Section III

1. Section III THE SELF Egos, Bundles and Multiple Selves Theories of Self Agency and Free Will

2. VII:Egos, Bundles, and Multiple Selves • “Why does it seem as though I am a single, continuous self who has experiences?” • Ego Theories: Because I am. • Bundle Theories: It may seem this way, but there really is no self, and there must be another way to account for our experiences of self. • Multiple Selves

3. Ego Theory • Most commonly accepted • Sense of self is pervasive in many religions • Hinduism, Islam, Christianity • Substance Dualism • Reid puts it best: “I am not thought, I am not action, I am not feeling: I am something which thinks, and acts, and feels.

4. Bundle Theory • Buddhism • David Hume and the “bundle of sensations” • Multiple Personality Disorders • Case of Multiple Selves

5. Split Brains/Split Consciousness • Each side has different qualities • Both hemispheres have the ability to do things which the other hemispheres often lack. • “Sperry (1968) thought that these results revealed a doubling of conscious awareness, and even that his patients had two free wills in one cranial vault

6. VIII: Theories of Self • Mind switching “bodies” • Which person are you? • Do you still hold qualities which are intrinsic to your concept of “self” • Question of Replication…Mind, Body • Would you do it? • Is there any difference?

7. William James“Thought itself is the thinker and psychology need not look beyond” • The way it seems: • 2 parts of self: empirical self (material self, social self, and spiritual self), and subjective self (our concept of our own consciousness and perceptions) • The Passing Thought… “The Thought”

8. Neuroscientific Models of Self • Ramachandran: Ghost in the Machine • Damasio: Consciousness is developed as a persons life occurs…it is a “feeling, and feelings are neural patterns” • GWT: Global Workspace Theory: Self System

9. SESMETS • Subjects of Experience that are Single Mental Things • The self is something that exists for a period of time in which it is experiencing something. • It is then linked to past and future selves which take on properties of those instances in time. • Not an ego or bundle theory (neither continuous consciousness nor unlinked sets of experiences)

10. Dennett • “Our tales are spun, but for the most part we don’t spin them; they spin us.” • How many selves • >, < or = 1 per body?

11. IX Agency and Free Will • Determinism: Do we do things because we want to or because it is already determined that we must? • Is everything inevitable or do we have the tools and the ability to make decisions about how our lives will go? • Can Free Will and Determinism co-exist? • Compatibilism vs. Non Compatibilism

12. How it seems • It seems as though we are the subjects of our own experiences, and that we make conscious decisions about what we do • Is this just what we want to think? • Is it all just an Illusion? • What is the role of consciousness?

13. Where is the connection • We know there are sensory neurons, neuronal pathways and motor neurons • We know we feel as though we are conscious and have conscious ideas and thoughts about our past, present and future • We don’t know from where this feeling manifests itself.

14. Voluntary Action • Consciousness • Flexing your wrist, conscious action • RP (Readiness Potential) • Libet: Are we consciously aware of our actions when our RP is beginning to shift in electrical potential in our brain? • If our consciousness does control our actions, then it would seem to reason that we would have conscious awareness of our RP changing.

15. Libet’s Experiment • RP’s • Subject reports a light’s position in space when they are aware of their will to flex the wrist. • Conclusion: RP occurs before we are consciously aware of our will to move • Consciousness as a gatekeeper to the unconscious?

16. 1853 Faraday • Séance experiments in 1853 • Unconscious Will • People performed séance sessions and claimed spirits answered the questions they were asking • Faraday said differently: • Card/Cement Experiment • Sitters must have unconsciously moved their hands

17. William Grey Walter • The slide projector experiment • Subjects told they can change slides, but changes in the motor cortex were ultimately responsible • Slides would change just as the conscious thought occurred • We can have control after all…even if we don’t realize it

18. The Mirror Experiment • Subject put in front of a mirror and given tasks • Subject is arranged so that the arms they see are another persons • When the subjects are asked to perform the tasks, the other person’s arms do the task • Subject believes that it was their will which completed the tasks they were presented.

19. Wegner and Free Will • Our sense of being a conscious agent who does things comes at the cost of being technically wrong all the time. • “The experience of willing an act arises from interpreting one’s thought as the cause of the act • Requirements of Will: thought occurs before action, action depends on thought, no other causes can be present

20. Wegner Continued • Illusion of Free Will requires three steps: • The brain plans actions and carries them out • We become aware of the brains intentions to act without knowledge of how/why. • Intentions • Action occurs after intention • Erroneous conclusion: “intention causes action”