the illusion of the self

sam harris interviews bruce hood



snip

if the self is not what it seems, then what is it?

for most of us, the sense of our self is as an integrated individual inhabiting a body. i think it is helpful to distinguish between the two ways of thinking about the self that william james talked about. there is conscious awareness of the present moment that he called the “i,” but there is also a self that reflects upon who we are in terms of our history, our current activities and our future plans. james called this aspect of the self, “me” which most of us would recognize as our personal identity—who we think we are. however, i think that both the “i” and the “me” are actually ever-changing narratives generated by our brain to provide a coherent framework to organize the output of all the factors that contribute to our thoughts and behaviors.

/snip

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