The Self is an Illusion - You Do Not Exist

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Sam Harris, Susan Blackmore, Thomas Metzinger and Shunyamurti talks about the illusion of a separate self or ego.

Excerpts:

"I’m not making any spooky claims about its metaphysics. What I am saying, however, is that the self is an illusion. The sense of being an ego, an I, a thinker of thoughts in addition to the thoughts. An experiencer in addition to the experience. The sense that we all have of riding around inside our heads as a kind of a passenger in the vehicle of the body. [...] Now that sense of being a subject, a locus of consciousness inside the head is an illusion. It makes no neuro-anatomical sense. There’s no place in the brain for your ego to be hiding. We know that everything you experience – your conscious emotions and thoughts and moods and the impulses that initiate behavior – all of these things are delivered by a myriad of different processes in the brain that are spread out over the whole of the brain. They can be independently erupted. We have a changing system. We are a process and there’s not one unitary self that’s carried through from one moment to the next unchanging."
- Sam Harris

"We may give up cartesian dualism, we might be absolutely sure that there isn't mind stuff and physical stuff, or matter and consciousness, you know, we say we are monists, but actually, we still believe in a kind of experiencing self. The experiencer and the experience. This doesn't fit with how we know the brain works at all."
- Susan Blackmore

"The self is not a thing, but a process. It is a very interesting and fascinating process; it is that special process that gives you the conscious experience of being someone."
- Thomas Metzinger

"You do not exist. Sorry. Despite all the plans you have made, and all the nice clothes you bought, and all of that. You don't exist. It was all for nothing."
- Shunyamurti

Credits:

★★★ Spoken words

★ Sam Harris
Excerpts are from his BigThink interview:
Sam is the author of Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion:
His Youtube channel:
His website:

★ Susan Blackmore
Excerpts are from Susan Blackmore's talk at Science and Nonduality Conference 2012 in The Netherlands:
Susan is the author of Consciousness: An Introduction:
Her website:

★ Thomas Metzinger
Excerpts are from his TEDxRheinMain talk:
Thomas is the author of The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self:

★ Shunyamurti
Excerpts are from Sat Yoga Institute's Ego Death and Divine Rebirth retreat, recorded on the evening of Sunday, April 1, 2012:
Read more about Shunyamurti at Sat Yoga Institute's website:

★★★ Music

★ Androids Always Escape by Chris Zabriskie

★ Prelude No. 10 by Chris Zabriskie

★ Prelude and Nostalgia by Yanni:
Yanni's Youtube channel:
His website:

★★★ Quotes

“For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception."
- David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

"Is the truth depressing? Some may find it so. But I find it liberating, and consoling. When I believed that my existence was a further fact, I seemed imprisoned in myself. My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness. When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air."
- Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons

★★★ Photo

The photo is taken by Rula Sibai:
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Congratulations on creating a powerful and haunting clip. This clip gets right in to my soul and I literally listen to this a couple of times a day.

TristinKing
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What is really bizarre is that we can be sitting in front of our computer realizing we are an illusion.

methods
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"I" do not think therefore "I" do not exist

draymunoz
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WE LIVE IN A ILUSION AND YOU ALSO LIVE IN ILUSION.

mufasrakhalid
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if this ain't trippin y'all out idk what will 😂😂

shaunaestes
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About 100% of the comments here come from people who don’t understand this at all. And that’s ok. It’s right where you are. You are listening to people using language to show you what language can’t show you. And you use your words to say it’s not true. People, language is exactly the problem. It’s a tool but a clunky tool. You’ve been taken in by it. My name is Donovan. I can say that I exist or I can say Donovan exists. But “Donovan exists” is far more accurate. I exist, sure. And Donovan exists, true. But I am not Donovan if I am Donovan’s mind. And Donovan can’t have a mind AND BE a mind. So which is it?
I ask you too then, ..
Do you have a mind?
Yes?
Who does?
You?
Are you a mind?
Yes?
So you have a you?
Are you subject or object?
Thinking that the language based way believing and feeling w regard to a self is exactly like the pencil drawing of two hands, one drawing the other and the other drawing the one.
That drawing by Escher?, .. I think that his name.
That’s you and your self.
Is that possible?
If you dig a little bit you’ll see that’s pretty much how you feel about it. But that’s like trying to chew your teeth or swallow your stomach

It’s an illusion
Like time
Only more persistent

NewSchoolPOKERstrat
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I am - The Cosmos experiencing it self .. * Blessings *

apincyahoocom
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There is one constant they always overlook, when they claim that they can see nothing enduring in the idea of the self. There is one thing that never changes, no matter our growth from child to adult: awareness itself.

satanscrow
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Conciousness is always of something, awareness doesn't need conciousness but conciousness needs awareness.But this is also just another concept like everything else .

hermansohier
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Hi, Interesting Work. This video is short, and does not label who is saying what . Can you kindly graciously : a. upload more videos on Cognition, Consciousness, & Spirituality (e.g. Paths to Enlightenment, (Nibbana)) ; b. Videos on Phenomenology (Husserl, Dennett), Buddhist studies on Mind (Varela, Thompson)

sumantranray
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I became self aware before I was born
I am not alone

jonathantomich
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There is only awareness, nothing more

exstazius
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Fantastic video. Brought “me” to tears.

GQGeorge
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This is true, but you will still be "trapped" in the illusion of a separate self, that is simply a human experience. There is no escaping this because there is nothing to escape.

patrickbertlein
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the Self and my self is very different the Self is god and my self is ego. Self is the reality. My self is an illusion

iamthatiam
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Really wish background music could be left out!

embemw
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I exist, I am here, I can, I do, I am

palmamingozzi
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It is only after we have experienced the "Pain of Self" that we even try to "transcend" beyond the self.
Even though I can tell my cat that there is no cat self, I also know that there force out there that "squeezes" you or the cat into being a self.
We only study the self in the attempt to free ourselves from it.
Even many "me" is a self. Self or no self cannot be solely explained by physics. We assume our consciousness equates the physical brain
and its it is more than that. The more you know about your own "parts" the more you do not have a self.
Who asked " that question" ? Who said, "This is here ; that was the past, this WAS NOW" I know, we all like to be free ....but we are not....

winstonchang
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Its difficult to imagine how a process as intricate and profound as consciousness could have arisen naturally

ConsciousRobot
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Who is it perceiving that which does not exist?

sngscratcher