The Two Paths: No Self versus extended Self

Sometimes we can get to the same place taking opposite paths.

One path is the Buddhist belief that “self” is a delusion.

The objects with which people identify themselves—fortune, social position, family, body, and even mind—are not their true selves. There is nothing permanent, and, if only the permanent deserved to be called the self, or atman, then nothing is self. 

Buddhists set forth the theory of the five aggregates or constituents (khandhas) of human existence: (1) corporeality or physical forms (rupa), (2) feelings or sensations (vedana), (3) ideations (sañña), (4) mental formations or dispositions (sankhara), and (5) consciousness (viññana). Human existence is only a composite of the five aggregates, none of which is the self or soul. A person is in a process of continuous change, with no fixed underlying entity.

Compare this central tenet of Buddhism with a broader definition of “mind.”  In a book called Being There:  Putting Brain, Body and World Together Again (1997), philosopher Andy Clark makes the case that there is no basis for conceiving of the mind as bounded by skin and skull.  Clark cites Maurice Merleau-Ponty:

Our own body is in the world as the heart is in the organism . . . it forms with it a system.

Admittedly, we do many of our basic activities—e.g., walking, reaching and looking—as individuals.   But what about activities involving advanced cognition, such as “voting, consumer choice, planning a vacation or running a country? 

To accomplish these higher order activities, we

create and maintain

…
Share

Continue ReadingThe Two Paths: No Self versus extended Self

Proof for the existence of an infinite number of Gods.

I referred to Wikipedia's article on "Intelligent Design" to see whether some other GOD must have designed God.  Assuming that the logic of the Intelligent Designers is correct and assuming the existence of only one God), I deduced that there truly must be more than one God.  Here's how I…

Continue ReadingProof for the existence of an infinite number of Gods.

Star Trek’s Error: Spock’s lack of emotion would have made him irrational

Rene Descartes held that the human mind was separate from bodily processes.  Dr. Antonio R. Damasio disagreed, as set forth in Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain (1994). In this book, Damasio introduced the cases of Phineas Gage (long dead) and “Elliot” (a living patient), who both suffered brain damage to the ventromedial prefrontal area of their brains. 

Gage’s brain damage occurred when a metal tamping rod was accidentally shot through his brain during a blasting operation (he recovered and lived many years).  Elliot’s damage occurred as a result of a brain tumor. They were both left with high level intellectual functioning but little ability to experience emotion. 

[Gage] seemed to be like a child, with no stable sense of what was important and what was not. He was fitful, intemperate, obscene. It was as if he didn’t care about one thing more than another. He seemed bizarrely detached from the reality of his conduct. So he could not make good choices, and he could not sustain good relationships . .

Elliot had been a good role model, husband and father before his tumor.  After the tumor, he was

weirdly cool, detached, and ironic, indifferent even to intrusive discussion of personal matters- as if such remarks were not really about him. He had not previously been this way; he had been an affectionate husband and father. He retained lots of cognitive functions: he could perform calculations, had a fine memory for dates and names, and the ability to

…
Share

Continue ReadingStar Trek’s Error: Spock’s lack of emotion would have made him irrational