New Theory of Self

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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I mentioned in my Memes thread that I had been reading “Consciousness Explained” by Daniel Dennet (Back Bay Books, 1991). I implied to De’trop in the “Jealousy of God” thread that I will explain what the determinism thread implies about the materialism debate. It may take me a few months, but I am working on a theory of self as immortal soul/spirit. I will draw on thoughts provoked while reading Dennet, which agree with his thoughts on the Cartesian theatre, and point out and complete his incomplete definition of an immortal soul/spirit on page 430 (though he does not recognize it as such). I will mention the sense of thought (you may recognize what I say from something I wrote a while back), and memes will come into play (including what they imply about values transmission – and I will use that to focus on the supernaturally-given ten commandments, the royal law of love, and the golden rule). I just started typing it up today (1/23/07) – though it has been forming for years, and I’ve scribbled many notes on it over the past year and a half. The resurrected body will also be discussed (so far Jesus is the only example of this), as well as what the Bible has to say about the soul/heart/spirit/mind and how it relates to the body (pre-resurrection). The various theories of a tripartite man will be touched upon (including my take), probably briefly. I may mention Ramachandran’s research regarding mirror cells. I will discuss ‘essence’ and communication theory. I will talk about multiple personality disorder and split-brain patients. There may be more. I’m posting this in case you want to prepare for the discussion. As you can see, it is a large project, so you have time. Maybe it will turn out to be a book, and I will only post a chapter of it – I really don’t know at this point.

Basically, I’m going to show how we are the conceptualizer (actor), not the concepts (tragedy), without implying a Cartesian theatre (ya dig? snappity snappity).

Here is a thought-experiment in the mean time: There are three years between moments A and O. A person, in moment A, says ‘hello’ (mediated by God) to himself-who-is-in-moment-O, and he, in moment O, says ‘hello’ (mediated by God) back to himself-who-is-in-moment-A (both instances of ‘he’ speak using the mind-voice you hear when you say ‘how now brown cow’ without making a noise – if there is a name for that, let me know). Call each instance of ‘hello’ (mediated by God) a ‘thought’. Select one:

A. Two different selves are communicating via time-traveling thoughts mediated by God. When I talk to myself, I am more than one self – sometimes I even give my other self a different name (or a bad English accent) so it can talk back (Good goin’ Pat! Why, thank you, Govna!).
B. He is talking to himself via time-traveling thoughts mediated by God, just like I talk to myself (Nice move, Sam!) but I am only one self. Even if I give myself a second name, when I speak using that second name, it is still me who is speaking 'I am one self with two different names–just like thespians (say it, don’t spray it, Sam!).
C. Both (explain).
D. Neither (explain).
E. Does that mean you should love (do to) yourself as (you would have you/others do to) yourself? (Like, not beat yourself up, for example?)

Feel free to discuss! Be back in a few months, Lord-willing.

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I’m putting this here instead of in my Predestination and Free Will thread discussion with Omar… this is for de’trop… to start, anyway… sorry if some of it seems disconnected… I ran out of time…

You feel your arms and legs. Thoughts are feelings in that thinking is a way of feeling. Thoughts are a type of sense data. Say thoughts result from chemical reactions in the brain. So, if the chemical reactions change, the thoughts change, but the brain does not blink out of existence, right? So, thoughts are not the brain. Furthermore, you are not your thoughts, nor are you your brain. Go back to feeling your arms and legs. Think about how your arms and legs feel right now. If you take those limbs away, you are not less of a person – you are still you. Same deal if you take away the thoughts and feelings of those arms and legs. You remain. Thinking is a type of feeling made possible by the brain, but is not the brain, just like feeling your legs (feeling thoughts) or running with your legs (thinking thoughts) is made possible by the existence of your legs (brain), but is not your legs (brain) (feeling thoughts is equivalent to thinking thoughts). So, you are not your brain, and neither are you your thoughts. If thoughts are used by the mind, then they are not equivalent to the mind; if the mind can use thoughts, then it is not the thoughts it uses. We are not our thoughts (our limbs). We think our thoughts (feel our limbs, think about that feeling). We think our thoughts whether or not they come to us in a slow trickle or in a flood. Thoughts change. Thinking remains (indefinitely because God wants it to).

To refuse a thought, it must first exist in my head… whether or not I willed it into existence. Having it occur to me isn’t the same as willfully thinking it. Thinking it is like holding it. There are a lot of items on the shelf in the store that I can see, but just because I am aware of them doesn’t mean I am holding them. A lot of thoughts occur to me against my will… like the pain of stubbing my toe, like the sound of the neighbors cheering the football game, like the memories I’d rather forget, and pleasant memories I’d long forgotten. The pain and cheering are caused by my external surroundings, and the memories, both good and bad, are part of my body (the part we call “brain”) – just like my leg, or my leg when it is broken. Focusing on a memory is like focusing on my leg. I am the focusing, I am not the memory or the leg. Thoughts/memories are external to the self, like the leg is external to the self. The measure of a heart is what it focuses on in privacy (though there is no privacy with God)—but compared to God all hearts are just wretchedly disgusting, but He loves us all anyway. I’m sure you’ve heard of selective listening, where a person can tune out all noise but the voice they are focused upon. That is what one must do when refusing unwanted thoughts – focus on one Voice, selectively listen to Love. Focus on Him, and the garbage will fade away. However… if the unwanted thought that keeps coming back is a person who caused you pain… you treat that thought with respect. You pray for that person, cry to God to release tension if necessary, suck it up, and drive on. Like Peter stepping out into the ocean… except… never losing eye contact. The idea is to recondition a more healthy thought pattern. Replace obsession and pain with edification and love. Thoughts can be replaced. You can not. The more you refuse it consistently, the less it will occur to you (but you… you will occur regardless). But this is also why it is important to fill the vacuum with God – the further you get from God, the closer you are to being swallowed by the storm. Matthew 12:43-45.

If you never learned how to refuse a thought, you may experience a mountain of unwanted thoughts when you put faith in God. The only way out from under that mountain is to let Him lift it off of you. He will teach you how to keep the mountain from re-accumulating. He will strengthen your will like an Olympic athlete. You will know yourself more than you ever perhaps claimed to want to.

If brains are not the actions that they do, then the idea of me being my brain sort of … crumbles right here, doesn’t it? But, thoughts are not actions. How is memory stored for recall if it is always an action? Are you familiar with Dawkins’ “meme”? Memes/ideas/thoughts exist as impressions… like lines carved into clay. The mind is self-conscious clay which can carve lines into itself, and erase lines it doesn’t want (only to the extent that it is aware). If mind emerges from brain, and thought emerges from mind, then mind is not brain, and thought is not mind. Feelings felt by the mind can either be ‘just felt’ (like when you are dreaming or you suddenly remember something out of the blue) or they can be ‘held’. It is in the ‘just felt’ stage that thoughts have not been refused or accepted. If we accept them, they are ‘held’. We can bypass the ‘just felt’ stage and ‘recall’ stored information into the ‘held’ stage. It is in the ‘held’ stage that thoughts can be said to truly emerge from the mind, but in the ‘just felt’ stage they emerge from the mind in the sense that without fingers or a nervous system, there is no “feeling an object” – because without a mind (emergent from brain) there is no “thinking a feeling” (whether that thought is “just felt” or “held”). Thinking/feeling is an action like running… and if brains are legs, then thoughts/sense-data are like toes attached to the feet of those legs. Memories are impressions on the part of the body we call brain. Thinking is running with memories instead of legs. Legs don’t run themselves when the will is in control, and neither do memories. When we run involuntarily (“flight” instinct) we are not our legs – same deal when we remember involuntarily… we are not the part of our brain impressed with memories, nor are we those memories. The fact that we cannot be in total control is evidence of our weakness, our humanity, our need for God. He can help us master ourselves. He can teach us how to amputate infected toes/thoughts.

I can not regulate my will on my own. On my own, I didn’t have the motivation to do that. I do give Him the glory for my freedom. I do the refusing – He does the motivating toward refusal (not because I earned the motivation, but because He loves me and I’m cool with that).

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Have you ever listened to any of Elenore Stumps lectures on Non Cartesian Dualism?

Also, I know in our other discussion I mentioned J. Gresham Machen, and while I hate to bring up the same author again in such a short span of time, I do really enjoy him. It also just happens that he has written an entire book called, “The Christian view of Man” which I have just finished reading (as in an hour ago)

Also someone I’ve found helpful, (at least initially in explaining this problem to me) would be J. P. Moreland, (I know… I know… I know…but… still… his lectures helped me…)

Part of a question that Machen didn’t discuss, and Stump only breifly addressed at the end of her lecture, was that of Demon Possesion.

I have gotten to the point in my understanding of the “soul” that I can give somewhat of an account of this phenomena, (from an eschatological standpoint, as well as a philosophical one) but… ONE thing alludes me.

Why in the world would demons desire to take control of pigs, as opposed to drifting back off into whatever realm they normally occupy?

I’ve heard some suggestions, mostly having to do with the cultural particulars of that situation, (where the people there were more concerned with their pigs than the demon possesed man, and so Jesus may have been teaching them a lesson? )

Anyway, what would you say about Stump and Machens (similar) standpoint of Non Cartesian dualism? (Developed from Aquinas)

And given your view, what do you say about Demon possesion, and why in the WORLD would Demons desire to possess PIGS of all things???

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Shotgun… I sat down to research this here topic and found out I have nothing new to say. I thank you for referring me to Stump. THAT was an awesome talk. Stick with Veritas. I don’t have time to research Machen or Moreland, but maybe eventually. You have at least got me started down the right road on a topic that fascinates me, and you have my gratitude.
veritas.org/media/talks/321

Still I have ordered and will read Popper’s and Eccles’ “The Self and Its Brain” (an argument for interactionism). That and Dennet’s consciousness book (already read)… together with Stump’s thinking… ought to make for an interesting discussion, though I have nothing new to add.

As for the pigs thing, read Luke 11:24. They are not at rest outside sensing bodies, apparently. Plus listen to what Stump says Aquinas’ thinks about the ‘disembodied’ state being unnatural (for us, anyway), and thus … eventual glorified, resurrected bodies. But in the case of beings that never had a material body, consider insanity and losing touch with the ground of being (God) (who is also immaterial). Inhabiting humans (image of God) is superior to being completely out of touch with being (God), and inhabiting pigs, though not as good as inhabiting humans, is also superior to the abyss [being completely out of touch with being (God)].

I’ll be back in October to discuss this thread with you after I’ve read everything and have it fresh in my mind. Hope you’ll join me. If not, I hope you’ll join this book discussion that will also begin in October:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=164356

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