets relate to one another, not how the system itself relates to the galaxy as a whole. It is most unlikely that Daniel Dennett is aware of this other way of seeing the solar system, or he would certainly have pointed out the similarity.
The
Solar Screw
Perspective image of the spiralling movement of the Sun and
four inner planets (Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury)
around the line of
movement of the Centre of Mass (CM) of the solar system as a whole
(Sun
and planets combined) on its orbital path around the galactic centre
(arrow).
What are the implications of all this?
A philosopher, through exclusive consideration of the known facts about consciousness and the brain, finds himself forced to draw the conclusion that the Self operates in much the same way as the solar system. Both the elements of the Self (its attributes and interpretations, the stuff of the tale) and the elements of the solar system (the Sun and planets) rotate around their respective common centres of mass, an "empty" point in space, but a point loaded with the full weight of energy and meaning contained in the system as a whole.
If this parallel is valid, we have stumbled on a most remarkable find. If the mind of the human being is constructed more or less as the solar system is constructed, then we have a breathtaking example of "as above, so below". At the very least, unending vistas open for researchers to explore. Furthermore, there is a distinct likeness between the picture above and diagrams showing the internal construction of the atom. Electrons whirling around a nucleus, planets whirling around a sun, attributions and interpretations whirling around the empty core of a Self, spiral movement in time, dynamic balance between centre and periphery - somewhere here there seem to be important lessons to be learned that are even applicable in everyday life. As Isaac Newton sought to prove, our bodies and minds are bound by eternal principles of natural law, on the one hand linking us to the stars, on the other to the smallest components of our own bodies. Even in the mind, we are in truth a part of Solaris.
Peter Tucker May 1998
