Models of Mind
In a previous post I sketched out the importance of being a bit more imaginative when we ask the difficult question, What is the mind like. It's time to abandon the ancient assumptions that I have a little person inside my head that's the "real me" and somehow, perhaps this little person (the soul) will survive death. It's obviously not like that. There is "nobody home" in the brain, nothing "controlling" it.
The "self" is what it feels like to be a brain. That is still a big mystery, but progress nonetheless.
Here, I'd like to discuss another aspect of the ancient view. Is there only one "self" running around in my brain? And, while we are at it, is there more to the "self" than this entity that seems to be looking out my eyes? Is there more to "me" than the "me" I feel writing these lines? Mountains of experimental evidence says there is. Lots more.
I have always been very interested in dreams. I often remember them very well and sometimes become aware that I'm dreaming while continuing to dream. There are many things to learn in this state. For one thing, I encounter other people in my dreams. They seem to be rather stupid and inarticulate. It's hard to understand what they are saying and they don't seem to pay much attention to me, but they are separate personalities nonetheless. I can have a heated argument with one of these dream ghosts. I can wake up angry about some completely ridiculous discussion that, after all, was conducted entirely within my own head.
Under normal circumstances, the brain doesn't seem to be able to animate more than one fully functioning personality during wakefulness, but there are important exceptions. We take it for granted that we are different people in different situations, especially when assisted by chemicals. The difference can be very substantial, as in psychosis.
Sufferers from schizophrenia frequently hear voices that seem to be totally separate from the "self". Obviously, such voices are being animated by the same brain as the one that "hears" them. I think of this as the diseased brain "booting up" little "partial people" running in parallel with the one that feels like "me". I consider this to be the root of many (perhaps all) religious experiences where the voice of God (or spirit) is heard or perhaps appears visually. To me, it is not surprising that some people occasionally hallucinate fully functioning, visible and tactile people wandering around in the "real" universe, that is, after all, constructed inside their heads under normal circumstances. It would be hard for most of us to get through the day if such experiences were common. However, the very rarity of these experiences does not make them miracles. They are authentic experiences, as "real" as any other, but that does not mean that they are evidence of an alternate universe. For example, "ghosts" are not evidence of an afterlife.
All this leads me to think of the "self" as a specific "mode" or configuration or "state" of the "program" running in the brain. The brain can configure itself in different ways. Each configuration has access to all the memories in the brain and the sensations of the body, along with the experience of "selfhood", the experience of being "me". When I'm asleep, the brain has he ability to "boot up" one or more additional personalities. The one that feels like me is barely ticking over, deprived (for example) of the use of the frontal lobes (logic). In a dream, I can often switch characters, with the sense of "me" moving to a different personality in the dream or "I" can become a kind of author or stage director.
If I am an actor or the "stage director", who is building the set? Where does the scenery come from? Obviously this is an important category of the "contents" of the mind, or self. More profoundly, this is also true of the "set" that I observe when wide awake. The entire perceived world is created in my brain from "evidence" rather indirectly from my senses or assumptions I make about what is "out there". So this, too is "me". All this is created actively, "on the fly" so to speak.
I have sometimes had the type of "peak experience" where a I suddenly feel that there is a personality behind the entire universe. It feels like seeing God. But of course there is a person behind the Universe. It's me. Under normal circumstances, my brain tricks me into thinking that I am moving around in a "real" world, not the world as simulated by my brain. Sometimes the veil slips and I glimpse the living mind behind the scenes. It's me, or perhaps the most interesting and wonderful part of "me".
One of the objects of Zen practice is to experience the world this way. The object is not to discover some occult reality hiding behind everyday experience. The object is to experience reality "as it is". Of course, opinions differ on just what is experienced by the "masters". Are we reaching to experience ultimate reality beyond the self? I'd say, no, we are attempting to more fully experience the self.
I am willing to leave the door open, just a tiny crack, to the possibility that the "deep self" is not entirely confined inside the skull. The more we learn about "reality", the more we discover the vastness of our own ignorance. We seem to make our biggest mistakes by assuming that certain things are obvious and not open to discussion or investigation. We must admit that the idea that the self is "nothing more" than what it feels like to be a brain is not even entirely obvious. It may not be possible to escape the self, but the self is much bigger, more complex and more wonderful than we imagine.
It is more wonderful than we can imagine.
The "self" is what it feels like to be a brain. That is still a big mystery, but progress nonetheless.
Here, I'd like to discuss another aspect of the ancient view. Is there only one "self" running around in my brain? And, while we are at it, is there more to the "self" than this entity that seems to be looking out my eyes? Is there more to "me" than the "me" I feel writing these lines? Mountains of experimental evidence says there is. Lots more.
I have always been very interested in dreams. I often remember them very well and sometimes become aware that I'm dreaming while continuing to dream. There are many things to learn in this state. For one thing, I encounter other people in my dreams. They seem to be rather stupid and inarticulate. It's hard to understand what they are saying and they don't seem to pay much attention to me, but they are separate personalities nonetheless. I can have a heated argument with one of these dream ghosts. I can wake up angry about some completely ridiculous discussion that, after all, was conducted entirely within my own head.
Under normal circumstances, the brain doesn't seem to be able to animate more than one fully functioning personality during wakefulness, but there are important exceptions. We take it for granted that we are different people in different situations, especially when assisted by chemicals. The difference can be very substantial, as in psychosis.
Sufferers from schizophrenia frequently hear voices that seem to be totally separate from the "self". Obviously, such voices are being animated by the same brain as the one that "hears" them. I think of this as the diseased brain "booting up" little "partial people" running in parallel with the one that feels like "me". I consider this to be the root of many (perhaps all) religious experiences where the voice of God (or spirit) is heard or perhaps appears visually. To me, it is not surprising that some people occasionally hallucinate fully functioning, visible and tactile people wandering around in the "real" universe, that is, after all, constructed inside their heads under normal circumstances. It would be hard for most of us to get through the day if such experiences were common. However, the very rarity of these experiences does not make them miracles. They are authentic experiences, as "real" as any other, but that does not mean that they are evidence of an alternate universe. For example, "ghosts" are not evidence of an afterlife.
All this leads me to think of the "self" as a specific "mode" or configuration or "state" of the "program" running in the brain. The brain can configure itself in different ways. Each configuration has access to all the memories in the brain and the sensations of the body, along with the experience of "selfhood", the experience of being "me". When I'm asleep, the brain has he ability to "boot up" one or more additional personalities. The one that feels like me is barely ticking over, deprived (for example) of the use of the frontal lobes (logic). In a dream, I can often switch characters, with the sense of "me" moving to a different personality in the dream or "I" can become a kind of author or stage director.
If I am an actor or the "stage director", who is building the set? Where does the scenery come from? Obviously this is an important category of the "contents" of the mind, or self. More profoundly, this is also true of the "set" that I observe when wide awake. The entire perceived world is created in my brain from "evidence" rather indirectly from my senses or assumptions I make about what is "out there". So this, too is "me". All this is created actively, "on the fly" so to speak.
I have sometimes had the type of "peak experience" where a I suddenly feel that there is a personality behind the entire universe. It feels like seeing God. But of course there is a person behind the Universe. It's me. Under normal circumstances, my brain tricks me into thinking that I am moving around in a "real" world, not the world as simulated by my brain. Sometimes the veil slips and I glimpse the living mind behind the scenes. It's me, or perhaps the most interesting and wonderful part of "me".
One of the objects of Zen practice is to experience the world this way. The object is not to discover some occult reality hiding behind everyday experience. The object is to experience reality "as it is". Of course, opinions differ on just what is experienced by the "masters". Are we reaching to experience ultimate reality beyond the self? I'd say, no, we are attempting to more fully experience the self.
I am willing to leave the door open, just a tiny crack, to the possibility that the "deep self" is not entirely confined inside the skull. The more we learn about "reality", the more we discover the vastness of our own ignorance. We seem to make our biggest mistakes by assuming that certain things are obvious and not open to discussion or investigation. We must admit that the idea that the self is "nothing more" than what it feels like to be a brain is not even entirely obvious. It may not be possible to escape the self, but the self is much bigger, more complex and more wonderful than we imagine.
It is more wonderful than we can imagine.
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