PHILOSOPHY - Mind: Personal Identity (The Narrative Self) [HD]

In this Wireless Philosophy video, Elisabeth Camp (Rutgers University) introduces the narrative view of personal identity and its major problems.

Help us caption & translate this video!

[unsensibleshoes]

I did Zen meditation for about 20 years -seven years studying under a Korean Zen Master. The first koan I was given - Mu koan - was "What are you?" The Zen Master would hit the floor with his hand to indicate the answer. Well, forty years passed and one day I was watching a YouTube video about a guy who had a near-death experience who said he had the realization that he is not a noun, but a verb. He experienced existence as the perpetual unfolding of the Now and was no longer Raymond the noun, but was" Raymonding", the verb. Bang! Hearing that I understood Mu koan.

[Hy-jgow]

A mismatched collage of stereotypes and learned behaviors, we arrive into a ready-made world of symbols and meanings, we acquire a ready-made language and then through imitation and conformism create both character and narratives (btw we also have ready made narratives), while the self is merely the ability of self-referentiality - we refer to this amalgam as ourselves, grounded in the consciousness of being a center of experiences.
I wager that the feeling of separate uniqueness is due to the locally bound formally universal sense of a center of experience/consciousness - that is, we can not avoid being imposed on by the senses, we cannot even imagine that this center of experience, this same one, be duplicated and exist in separated, parallel minds.
What I am trying to say is, that the reflexive access to a center of experience is not interchangeable with another organism`s similar access to a center of experience. Which means that while consciousnesses are formally identical functional units, our access being limited to one at a time, means that one organism`s experiences are limited to that organism, which creates the sensation of non-replaceable identity. This relational property of subjectivity is empty/tabula rasa though in terms of values, narratives, etc. these attach themselves onto centers of experience via learning, influence, socialization, indoctrination, etc. Like an empty OS, it gets filled with different ready-made applications. We are hardly truly unique in a metaphysical sense.
Our lives are largely ritualistic repetitions of ready made roles, characters and narratives. We learn to play human, we learn to play "love" (for example no unique means of expression are available: for example kissing is a symbolic act, no couple ever replaces it with something "original", at least not right away, not to mention monogamy itself is already a ready made framework), how to play a kid and then an adult. The narratives themselves are highly limited and have socially validated points of success and failure relative to one`s age. All in all, we are like walking exemplars of a human-shaped newspaper collage.

[goodkawz]

Descartes walks into a bar.
The bartender asks, “Would you like a beer?”
Descartes says, “I think not.”
... and immediately vanishes.

[havenbastion]

You are the apparent continuity of your experience. You are the story you tell yourself about your place in the universe.

[crazyprayingmantis]

This hurt my brain.
But what is my brain? and how do I know it's mine?
Do I have to know myself before I can know that it's my brain?
Can my brain know itself? Can my brain trick itself into thinking it knows itself?

[szymon]

"How strange it is, to be anything at all."

[sbklein]

the narrative idea of personal identity is nice if one is unconcerned with:

1. What identity (or self, with or without temporal continuity) consists in, and
2. The fact that there is no credible scientific evidence that memory (episodic or otherwise) contributes in any substantial way to one's sense of diachronic or synchronic sense of self, save for contrived situations (i.e., psych experiments) and those occasions when justification either is requested of personally motivated.

Other than those (and several other) troublesome bits, a fine rendition of a presumption-based view of self.

Job well done!

[MrMonshez]

The impact you create on this world is what matters; For worse, or for better.

[cloudgalaxy]

An actually compelling and well thought out video from the WiPhi Metaphysics Playlist.
I'm crying.
I knew it was worth it.

[JeffMuehlbauer]

This is my favorite video essay I've seen on this channel. Thank you!

[williamstanley]

It is interesting that WHAT we are can only be clearly and accurately answered on the foundational understanding of WHY we are.

[guzmanayalagerardoamauri]

Most of the time, I forget who I am and just become a spectator, weird.

[gzpo]

The question of 'Who' is infinitely elusive. All we really have is 'What' we are. Every time one attempts to answer the question, 'Who', we find ourselves answering with a 'What'. 'Who' cannot be answered, 'Who' we are is beyond words. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

[maroon]

The ending was very enlightening. Thank you, Wireless Philosophy.

[auggied]

I think this portrayal missed the main point of the question Who am I? Clearly, all of the traits, characteristics, experiences, and identities are ephemeral and happening to you. So if they are happening to you, then who is the "you"? Who is the you once all of these things are removed? What, then, remains? This video is an explanation of how the mind is observing the mind, but it is stuck in that psychological mind in that it cannot see what is behind it — a persistent Self that witnesses all of the goings-on, thoughts, and identities. So to ask Who am I? we ultimately find ourselves, if persistent and open enough, devoid of all of the typical explanations of who we are, which includes all of the inherited and experienced memories plus all of what our senses bring in and to which our minds cling. The collection of thoughts that we have form the accretion called the mind, and this mind, this bundle of thoughts, is what is considered the "I, " yet it is not the Self. When we explore where thoughts come from, by both observation and neuroscientific studies, we find that we do not create them but rather notice them after they occur. Thus, how can thoughts be "you"? And if you are not your thoughts then you cannot be your mind, and if not, then you must ask, "Who am I?"

[yohami]

Narrative is about ego.

The video gets in its own way when using the word "problem" without pointing at the problem, which means there are unsaid assumptions and goals, so there's a strange uncomfortable bias in the whole thing.

Thinking back about it, the point of the origin here was not "who am I" but "why do I matter". The video goes lengths in dismissing the part of philosophy that deals with identity as a thing, and then flirts with everything that gives weight to the more fictional part of the being.

You're not your story, you're just roleplaying it. That need of finding meaning in the story, that void, is there because there's none, no meaning at all. Like, drinking water in a dream doesnt make you less thirsty, and achieving a grand narrative doesnt make you more real but less.

I liked the coherent character part, for reasons different than the video's. What's good about it, in my opinion, is that to be coherent you must be observing of reality and cutting things and grooming others, which is a good exercise for the being - better than creating a narrative in that it makes you feel more alive, and gives you advantages.

[afrikankodo]

Really great visuals!

The comments... Hahah! Philosophy and the unending quest.

[jhonfredsiega]

As i watched the video and reflect. It talks about "who am i?" and "who we are?". Each of us are in are individuals in the sense of being numerically distinct, because we come from different places. Basically we construct our reality by either stories of characterization. Its because deep down we all all the same. In the end, we are who we decided to be.
UTS ( section Bravo)

[cruelangel]

This is a very thought provoking video essay on philosophical systems of self... But I feel that this video presupposes that selfhood is real and important and even necessary... Why is self so important?

[leomdk]

The thing that I find most puzzling is the question of 'why am I (in?) this body?' Why am I not a different self? There are billions of selfs on the planet right now ... this one self is me. How did that come to pass? Why do I experience the Universe from this particular locality and you from yours? Nevermind 'who am I' as a story -- 'why am I over here and only over here?' is the question that haunts - for me, anyway. In this location. Over here. In (as?) my body - my one tiny, personal space in the vast expanse of the Universe.