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The Self Illusion: Why There is No 'You' Inside Your Head
Most of us believe that we are an independent, coherent self--an individual inside our head who thinks, watches, wonders, dreams, and makes plans for the future. This sense of our self may seem incredibly real but a wealth of recent scientific evidence reveals that it is not what it seems--it is all an illusion.
In The Self Illusion, Bruce Hood reveals how the self emerges during childhood and how the architecture of the developing brain enables us to become social animals dependent on each other. Humans spend proportionally the greatest amount of time in childhood compared to any other animal. It's not only to learn from others, Hood notes, but also to learn to become like others. We learn to become our self. Even as adults we are continually developing and elaborating this story, learning to become different selves in different situations--the work self, the home self, the parent self. Moreover, Hood shows that this already fluid process--the construction of self--has dramatically changed in recent years. Social networking activities--such as blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter--are fast becoming socialization on steroids. The speed and ease at which we can form alliances and relationships are outstripping the same selection processes that shaped our self prior to the internet era. Things will never be the same again in the online social world. Hood offers our first glimpse into this uncharted territory.
Who we are is, in short, a story of our self--a narrative that our brain creates. Like the science fiction movie, we are living in a matrix that is our mind. But Hood concludes that though the self is an illusion, it is an illusion we must continue to embrace to live happily in human society.
258 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
458 people are currently reading
5630 people want to read
About the author
Bruce M. Hood
12 books130 followersI was born in Toronto, Canada, and my middle name is MacFarlane. This a legacy of my Scottish heritage on my father's side. My mother is Australian and has the very unusual first name of Loyale. I used to believe for many years that she had two sisters called Hope and Faith, but that was just my fertile imagination. Why Toronto I hear you ask. My father was a journalist and plied his art on various continents. By the time I had finally settled in Dundee, Scotland, at 8 years of age, I had already lived in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. If you are wondering, I support Scotland during the Rugby World Cup. I have an older brother who was also born in Toronto, but he doesn't have a mid-Atlantic accent like I do. He is sensible. He is a lawyer.
In Dundee, I went to school and then university where I studied psychology and socializing. I then went to Cambridge to conduct research on visual development in babies. Not because they are cute, but because their visual system is so interesting. I completed my Ph.D. in two years in 1991. That year I got married with a "Dr." in front of my name to my wife who is a real doctor and would not marry me until I was doctored. After a brief research period in London, we both set off to Boston, Massachusetts, to sample some U.S. academic life for a year. By the time we were ready to travel, we were now three, as my eldest daughter had been born. When my wife wasn't paying attention, I applied for and was given an associate professorship at Harvard. I interviewed without telling her. What was supposed to be just one year abroad in the United States turned into five. I do stuff like that all the time.
We decided that we wanted to raise our daughter in the U.K. because we did not want her to call us "Mom" and "Pop," or by our first names. So, 10 years ago, we moved back to the countryside just south of Bath. If you have ever been there, you'll know why. I work in the psychology department at the University of Bristol nearby. I conduct research, teach, and of course, write books. We have a second daughter now, and we all live in a medieval barn with mice. I also bought that without telling my wife. That's where I am up to now.
In Dundee, I went to school and then university where I studied psychology and socializing. I then went to Cambridge to conduct research on visual development in babies. Not because they are cute, but because their visual system is so interesting. I completed my Ph.D. in two years in 1991. That year I got married with a "Dr." in front of my name to my wife who is a real doctor and would not marry me until I was doctored. After a brief research period in London, we both set off to Boston, Massachusetts, to sample some U.S. academic life for a year. By the time we were ready to travel, we were now three, as my eldest daughter had been born. When my wife wasn't paying attention, I applied for and was given an associate professorship at Harvard. I interviewed without telling her. What was supposed to be just one year abroad in the United States turned into five. I do stuff like that all the time.
We decided that we wanted to raise our daughter in the U.K. because we did not want her to call us "Mom" and "Pop," or by our first names. So, 10 years ago, we moved back to the countryside just south of Bath. If you have ever been there, you'll know why. I work in the psychology department at the University of Bristol nearby. I conduct research, teach, and of course, write books. We have a second daughter now, and we all live in a medieval barn with mice. I also bought that without telling my wife. That's where I am up to now.
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May 13, 2014
This book confuses an abstract existential truth with psychological reality. It has no originality, and is potentially destructive to suffering people or as literature for their psychotherapeutic guides.
The main argument of this book is that the sense of self is an illusion. The entire volume is a polemic organized around this single point. Of course it is true that nothing in the universe is enduring and permanent, since even the universe is not. But Bruce Hood confuses the kind of thinking that led the Buddha to claim that human beings have no eternal enduring self (in contrast to religious claims of an enduring soul) with the importance and validity of the psychological self, which is just as real and important as our bodies.
The idea that the self is predominantly a social construction, mirrored back to us as we develop through childhood, from parents, peers, and surrounding culture, is a long established truism in Western psychology. This idea was not entirely new in the 19th century when George Herbert Mead promoted it in many books and essays. Freudian thinking was also based upon the idea of a socially developed self that gained definition through reflection from others. Heinz Kohut made the importance of mirroring, and interpersonal development of the self, a hallmark of modern psychoanalytic thinking. “The Self Illusion” ignores these widely known and widely read precedents in order to claim an apparent break-through in psychology.
Most of this book consists of anecdotes, social psychological experiments, and neuro-psychology to refute the straw-man hypothesis that the human self consists of an isolated, uniform entity. No one believes in such an entity.
The importance of the psychological self to modern psychotherapists, and to each one of us as individuals, is that our existence requires a synthesizing, organizing, integrating, dynamic, responsive regulator of the multiple inputs that we receive. Instead of consisting of random responses, or externally controlled dependencies, every healthy human being contains a networked, interactionally complexified executive, that provides some coherence to personality, while permitting variability and situational responsiveness. Ironically, Bruce Hood provides some very fine writing on this very point. He talks about the sense of self as a “web,” a “culmination of the interaction of a multitude of hidden factors ranging from genetic inheritance, life experiences, current circumstances…patterns of neuronal activity in the brain…a matrix of distributed networks…” and he adds, “…The resulting sums of these complex interactions are the decisions and choices that I make.” He reminds us that the human being, “has complexity impossible to predict” and “almost infinite brain states.” As he accurately tells us, there is “no core self at the helm.” But there is in fact the integrating system he has so cogently defined.
Much of this book consists of compounding evidence that this self is inconsistent, forgetful, subject to external influence, and otherwise non-uniform. None of these are logical arguments against the existence of the self. The evidence Bruce Hood brings to bear actually shows us what a richly endowed, porous, absorptive, responsive, and a subtle brew the self is. The fact that the United States is influenced by the economies of Mexico and the Euro zone is not evidence that the United States does not exist. The fact that the United States has politics that are conflictual and contradictory, does not mean that the United States does not exist.
The sense of self is as important to psychological health as the sense of embodied self is to maintaining physical health. The sense of self is built over layered platforms of biology, culture and situation, and is not fully controlled by, nor co-terminus with, any of its antecedents, because it is a complex emergent state of almost infinite interactions, with multiple origins, and graded peripheries. It is not eternal and enduring, but it is no more fictional than our temporary bodies, trees, books, or planet Earth, which is also impermanent. Our sense of self is not “Atta,” the eternal soul, so the Buddha taught we are “Anatta,” without an eternal soul, but our psychological self is a key attribute of our mental and physical health, personal well being, and social contribution, and can neither be discovered, nor dismissed by the black and white thinking, existence versus non-existence, to which Bruce Hood has subjected it.
As a psychotherapist who spent a lifetime helping people realize an adaptive, flexible, rich, complex, nuanced, multi-layered, sense of self, I cannot recommend this simple and linear psychology book with its pretension to originality and its inability to discern motile realities.
Reviewed by: Paul R. Fleischman author of Wonder: When and Why the World Appears Radiant
The main argument of this book is that the sense of self is an illusion. The entire volume is a polemic organized around this single point. Of course it is true that nothing in the universe is enduring and permanent, since even the universe is not. But Bruce Hood confuses the kind of thinking that led the Buddha to claim that human beings have no eternal enduring self (in contrast to religious claims of an enduring soul) with the importance and validity of the psychological self, which is just as real and important as our bodies.
The idea that the self is predominantly a social construction, mirrored back to us as we develop through childhood, from parents, peers, and surrounding culture, is a long established truism in Western psychology. This idea was not entirely new in the 19th century when George Herbert Mead promoted it in many books and essays. Freudian thinking was also based upon the idea of a socially developed self that gained definition through reflection from others. Heinz Kohut made the importance of mirroring, and interpersonal development of the self, a hallmark of modern psychoanalytic thinking. “The Self Illusion” ignores these widely known and widely read precedents in order to claim an apparent break-through in psychology.
Most of this book consists of anecdotes, social psychological experiments, and neuro-psychology to refute the straw-man hypothesis that the human self consists of an isolated, uniform entity. No one believes in such an entity.
The importance of the psychological self to modern psychotherapists, and to each one of us as individuals, is that our existence requires a synthesizing, organizing, integrating, dynamic, responsive regulator of the multiple inputs that we receive. Instead of consisting of random responses, or externally controlled dependencies, every healthy human being contains a networked, interactionally complexified executive, that provides some coherence to personality, while permitting variability and situational responsiveness. Ironically, Bruce Hood provides some very fine writing on this very point. He talks about the sense of self as a “web,” a “culmination of the interaction of a multitude of hidden factors ranging from genetic inheritance, life experiences, current circumstances…patterns of neuronal activity in the brain…a matrix of distributed networks…” and he adds, “…The resulting sums of these complex interactions are the decisions and choices that I make.” He reminds us that the human being, “has complexity impossible to predict” and “almost infinite brain states.” As he accurately tells us, there is “no core self at the helm.” But there is in fact the integrating system he has so cogently defined.
Much of this book consists of compounding evidence that this self is inconsistent, forgetful, subject to external influence, and otherwise non-uniform. None of these are logical arguments against the existence of the self. The evidence Bruce Hood brings to bear actually shows us what a richly endowed, porous, absorptive, responsive, and a subtle brew the self is. The fact that the United States is influenced by the economies of Mexico and the Euro zone is not evidence that the United States does not exist. The fact that the United States has politics that are conflictual and contradictory, does not mean that the United States does not exist.
The sense of self is as important to psychological health as the sense of embodied self is to maintaining physical health. The sense of self is built over layered platforms of biology, culture and situation, and is not fully controlled by, nor co-terminus with, any of its antecedents, because it is a complex emergent state of almost infinite interactions, with multiple origins, and graded peripheries. It is not eternal and enduring, but it is no more fictional than our temporary bodies, trees, books, or planet Earth, which is also impermanent. Our sense of self is not “Atta,” the eternal soul, so the Buddha taught we are “Anatta,” without an eternal soul, but our psychological self is a key attribute of our mental and physical health, personal well being, and social contribution, and can neither be discovered, nor dismissed by the black and white thinking, existence versus non-existence, to which Bruce Hood has subjected it.
As a psychotherapist who spent a lifetime helping people realize an adaptive, flexible, rich, complex, nuanced, multi-layered, sense of self, I cannot recommend this simple and linear psychology book with its pretension to originality and its inability to discern motile realities.
Reviewed by: Paul R. Fleischman author of Wonder: When and Why the World Appears Radiant
December 8, 2012
Hood's thesis is that the self is an illusion, but what this means is not clear. He uses the analogy of a Kanizsa triangle to illustrate the idea that the "self" is carved out of the negative space created by social and cultural interactions. It's an interesting analogy but as far as I can tell it doesn't lead anywhere. If there's a better account of this concept somewhere please point me toward it - I'd love to have the dots connected if the connections are there to be made.
The self is an illusion? As far as I can tell, this means one of several things:
1) We don't have a subjective experience of the world or are not aware of our own existence. As best I can define a "self", it becomes a meaningful word when applied to an entity with self-awareness. Thus the self would be an illusion if we do not have subjective experience. This is my best attempt to translate into plain English. But it's nonsense, so, moving on.
2) We don't have free will. I'm not sure how it relates to the notion of the self -- even if I don't have free will, I feel as if I do -- but to the extent that we define ourselves as creatures of will, the argument that free will does not exist may translate to the book's thesis. This would make a more interesting book, but doesn't seem to be what Hood means. The book spends a little time on free will, but fails to clearly draw the distinction between this and option 3.
3) We have less than perfect control over our thoughts and actions. This is what the meat of the book actually supports. If this is what you mean by "the self is an illusion" then I guess I agree with your premise but disagree with your choice of words.
But Hood doesn't really tell us what he means. The "Kanizsa triangle" analogy is whipped out at the last minute and presented as though it's the culmination of the entire book. There are interesting arguments to be had about the self as an illusion (let's start by defining our terms), but Hood doesn't go there.
After discarding the philosophical angle, what's left is a shallow skim of virtually every psychological study that has ever suggested that we may not be 100% in control of our thoughts and actions at all times. And yeah, it's interesting stuff if you don't happen to be already familiar with it.
The self is an illusion? As far as I can tell, this means one of several things:
1) We don't have a subjective experience of the world or are not aware of our own existence. As best I can define a "self", it becomes a meaningful word when applied to an entity with self-awareness. Thus the self would be an illusion if we do not have subjective experience. This is my best attempt to translate into plain English. But it's nonsense, so, moving on.
2) We don't have free will. I'm not sure how it relates to the notion of the self -- even if I don't have free will, I feel as if I do -- but to the extent that we define ourselves as creatures of will, the argument that free will does not exist may translate to the book's thesis. This would make a more interesting book, but doesn't seem to be what Hood means. The book spends a little time on free will, but fails to clearly draw the distinction between this and option 3.
3) We have less than perfect control over our thoughts and actions. This is what the meat of the book actually supports. If this is what you mean by "the self is an illusion" then I guess I agree with your premise but disagree with your choice of words.
But Hood doesn't really tell us what he means. The "Kanizsa triangle" analogy is whipped out at the last minute and presented as though it's the culmination of the entire book. There are interesting arguments to be had about the self as an illusion (let's start by defining our terms), but Hood doesn't go there.
After discarding the philosophical angle, what's left is a shallow skim of virtually every psychological study that has ever suggested that we may not be 100% in control of our thoughts and actions at all times. And yeah, it's interesting stuff if you don't happen to be already familiar with it.
May 20, 2015
This book questions our notion of self and identity, arguing they are shaped far more by other people and environments than we care to admit. Not only that, it takes this notion further….. saying that myriad impulses in the brain are what really control us – impulses which operate in our unconscious or subconscious – rather than any “self” which seems to be in the driving seat. That ‘self’ is just the mouthpiece. A convenient construct that our brains have engineered to pull all the variables together into a cohesive whole.
I am surprisingly unperturbed by all of this. I’ve had several experiences of the subconscious which make me amenable to the idea of a cacophony of inner voices – with only one voice reaching consciousness at any one time. The book suggests that we are under the impression that we think consciously, but our thinking is really done for us, before it reaches consciousness. It questions the notion of free will.
The author also argues that we are hugely influenced by other people, and by the situations in which we find ourselves. Memories, ostensibly so important to us, can also be very misleading.
The sum of these proposals? Our ideas of selfhood are misguided. The notion of “self” is an illusion.
But, but, but, but…. I see such strong and individual personalities in the the people around me; even between siblings there are enormous differences. And in myself – mainly via my appalling weaknesses (all those broken new year’s resolutions!), I see a tenacity of ways of being that I am happy enough to call “self”. Self may not be perfect, but it’s good enough for me.
This book was enjoyable though. I particularly liked the way it made me question environmental influences and social pressures (people pleasing). I think I had underestimated the influence of these things.
The author quotes a lot of other people’s research projects, some of which are well known, but some of which were new to me, and I found interesting. Here are some of my favourite snips (not necessarily relevant to the discussion about self).
I am surprisingly unperturbed by all of this. I’ve had several experiences of the subconscious which make me amenable to the idea of a cacophony of inner voices – with only one voice reaching consciousness at any one time. The book suggests that we are under the impression that we think consciously, but our thinking is really done for us, before it reaches consciousness. It questions the notion of free will.
The author also argues that we are hugely influenced by other people, and by the situations in which we find ourselves. Memories, ostensibly so important to us, can also be very misleading.
The sum of these proposals? Our ideas of selfhood are misguided. The notion of “self” is an illusion.
But, but, but, but…. I see such strong and individual personalities in the the people around me; even between siblings there are enormous differences. And in myself – mainly via my appalling weaknesses (all those broken new year’s resolutions!), I see a tenacity of ways of being that I am happy enough to call “self”. Self may not be perfect, but it’s good enough for me.
This book was enjoyable though. I particularly liked the way it made me question environmental influences and social pressures (people pleasing). I think I had underestimated the influence of these things.
The author quotes a lot of other people’s research projects, some of which are well known, but some of which were new to me, and I found interesting. Here are some of my favourite snips (not necessarily relevant to the discussion about self).
May 8, 2014
I was hoping for something new, but didn't find it. The same old studies and the same old stories - the marshmallow study of emotional intelligence, the stories of brain injuries and illnesses and how they affect people - I've read them all. The very first part about how our brains work was mildly interesting, but soon the author got into the same old rut. Male vs. female, Konrad Lorenz and "imprinting" on baby ducklings, primacy and recency, false memories, cognitive dissonance - nothing new here. Don't waste your time.
April 26, 2022
Kim olduğumuzun ne kadarına hakimiz? Gerçekten tanıdığımız kişi miyiz? Aynaya baktığımızda gördüğümüz, ötekinin gözünden görünenden ne kadar bağımsız? Özgür irade diye bir şey var mı? Kötülük bizden sandığımız kadar uzak mı? Öteki üzerinde zorbalık uygulamanın sınırlarına gelme ihtimalimiz ne? Ve daha bir sürü soru üzerine düşünmeyi sağlayan, bilimsel olduğu kadar felsefi bir kitap. Kimlik inşası, kendilik algısı, bireysellik ve toplumsallık üzerine düşünenlere tavsiye ederim. Ayrıca bence kurmacayla ilgilenen, karakter kurgusuna çalışan herkes okumalı. #okudumbitti #okumaönerisi #bookstagram #bookofinstagram #bookslover #kitapönerisi
February 6, 2015
A super book!
Unlike the popular rhetorical claims about the self and free will which have resulted in various identity disorders in the last decade. This book provides both scientific and experimental explanation of the "self" being an illusion and a mere reflection of it's context. It is empowering to have this insight, we can go through life with less attachment to the perceived core self and the need to prove it. Consequently living with more self discipline,mind clarity,success and happiness.
Unlike the popular rhetorical claims about the self and free will which have resulted in various identity disorders in the last decade. This book provides both scientific and experimental explanation of the "self" being an illusion and a mere reflection of it's context. It is empowering to have this insight, we can go through life with less attachment to the perceived core self and the need to prove it. Consequently living with more self discipline,mind clarity,success and happiness.
January 23, 2014
This book ought to be titled 'The self illusion illusion' as it's an illusion that Hood has addressed the issue of the self illusion.
This is such a disappointing book, considering the potential of the subject matter. I hoped for a detailed exposition on 'why there is no you inside your head' (the book subtitle). Maybe some neuroscientific perspective necessarily spliced with the appropriate philosophy, whether its Parfit's, Hume's or even Buddha's view on the absence of a self.
What I got was a load of very basic science stories and some unlettered philosophy. The book basically consists of anecdotes, generally about babies (and most of these anecdotes you would have seen better expounded by other popular science authors), disjointedly hoping to show that there is no single, enduring self. This is a LONG WAY from establishing that the self does not exist and that there is no 'you' inside your head. Examination of the self has traditionally been a philosophical issue but there's little philosophy here and where it exists it's incredibly elementary. Hood has missed the chance to engage with the existing philosophy and reconcile it with the current neuroscience and cognitive science. It's true that the anecdotes occasionally mention some philosophical names (much to my ephemeral delight), but they are ultimately nothing more than a name drop before he proceeds to the next disjointed anecdote.
Don't waste your time or money unless you want some very fluffy scientific stories about babies.
This is such a disappointing book, considering the potential of the subject matter. I hoped for a detailed exposition on 'why there is no you inside your head' (the book subtitle). Maybe some neuroscientific perspective necessarily spliced with the appropriate philosophy, whether its Parfit's, Hume's or even Buddha's view on the absence of a self.
What I got was a load of very basic science stories and some unlettered philosophy. The book basically consists of anecdotes, generally about babies (and most of these anecdotes you would have seen better expounded by other popular science authors), disjointedly hoping to show that there is no single, enduring self. This is a LONG WAY from establishing that the self does not exist and that there is no 'you' inside your head. Examination of the self has traditionally been a philosophical issue but there's little philosophy here and where it exists it's incredibly elementary. Hood has missed the chance to engage with the existing philosophy and reconcile it with the current neuroscience and cognitive science. It's true that the anecdotes occasionally mention some philosophical names (much to my ephemeral delight), but they are ultimately nothing more than a name drop before he proceeds to the next disjointed anecdote.
Don't waste your time or money unless you want some very fluffy scientific stories about babies.
December 4, 2013
Bruce Hood gives us a crash course of sorts on all major aspects of the psychology of the mind. His writing is easy to read and keeps one engrossed. However, he has simply woven together different studies and research findings with few inputs of his own. This book is a more interesting version of a psychology textbook. Any reader who is already familiar with the major theories of psychology will be familiar with most of the content in this book.
The answer to the main question of why the self is an illusion has been narrated with examples of research. Rather, he could have provided more inputs of his own for this issue. Also, too many aspects of the science of the mind have been covered such that the reader feels like he is only taking quick stops at different points without getting a chance to analyze a few things in-depth.
To conclude, if you are fascinated by the mind and psychology and are new to concepts involving both, this book will help you get a glimpse of the main areas. But if you want a detailed and profound discussion on anything, this book only provides with little hints to piece together the discussion yourself.
The answer to the main question of why the self is an illusion has been narrated with examples of research. Rather, he could have provided more inputs of his own for this issue. Also, too many aspects of the science of the mind have been covered such that the reader feels like he is only taking quick stops at different points without getting a chance to analyze a few things in-depth.
To conclude, if you are fascinated by the mind and psychology and are new to concepts involving both, this book will help you get a glimpse of the main areas. But if you want a detailed and profound discussion on anything, this book only provides with little hints to piece together the discussion yourself.
February 5, 2017
Mais um livro na linha de consciência e ilusão de livre-arbítrio. Neste caso, o Bruce M. Hood trabalha com desenvolvimento mental e trabalhou muito com o comportamento de crianças. Como no Who's in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain, na primeira parte do livro ele fala mais sobre a própria área e como crianças se comportam, o que achei o melhor do livro (e o que justifica a leitura).
E, como no Who's in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain, na segunda metade, o livro dá aquela guinada para propriedades emergentes, interação social e outros sistemas, em uma tentativa de resgatar o que pode trazer espontaneidade e livre-arbítrio. Ainda vale pela primeira parte, de qualquer forma, também.
E, como no Who's in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain, na segunda metade, o livro dá aquela guinada para propriedades emergentes, interação social e outros sistemas, em uma tentativa de resgatar o que pode trazer espontaneidade e livre-arbítrio. Ainda vale pela primeira parte, de qualquer forma, também.
November 5, 2013
The last chapter summarises the whole book in such a clear and concise way, you almost don't have to read all the preceding chapters and you'll still be able to see the argument. The preceding chapters have lots of scientific and anecdotal vignettes, but I feel they are never tied in to the overall argument.
As to the argument itself, I started from a basic shared position with the author that the notion of self or ego is nothing but an illusion, but I found his arguments for that unconvincing. He posits that because we gain experience and knowledge through the social transmission as children, plus as adults we show different sides of ourselves in different social situations, therefore our sense of self is entirely constructed through social means and reflecting others around us. I don't buy that at all, yes others can partly shape our sense of self, but they do not determine it entirely.
And the contribution of language as both a unique form of self-expression and yet also an illusory way of encountering and explaining the world and our position in it, only merited a brief treatment within the first chapter. Real/unreal or illusion are first and foremost verbal constructs that need defining.
As to the argument itself, I started from a basic shared position with the author that the notion of self or ego is nothing but an illusion, but I found his arguments for that unconvincing. He posits that because we gain experience and knowledge through the social transmission as children, plus as adults we show different sides of ourselves in different social situations, therefore our sense of self is entirely constructed through social means and reflecting others around us. I don't buy that at all, yes others can partly shape our sense of self, but they do not determine it entirely.
And the contribution of language as both a unique form of self-expression and yet also an illusory way of encountering and explaining the world and our position in it, only merited a brief treatment within the first chapter. Real/unreal or illusion are first and foremost verbal constructs that need defining.
September 2, 2014
Most of us believe that we have an independent, coherent self – an individual inside our head who thinks, watches, wonders, dreams, and makes plans for the future. This sense of our self may seem incredibly real, but a wealth of scientific evidence reveals that it is not what it seems – it is all an illusion.
Hood tracks how the self emerges during childhood, during which time we not only learn from others, but learn to become like others. We learn to create a self, and, more importantly, to become different selves in different situations. The self is not one, but many. And no one of these selves is static or stable, but is in a fluid process of constant revision. Each self is constructed anew every time it gets resurrected, never quite the same from one time to the next. Not only is the self constructed rather than being something intrinsic or inherent, but the form it takes in the moment is largely determined by the behavior and attitudes of those around us. We don’t even choose the self we become, it is constructed in reaction to others. Hood does not deny our uniqueness or individuality, but points out that we exaggerate it in our own minds – we are far more alike than we prefer to believe.
This is a useful primer for understanding intellectually how the doctrine of no-self can be true, although it does not address the deeper questions of, “if not this, then what?” and “how will knowing this make me happier?” But delusion must first be dispelled before it can be replaced by the wisdom that answers these questions.
Hood tracks how the self emerges during childhood, during which time we not only learn from others, but learn to become like others. We learn to create a self, and, more importantly, to become different selves in different situations. The self is not one, but many. And no one of these selves is static or stable, but is in a fluid process of constant revision. Each self is constructed anew every time it gets resurrected, never quite the same from one time to the next. Not only is the self constructed rather than being something intrinsic or inherent, but the form it takes in the moment is largely determined by the behavior and attitudes of those around us. We don’t even choose the self we become, it is constructed in reaction to others. Hood does not deny our uniqueness or individuality, but points out that we exaggerate it in our own minds – we are far more alike than we prefer to believe.
This is a useful primer for understanding intellectually how the doctrine of no-self can be true, although it does not address the deeper questions of, “if not this, then what?” and “how will knowing this make me happier?” But delusion must first be dispelled before it can be replaced by the wisdom that answers these questions.
May 28, 2020
This was a decent book. My second from author Bruce Hood, after his 2009 book SuperSense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable.
I must admit that I liked that one much more than this one, unfortunately...
The writing and contents of this book never met the high water mark he established in "Supersense", to my disappointment.
"The Self Illusion" is a cursory trek through psychology and social psychology. Hood covers most of the bases here; the neuroanatomy of the brain, facial recognition, social and anti-social behavior, Milgram's experiments, Witman's tumor, free will, left-brain/right-brain splits, the Big Five personality traits, and many more.
The writing here was decent. Although this book is right up my alley, I sadly didn't find anything new in here that I had not previously read about in multiple other books. This is my biggest criticism of this book.
So, my recommendation would depend on your level of literacy on these topics. If you've heard everything I listed above before, then you probably won't find too much new or interesting in these pages.
For those not too familiar with psychology or social psychology, this book would make a great primer.
3.5 stars.
I must admit that I liked that one much more than this one, unfortunately...
The writing and contents of this book never met the high water mark he established in "Supersense", to my disappointment.
"The Self Illusion" is a cursory trek through psychology and social psychology. Hood covers most of the bases here; the neuroanatomy of the brain, facial recognition, social and anti-social behavior, Milgram's experiments, Witman's tumor, free will, left-brain/right-brain splits, the Big Five personality traits, and many more.
The writing here was decent. Although this book is right up my alley, I sadly didn't find anything new in here that I had not previously read about in multiple other books. This is my biggest criticism of this book.
So, my recommendation would depend on your level of literacy on these topics. If you've heard everything I listed above before, then you probably won't find too much new or interesting in these pages.
For those not too familiar with psychology or social psychology, this book would make a great primer.
3.5 stars.
March 22, 2022
Before I wrote this brief comment, I read through all the comments and was sort of sad to see them. Hood's comments are not new or his alone. The first time that this thought was mentioned in history was by Buddha. From Google: "the Buddhist perspective, the idea of “individual self” is an illusion. It is not possible to separate self from its surroundings." Bingo. Next is the brilliant Daniel Dennett who explored this. Dennett spent a great deal of time looking at culture from an evolutionary perspective. But there are many others, especially people who are Biologists and study evolution and consequences. Hard science is important.
I read this book because Hood is a major player in child psychology and has explored many ways of looking at the current epidemic of ADHD in our society. We are a culture devoted to self since the advent of postmodernism. Our feelings and sense of self have become so paramount, our persona so important that we cannot even consider that we, ourselves, SHARE responsibility for our psychology or pathology. I remember one of my professors always referring to us as "walking DNA" and now I would call us all, "walking egos."
There is a vicious cycle going on, one from thought to feeling to environment. The tales are now spinning us, not the other way around.
I read this book because Hood is a major player in child psychology and has explored many ways of looking at the current epidemic of ADHD in our society. We are a culture devoted to self since the advent of postmodernism. Our feelings and sense of self have become so paramount, our persona so important that we cannot even consider that we, ourselves, SHARE responsibility for our psychology or pathology. I remember one of my professors always referring to us as "walking DNA" and now I would call us all, "walking egos."
There is a vicious cycle going on, one from thought to feeling to environment. The tales are now spinning us, not the other way around.
August 10, 2016
Found out about this book from the
You Are Not So Smart
podcast and read it on my Kindle.
It reeked of a mechanistic, sterile, matter-of-fact "you are your brain" worldview which I must admit I'm tired of and find boring, but I should have expected as much since You Are Not So Smart comes from pretty much the same mental place.
I don't find fault with the idea that we don't have an integral self; obviously, just like Bruce Hood thoroughly and with rich supporting bibliography demonstrates in this book, we're largely shaped and influenced by our surroundings, our society and our biological limitations, first and foremost those of our brain. But that doesn't mean that the notion of self is an illusion; rather, it means that the self is not a constant and that it is mutable. In fact, in which case would the self not be an illusion? When would we be in a position to say that the self is a real, concrete, quantifiable thing?
It seems to me that Mr. Hood's proposition could have just as easily been called "The Soul Illusion", for his assumption of what a self looks like--or should feel like--closely corresponds to our, for better or worse, highly intuitive notion of what a soul is: an immaterial cohesive agent between all of our experiences, thoughts and actions that creates a feeling of identity. In other words, the definition of the "me" in "I am me". But is that what the self is, what it should be or all it can be? Is it possible to define what our selves are differently? In "I am me", who would be the "I"? Who is the consciousness, like Eckhart Tolle would comment with his ultra-calm voice? Who is it--what is it--that reads this book and goes "huh, so I'm an illusion"? You might argue that the sense of self and consciousness are two separate things in order to question my qualms with the central point of the book; "precisely!", I'd exclaim then, happy that you could intuitively grasp my point.
All that said, I'm giving The Self Illusion three stars instead of two because I must admit that it is well-researched, well-written and has plenty of interesting case studies of various psychological and psychiatrical disorders, "nature vs nurture", sociological phenomena etc that do a good job of proving that the concept of self, or at least what Mr. Hood understands it to be, is an illusion insofar as it's highly unpredictable and dependent on environmental and social factors. I particularly enjoyed reading about babies and how their brains develop and about conditions such as Tourette's and how miming, laughing and facial expressions work in socialising and the development thereof. All this is interesting and rich from a clinical perspective, so it's worth reading if you're out to come closer to understanding how the human brain works--a task I personally believe to be impossible anyway. But if you're not convinced that the brain is responsible for every little thing a person does, thinks, or thinks of doing, in view of the evidence that, contrary to what Mr. Hood quite often and emphatically repeats in the book, does exist, this book will provide little insight.
It reeked of a mechanistic, sterile, matter-of-fact "you are your brain" worldview which I must admit I'm tired of and find boring, but I should have expected as much since You Are Not So Smart comes from pretty much the same mental place.
I don't find fault with the idea that we don't have an integral self; obviously, just like Bruce Hood thoroughly and with rich supporting bibliography demonstrates in this book, we're largely shaped and influenced by our surroundings, our society and our biological limitations, first and foremost those of our brain. But that doesn't mean that the notion of self is an illusion; rather, it means that the self is not a constant and that it is mutable. In fact, in which case would the self not be an illusion? When would we be in a position to say that the self is a real, concrete, quantifiable thing?
It seems to me that Mr. Hood's proposition could have just as easily been called "The Soul Illusion", for his assumption of what a self looks like--or should feel like--closely corresponds to our, for better or worse, highly intuitive notion of what a soul is: an immaterial cohesive agent between all of our experiences, thoughts and actions that creates a feeling of identity. In other words, the definition of the "me" in "I am me". But is that what the self is, what it should be or all it can be? Is it possible to define what our selves are differently? In "I am me", who would be the "I"? Who is the consciousness, like Eckhart Tolle would comment with his ultra-calm voice? Who is it--what is it--that reads this book and goes "huh, so I'm an illusion"? You might argue that the sense of self and consciousness are two separate things in order to question my qualms with the central point of the book; "precisely!", I'd exclaim then, happy that you could intuitively grasp my point.
All that said, I'm giving The Self Illusion three stars instead of two because I must admit that it is well-researched, well-written and has plenty of interesting case studies of various psychological and psychiatrical disorders, "nature vs nurture", sociological phenomena etc that do a good job of proving that the concept of self, or at least what Mr. Hood understands it to be, is an illusion insofar as it's highly unpredictable and dependent on environmental and social factors. I particularly enjoyed reading about babies and how their brains develop and about conditions such as Tourette's and how miming, laughing and facial expressions work in socialising and the development thereof. All this is interesting and rich from a clinical perspective, so it's worth reading if you're out to come closer to understanding how the human brain works--a task I personally believe to be impossible anyway. But if you're not convinced that the brain is responsible for every little thing a person does, thinks, or thinks of doing, in view of the evidence that, contrary to what Mr. Hood quite often and emphatically repeats in the book, does exist, this book will provide little insight.
June 29, 2016
I read popular science constantly, so I was largely familiar with the psychological and neurophysiological examples that Bruce Hood gave in his book The Self Illusion, yet I had never thought about these examples in the way that Hood has. Hood has provided a beautiful synthesis of (some) familiar examples in the psychological literature to argue that the idea that human beings have a sense of self is an illusion. He writes that this of course does not mean that it "does not exist." By way of analogy, one common illusion that human beings have is that we see everything there is to be seen in our visual field. Strictly speaking, this isn't true. We have a blind spot, which was an area in our eye which literally allows us to see nothing. But what vision does for us is it interprets whatever would have been in the blind spot as similar enough to whatever is next to it, similar enough in shape and color. And so we never realize that there is nothing there that we're not seeing because our mind and visual system has filled in the gap. So, that we see everything in our visual field is a pervasive illusion, but of course that does not mean that it isn't real or mere fantasy.
Hood argues that like this blind spot, this illusion of self is an illusion we live by. For instance, I bet now, right now while you're reading this, you are probably experience a sense of self. If I were to ask you to point to where you feel like "You" are in your body, I could take a good guess about where you'd point: probably to your forehead, somewhere there, in between your eyes. But of course there is no "You" there. This is an illusion, generated by your brain, that tells you that a Little Man or Little Woman sits up there and controls your body's actions. It is kind of mind-blowing when you realize that this sense of self isn't true. And far from being disheartening, it seems to me actually enlivening. It's a reminder that this sense of ego that we have is just a way that human bodies have adapted to process information and interact with other people and the environment. When people realize that this is a kind of fabrication, a necessary illusion we must live with, perhaps we could do a better job getting over ourselves and thinking the Little Man or Little Woman in our noggin is so important.
Hood argues that like this blind spot, this illusion of self is an illusion we live by. For instance, I bet now, right now while you're reading this, you are probably experience a sense of self. If I were to ask you to point to where you feel like "You" are in your body, I could take a good guess about where you'd point: probably to your forehead, somewhere there, in between your eyes. But of course there is no "You" there. This is an illusion, generated by your brain, that tells you that a Little Man or Little Woman sits up there and controls your body's actions. It is kind of mind-blowing when you realize that this sense of self isn't true. And far from being disheartening, it seems to me actually enlivening. It's a reminder that this sense of ego that we have is just a way that human bodies have adapted to process information and interact with other people and the environment. When people realize that this is a kind of fabrication, a necessary illusion we must live with, perhaps we could do a better job getting over ourselves and thinking the Little Man or Little Woman in our noggin is so important.
July 30, 2012
I really wish I could have given this book at least four stars... and in fact, if you are someone who hasn't been keeping up with more recent cognitive and neuro-science, I can give a four-star recommendation for this book. But for myself, I found both what I consider an excessive number of typos and a writing style that at times felt a bit formulaic, and so can honestly say I only "liked this book."
What I like most is that the book offers an investigation and deconstruction of the "self illusion" from the socially constructed side. There are many books that detail how the sense of self is created from the neuronal level up (for instance, the work of Antonio D'Amasio is excellent for this) but this book takes the approach from the macro-side: how even the barest sense of individual subjectivity must and does arise from the mirroring we receive from others. As the influential zen poem, "Trust in Mind" puts it: "subject is subject because of object; object is object because of subject."
In our culture, which hypervalorizes individuality, we are taught to be blinded by just how our sense of self is constructed by our social relations. In fact, when politicians like Pres. Obama point out that successful bushiness people have built their success upon myriad causes and conditions such as other workers, infrastructure provided by the state etc. they are criticized as being "anti-business!"
So, an important addition to the library of anyone interested in the science of consciousness as well as yoigis -- buddhist students in particular may find an entry into the buddha's teaching of anatta or "not-self" here.
What I like most is that the book offers an investigation and deconstruction of the "self illusion" from the socially constructed side. There are many books that detail how the sense of self is created from the neuronal level up (for instance, the work of Antonio D'Amasio is excellent for this) but this book takes the approach from the macro-side: how even the barest sense of individual subjectivity must and does arise from the mirroring we receive from others. As the influential zen poem, "Trust in Mind" puts it: "subject is subject because of object; object is object because of subject."
In our culture, which hypervalorizes individuality, we are taught to be blinded by just how our sense of self is constructed by our social relations. In fact, when politicians like Pres. Obama point out that successful bushiness people have built their success upon myriad causes and conditions such as other workers, infrastructure provided by the state etc. they are criticized as being "anti-business!"
So, an important addition to the library of anyone interested in the science of consciousness as well as yoigis -- buddhist students in particular may find an entry into the buddha's teaching of anatta or "not-self" here.
December 10, 2015
Understand more about human mind. Some of the most interesting I like the most from this book are
"I am not what I think and I am not what you think I am; I am what I think that you think I am."
"The mirror neurons" fire when watching someone else's actions then because my actions are already linked to my own mind I simply have to know what is on my mind to know what you are thinking."
"Mimicry binds us in an intimate relationship with others."
"If you smile I automatically smile back at you this triggers happy thoughts in me as well as a good feeling."
"I am not what I think and I am not what you think I am; I am what I think that you think I am."
"The mirror neurons" fire when watching someone else's actions then because my actions are already linked to my own mind I simply have to know what is on my mind to know what you are thinking."
"Mimicry binds us in an intimate relationship with others."
"If you smile I automatically smile back at you this triggers happy thoughts in me as well as a good feeling."
January 22, 2014
Very basic introduction to the material.
I would have loved to see this book reduced by about two hundred pages and just get to the point.
I would have loved to see this book reduced by about two hundred pages and just get to the point.
March 29, 2020
Imagine a conference room. As we enter we see a motley crowd of individuals sitting around the table either alone or in small groups of twos and threes talking quietly to each other. A few messengers walk in and out carrying snippets of information from the outside world -- things heard and seen, gossip from the streets. All is quiet at the moment, but pandemonium can break out at any time. A messenger rushes in with some news, and suddenly the groups are galvanized into action. People shout across the table, push and pull at each other, scream in anger or fear. Some rush around the table tearing at their hair and clothes, and screaming at the top of their voice. Others form coalitions and struggle to control the more violent ones. And then a moment later, all is quiet again.
As you spend more time in the room, you begin to notice particular individuals. There is the bleary-eyed, disheveled junkie at the bottom of the table, his arms wrapped around himself and rocking back and forth and mumbling quietly. There is the wild-eyed Cassandra, just a step short of panic, ready to fight or fly from danger. There is the green-eye-shaded accountant, disengaged from everyone else, coolly tabulating a list of numbers. The office flirt is walking around hitting on anyone who will give her a chance. There is the linguist at the window, chanting blank verse. There is no one in charge though, and whoever at any moment can shout the loudest, or put together the strongest coalition wins the day. But groups form and dissolve momentarily, and no one has the upper hand for very long.
This is the picture of the brain that Bruce Hood paints in the Self Illusion. According to him, the brain is composed of fluidly interacting modules and sub-routines, more or less specializing in particular tasks, that are activated in response to external stimuli. It is a densely interconnected system of parts, with highly complex and indeterminate combinations. There is no essential "self" controlling this activity. Rather, what we perceive as the "self" is merely a post facto rationalization of the choices made by the interacting modules in the brain.
The parts of the brain that regulate the specific functions include the supplementary motor area that controls movements, the Pre Frontal Cortex (PFC) that regulates decision-making, the anterior insula that helps discriminate between self and others, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) responsible for anxiety and the brain's "alarm system," the amygdala that processes emotions, the caudate nucleus (CN) that initiates intentional actions, etc. Malfunctions of modules or connections between modules result in abnormal behaviors, such as Tourette's syndrome (uncontrollable tics and swearing), Cotard's syndrome (belief that the self is dead); autism (mind blindness); total absence of short term memory; obsessions and compulsions, and so on. Sometimes it is imbalance in activity between regions that causes specific behaviors: one current theory says that imbalance between the PFC, the ACC and the CN causes conditions such as Obsessive and Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
The structure itself is formed as a result of environmental interactions. The strength of modules is not based on how big they are or how many neurons they have, but on how densely they are interconnected with other parts of the brain. The number of connections a part has is the outcome of early childhood experiences. In the developing infant brain, each neuron forms a huge number of axial connections with other neurons, but simultaneously cuts back these connections in a process called pruning. If two neurons do not fire together, their connection may be pruned back. This indicates how important sensory stimulation is in early childhood. Sense-deprived infants may not develop specific brain capabilities, because axial connections are not formed or are pruned back due to disuse. Feral children who miss the language window may not acquire linguistic abilities later in life, however well they are trained.
Hood also extensively discusses social determinants of our brain processes. As evidenced by phenomena such as hypnosis, crowd psychology, social norms and deference to authority, we as members of a social species are uniquely suggestible and subject to peer pressure. Thus, what we think of as "free will" is really the outcome of brain processes we do not consciously comprehend, as conditioned by our social networks and culture.
Hood's thesis of a fragmentary brain helps explain why some persons display inexplicable behaviors: why rich and famous movie stars should shoplift or solicit prostitutes, why an otherwise thoughtful and wise legislator should send pictures of his penis to women, why a billionaire daredevil should also be a germophobe, or why a monstrous dictator who sent millions to the gas chambers should also be a vegetarian and pet lover. It also explains our own behaviors, why we who manage entire work teams with confidence and wisdom should be driven up the wall by a spouse's casual criticism. In each interaction and social situation, different modules are activated and their complex and unpredictable interactions give rise to our emotional and behavioral responses. Advocates of a coherent, rational and semi-permanent self will be hard pressed to explain these multiple personalities.
This book is written in a style accessible to the layperson, but it is backed by extensive research with over 50 pages of notes and close to 500 citations to peer reviewed literature. Some of this research is conducted by the author himself - Hood is an experimental psychologist whose specialty is developmental neuroscience (early childhood).
As you spend more time in the room, you begin to notice particular individuals. There is the bleary-eyed, disheveled junkie at the bottom of the table, his arms wrapped around himself and rocking back and forth and mumbling quietly. There is the wild-eyed Cassandra, just a step short of panic, ready to fight or fly from danger. There is the green-eye-shaded accountant, disengaged from everyone else, coolly tabulating a list of numbers. The office flirt is walking around hitting on anyone who will give her a chance. There is the linguist at the window, chanting blank verse. There is no one in charge though, and whoever at any moment can shout the loudest, or put together the strongest coalition wins the day. But groups form and dissolve momentarily, and no one has the upper hand for very long.
This is the picture of the brain that Bruce Hood paints in the Self Illusion. According to him, the brain is composed of fluidly interacting modules and sub-routines, more or less specializing in particular tasks, that are activated in response to external stimuli. It is a densely interconnected system of parts, with highly complex and indeterminate combinations. There is no essential "self" controlling this activity. Rather, what we perceive as the "self" is merely a post facto rationalization of the choices made by the interacting modules in the brain.
The parts of the brain that regulate the specific functions include the supplementary motor area that controls movements, the Pre Frontal Cortex (PFC) that regulates decision-making, the anterior insula that helps discriminate between self and others, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) responsible for anxiety and the brain's "alarm system," the amygdala that processes emotions, the caudate nucleus (CN) that initiates intentional actions, etc. Malfunctions of modules or connections between modules result in abnormal behaviors, such as Tourette's syndrome (uncontrollable tics and swearing), Cotard's syndrome (belief that the self is dead); autism (mind blindness); total absence of short term memory; obsessions and compulsions, and so on. Sometimes it is imbalance in activity between regions that causes specific behaviors: one current theory says that imbalance between the PFC, the ACC and the CN causes conditions such as Obsessive and Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
The structure itself is formed as a result of environmental interactions. The strength of modules is not based on how big they are or how many neurons they have, but on how densely they are interconnected with other parts of the brain. The number of connections a part has is the outcome of early childhood experiences. In the developing infant brain, each neuron forms a huge number of axial connections with other neurons, but simultaneously cuts back these connections in a process called pruning. If two neurons do not fire together, their connection may be pruned back. This indicates how important sensory stimulation is in early childhood. Sense-deprived infants may not develop specific brain capabilities, because axial connections are not formed or are pruned back due to disuse. Feral children who miss the language window may not acquire linguistic abilities later in life, however well they are trained.
Hood also extensively discusses social determinants of our brain processes. As evidenced by phenomena such as hypnosis, crowd psychology, social norms and deference to authority, we as members of a social species are uniquely suggestible and subject to peer pressure. Thus, what we think of as "free will" is really the outcome of brain processes we do not consciously comprehend, as conditioned by our social networks and culture.
Hood's thesis of a fragmentary brain helps explain why some persons display inexplicable behaviors: why rich and famous movie stars should shoplift or solicit prostitutes, why an otherwise thoughtful and wise legislator should send pictures of his penis to women, why a billionaire daredevil should also be a germophobe, or why a monstrous dictator who sent millions to the gas chambers should also be a vegetarian and pet lover. It also explains our own behaviors, why we who manage entire work teams with confidence and wisdom should be driven up the wall by a spouse's casual criticism. In each interaction and social situation, different modules are activated and their complex and unpredictable interactions give rise to our emotional and behavioral responses. Advocates of a coherent, rational and semi-permanent self will be hard pressed to explain these multiple personalities.
This book is written in a style accessible to the layperson, but it is backed by extensive research with over 50 pages of notes and close to 500 citations to peer reviewed literature. Some of this research is conducted by the author himself - Hood is an experimental psychologist whose specialty is developmental neuroscience (early childhood).
October 7, 2021
The book discusses a good number of insightful (and often counter-intuitive) experiments. The focus on the social aspects of cognition is the main difference of this book compared with other similar pop neuroscience books.
I also personally find it interesting to observe the alignment of the focus with similar perspectives regarding more recent human shifts, such as the discussion in https://palladiummag.com/2021/05/17/w...) of social technology in the context of the Neolithic transition.
I also personally find it interesting to observe the alignment of the focus with similar perspectives regarding more recent human shifts, such as the discussion in https://palladiummag.com/2021/05/17/w...) of social technology in the context of the Neolithic transition.
January 25, 2020
How you can be lost when you are talking about yourself
It is a great investigation about what's self. Some times the author missed the main story by talking about less relevant topics. Although it's evitable to describe self as a concept by considering surrounding aspects.
It seems author does not expert in technology and social network but he had to describe the new virtual self in virtual life.
It is a great investigation about what's self. Some times the author missed the main story by talking about less relevant topics. Although it's evitable to describe self as a concept by considering surrounding aspects.
It seems author does not expert in technology and social network but he had to describe the new virtual self in virtual life.
September 24, 2022
A great controversial book on the sense of identity that we all brag of. It advocates the idea that our sense of self is just a byproduct of our interactions with the world or put it simply " I am not what I think I and I am not what you think I am; I am what I think that you think I am."
I enjoyed reading this book and I do recommend too.
I enjoyed reading this book and I do recommend too.
July 1, 2018
I think there were two separate theses in this book that the author tried to roll into one: the illusion of our subjective conscious experience and the impact of context and other people on sense of identity. I would have liked a deeper exploration of the first issue, with its attendant philosophical implications, but I did enjoy a review of the social psychological research into the latter. It was good to be updated on this field since when I studied psychology and the research, stories and anecdotes were enlightening and entertaining. It reaffirmed my view that psychology has taken up where philosophy left off, and that it provides a more insightful and pleasingly empirical analysis of the human experience.
September 3, 2019
(The English review is placed beneath Russian one)
Книга построена на том, чтобы убедить читателя, что никакого «Я» на самом деле якобы не существует. Честно сказать, смелое заявление. И всё бы ничего, если бы не способ, который выбрал автор для доказательства своего предположения. Этот способ я встречаю очень часто и заключается он в том, что автор собирает описания разных экспериментов из разных источников, а также случаи из медицинской практики (нейропсихологии), но я предполагаю, что источником по большей части служат все те же книги что и мы сами любим читать. Возможно, что-то взято из академических учебников или из специализированных журналов, однако всё, что я встречал в этой книге, я уже давно и помногу раз, встречал в простых книгах по психологии. Именно поэтому у меня было ощущение, что автор просто взял кучу книг, отсортировал и выбрал подходящие для его теории истории. Иногда такой стиль написания книг становится в целом неплохим, если автор сумел хорошо соединить все истории и преподнести читателю, т.е. объяснить. Тогда это получится либо закрепление одной-двух тем в памяти на долгое время (например, тема зеркальных нейронов) или послужит приманкой для более глубокого знакомства с психологией. Однако лично я рекомендую всё же обращаться к толстым учебникам на 800-1000 страниц (например, «Психология» и «Социальная психология» Дэвид Майерс), при условии, если они хорошо написаны (просто, понятно и интересно). Исходя из этого, я бы рекомендовал поискать более удачные альтернативы, например, вышеназванные.
Автор данной книги как бы предлагает сокращённую версию вышеописанных учебников по нейропсихологии, однако сам форма – набор различных историй – не предлагает, из-за этого, никакой системности. Поэтому если цель была предложить сокращённый вариант книги по нейропсихологии, то она, с моей точки зрения, так и не была достигнута. Да, истории интересные, но отсутствует, тем не менее, картина в целом.
Вторая важная причина, почему мне книга не понравилась, это попытка автор объяснить, почему никакого «Я» нет (как я это понял). Я мог ещё принять все эти истории, но когда автор на полном серьёзе начал писать, что никакой свободы воли не существует, я понял, что на этом моё знакомство с книгой закончится. Да, лично я считаю, что свобода воли есть, и решение бросить читать эту книгу, есть мой акт свободы воли.
Вообще, всё что связанно с попыткой автора доказать свою теорию, вызывает множество вопросов. Так, его попытка убедить читателя в том, что личность полностью формируется его окружением, кажется мне смехотворным (слишком сильное упрощение). Можно найти примеры, где люди не поддавались подобному влиянию (Германия 30-х). Или как правильно заметил один англоязычный комментатор, «На США влияют и Мексика и страны европейского союза, однако это не означает, что Соединённых Штатов не существует». Или когда автор приводит множество примеров, когда человек резко менял своё поведение (т.е. менялась личность) из-за опухоли в мозге. На что мне хочется сказать, что автор затрагивает больных людей, а мы говорим о здоровых, о «стандартных» или естественных людях, а у них никаких подобных изменений не происходит. Да, общество, родители и окружение, безусловно, влияет на человека, но вот только не на 100% и даже не на 80%.
В общем, несмотря на то, что истории все верные, я нахожу попытку автора с помощью этих примеров доказать свою теорию, крайне неубедительной. Все эти примеры с младенцами или с больными людьми или с маугли, всё это говорит о том, что для «Я» требуется время, чтобы полностью развиться, что мы социальные существа от природы, что мозг и личность, это цельные структуры и любое изменение может разрушить хрупкую структуру. Другими словами, человек это более сложная вещь, нежели это пытаются представить биологи и/или представители той ветви психологии, что уходит в сторону биологии. Данный автор напоминает мне бихевиористов середины XX века, которые тоже объясняли человека только с позиции биологии (физиологии), показывая, что всё поведение человека можно объяснит теорией Павлова, а также предполагали, что сознания как такового, не существует. Прошло несколько десятков лет, и их теории канули в небытие, так как наличие сознание было доказано. Что-то мне подсказывает, что история повторится и в этом случаи (и с этим автором).
The book is designed to convince the reader that no "The self" actually exists. Frankly speaking, it is a bold statement. Everything would have been fine if it hadn't been for the way the author chose to prove his guess. The point is that the author collects descriptions of different experiments from different sources, as well as cases from medical practice (neuropsychology), but I assume that the sources for the most part are the same books as we ourselves like to read. Perhaps something is taken from academic textbooks or specialized journals, but everything I have met in this book, for a long time and many times, I have met in simple books on psychology. That's why I had a feeling that the author just took a bunch of books, sorted them out and chose suitable stories for his theory. Sometimes this style of book writing becomes quite good in general, if the author managed to combine all the stories well and present to the reader, i.e. to clarify them. Then it will turn out either to fix one or two themes in memory for a long time (for example, the theme of mirror neurons) or to serve as bait for deeper acquaintance with psychology. However, I recommend referring to thick 800-1000-page textbooks (for example, "Psychology" and "Social Psychology" by David Myers), provided that they are well written (simple, understandable and interesting). On this basis, I would recommend that we look for better alternatives, such as those mentioned above.
The author of this book seems to offer an abridged version of the above-described neuropsychology textbooks, but the form itself - a set of different stories - does not offer any consistency because of this. Therefore, if the goal was to offer an abridged version of the book on neuropsychology, it has not been achieved, in my opinion. Yes, the stories are interesting, but there is no picture as a whole.
The second important reason why I didn't like the book is the author's attempt to explain why there is no "The self" (as I understood it). I could still take all of these stories, but when the author seriously began to write that there is no free will, I realized that this would be the end of my acquaintance with the book. Yes, I consider that there is free will, and the decision to quit reading this book is my act of free will.
In general, everything related to the author's attempt to prove his theory raises a lot of questions. Thus, the attempt to convince the reader that the personality is completely formed by the environment seems ridiculous to me (too much simplification). One can find examples where people did not give in to such influence (Germany in the 30s). Or, as one English-speaking commentator rightly pointed out, "The fact that the United States is influenced by the economies of Mexico and the Euro zone is not evidence that the United States does not exist". Or when the author gives a lot of examples, when a person changed his behavior dramatically (i.e. changed his personality) because of a tumor in the brain. What I'd like to say is that the author refers to sick people, but we’re talking about healthy people, "standard people" or natural people, and they don't have any such changes. Yes, society, parents and the environment certainly affects people, but not 100% or even 80%.
In general, even though all the stories are true, I find the author's attempt to use these examples to prove his theory to be extremely unconvincing. All these examples with infants or sick people or Mowgli show that it takes time for the "I" to fully develop, that we are social beings from nature, that the brain and personality are whole structures, and that any change can destroy a fragile structure. In other words, a person is a more complex thing than biologists and/or representatives of the branch of psychology that goes in the direction of biology are trying to imagine. This author reminds me of the behaviorists of the mid-20th century, who also explained man only from the perspective of biology (physiology), showing that all human behavior can be explained by Pavlov's theory, and assumed that consciousness as such does not exist. Some decades passed, and their theories have sunk into oblivion as the presence of consciousness has been proved. Something tells me that history will repeat itself in this case (and with this author).
Книга построена на том, чтобы убедить читателя, что никакого «Я» на самом деле якобы не существует. Честно сказать, смелое заявление. И всё бы ничего, если бы не способ, который выбрал автор для доказательства своего предположения. Этот способ я встречаю очень часто и заключается он в том, что автор собирает описания разных экспериментов из разных источников, а также случаи из медицинской практики (нейропсихологии), но я предполагаю, что источником по большей части служат все те же книги что и мы сами любим читать. Возможно, что-то взято из академических учебников или из специализированных журналов, однако всё, что я встречал в этой книге, я уже давно и помногу раз, встречал в простых книгах по психологии. Именно поэтому у меня было ощущение, что автор просто взял кучу книг, отсортировал и выбрал подходящие для его теории истории. Иногда такой стиль написания книг становится в целом неплохим, если автор сумел хорошо соединить все истории и преподнести читателю, т.е. объяснить. Тогда это получится либо закрепление одной-двух тем в памяти на долгое время (например, тема зеркальных нейронов) или послужит приманкой для более глубокого знакомства с психологией. Однако лично я рекомендую всё же обращаться к толстым учебникам на 800-1000 страниц (например, «Психология» и «Социальная психология» Дэвид Майерс), при условии, если они хорошо написаны (просто, понятно и интересно). Исходя из этого, я бы рекомендовал поискать более удачные альтернативы, например, вышеназванные.
Автор данной книги как бы предлагает сокращённую версию вышеописанных учебников по нейропсихологии, однако сам форма – набор различных историй – не предлагает, из-за этого, никакой системности. Поэтому если цель была предложить сокращённый вариант книги по нейропсихологии, то она, с моей точки зрения, так и не была достигнута. Да, истории интересные, но отсутствует, тем не менее, картина в целом.
Вторая важная причина, почему мне книга не понравилась, это попытка автор объяснить, почему никакого «Я» нет (как я это понял). Я мог ещё принять все эти истории, но когда автор на полном серьёзе начал писать, что никакой свободы воли не существует, я понял, что на этом моё знакомство с книгой закончится. Да, лично я считаю, что свобода воли есть, и решение бросить читать эту книгу, есть мой акт свободы воли.
Вообще, всё что связанно с попыткой автора доказать свою теорию, вызывает множество вопросов. Так, его попытка убедить читателя в том, что личность полностью формируется его окружением, кажется мне смехотворным (слишком сильное упрощение). Можно найти примеры, где люди не поддавались подобному влиянию (Германия 30-х). Или как правильно заметил один англоязычный комментатор, «На США влияют и Мексика и страны европейского союза, однако это не означает, что Соединённых Штатов не существует». Или когда автор приводит множество примеров, когда человек резко менял своё поведение (т.е. менялась личность) из-за опухоли в мозге. На что мне хочется сказать, что автор затрагивает больных людей, а мы говорим о здоровых, о «стандартных» или естественных людях, а у них никаких подобных изменений не происходит. Да, общество, родители и окружение, безусловно, влияет на человека, но вот только не на 100% и даже не на 80%.
В общем, несмотря на то, что истории все верные, я нахожу попытку автора с помощью этих примеров доказать свою теорию, крайне неубедительной. Все эти примеры с младенцами или с больными людьми или с маугли, всё это говорит о том, что для «Я» требуется время, чтобы полностью развиться, что мы социальные существа от природы, что мозг и личность, это цельные структуры и любое изменение может разрушить хрупкую структуру. Другими словами, человек это более сложная вещь, нежели это пытаются представить биологи и/или представители той ветви психологии, что уходит в сторону биологии. Данный автор напоминает мне бихевиористов середины XX века, которые тоже объясняли человека только с позиции биологии (физиологии), показывая, что всё поведение человека можно объяснит теорией Павлова, а также предполагали, что сознания как такового, не существует. Прошло несколько десятков лет, и их теории канули в небытие, так как наличие сознание было доказано. Что-то мне подсказывает, что история повторится и в этом случаи (и с этим автором).
The book is designed to convince the reader that no "The self" actually exists. Frankly speaking, it is a bold statement. Everything would have been fine if it hadn't been for the way the author chose to prove his guess. The point is that the author collects descriptions of different experiments from different sources, as well as cases from medical practice (neuropsychology), but I assume that the sources for the most part are the same books as we ourselves like to read. Perhaps something is taken from academic textbooks or specialized journals, but everything I have met in this book, for a long time and many times, I have met in simple books on psychology. That's why I had a feeling that the author just took a bunch of books, sorted them out and chose suitable stories for his theory. Sometimes this style of book writing becomes quite good in general, if the author managed to combine all the stories well and present to the reader, i.e. to clarify them. Then it will turn out either to fix one or two themes in memory for a long time (for example, the theme of mirror neurons) or to serve as bait for deeper acquaintance with psychology. However, I recommend referring to thick 800-1000-page textbooks (for example, "Psychology" and "Social Psychology" by David Myers), provided that they are well written (simple, understandable and interesting). On this basis, I would recommend that we look for better alternatives, such as those mentioned above.
The author of this book seems to offer an abridged version of the above-described neuropsychology textbooks, but the form itself - a set of different stories - does not offer any consistency because of this. Therefore, if the goal was to offer an abridged version of the book on neuropsychology, it has not been achieved, in my opinion. Yes, the stories are interesting, but there is no picture as a whole.
The second important reason why I didn't like the book is the author's attempt to explain why there is no "The self" (as I understood it). I could still take all of these stories, but when the author seriously began to write that there is no free will, I realized that this would be the end of my acquaintance with the book. Yes, I consider that there is free will, and the decision to quit reading this book is my act of free will.
In general, everything related to the author's attempt to prove his theory raises a lot of questions. Thus, the attempt to convince the reader that the personality is completely formed by the environment seems ridiculous to me (too much simplification). One can find examples where people did not give in to such influence (Germany in the 30s). Or, as one English-speaking commentator rightly pointed out, "The fact that the United States is influenced by the economies of Mexico and the Euro zone is not evidence that the United States does not exist". Or when the author gives a lot of examples, when a person changed his behavior dramatically (i.e. changed his personality) because of a tumor in the brain. What I'd like to say is that the author refers to sick people, but we’re talking about healthy people, "standard people" or natural people, and they don't have any such changes. Yes, society, parents and the environment certainly affects people, but not 100% or even 80%.
In general, even though all the stories are true, I find the author's attempt to use these examples to prove his theory to be extremely unconvincing. All these examples with infants or sick people or Mowgli show that it takes time for the "I" to fully develop, that we are social beings from nature, that the brain and personality are whole structures, and that any change can destroy a fragile structure. In other words, a person is a more complex thing than biologists and/or representatives of the branch of psychology that goes in the direction of biology are trying to imagine. This author reminds me of the behaviorists of the mid-20th century, who also explained man only from the perspective of biology (physiology), showing that all human behavior can be explained by Pavlov's theory, and assumed that consciousness as such does not exist. Some decades passed, and their theories have sunk into oblivion as the presence of consciousness has been proved. Something tells me that history will repeat itself in this case (and with this author).
October 29, 2018
The book Consciousness Explained, by Dan Dennett, set out the theory that there is no “self” directing what a person does. Your brain is the product of genetics and your environment, and it produces sensations, thoughts, and feelings, but the belief that there is a separate “you” that controls what your brain does is an illusion. Like every other aspect of human development, the emergence of the self is epigenetic – an interaction of the genes in the environment. The self emerges out of that journey through the epigenetic landscape, combining the legacy of your genetic inheritance with the influence of the early environment.
This book is very similar to Waking Up, by Sam Harris and Why Buddhism is True, by Robert Wright. Sam Harris connects Dennett’s work to the Tibetan Buddhist teachings of Dzogchen, and Robert Wright connects Dennett’s work to the Buddhist concept of anatta (non-existence of one’s self). This book is relating Dennett’s work to findings of social psychologists and behavioral economists such as Daniel Kahneman and Dan Ariely.
It is not the case that your self is an essential entity at the core of your existence that holds steady throughout your life. There is no “you” behind your eyeballs (or anywhere else) orchestrating your identity. If you think there’s a “you” inside your head, who is directing the you? If your answer is “nothing,” you are of the mistaken belief that there is a “ghost in the machine.” The concept that you are exercising “free will” is undermined by the fact that the “readiness potential” in your brain can be measured before you take action; in other words, your brain is telling you what to do, not the other way around.
Over the course of your life, you have many different “selves.” You change over time, you act differently in different situations and with different people. Your nature is different when you are asleep, “under the influence,” or hypnotized. What makes you laugh? Are the thoughts inside your head “you” or the thoughts you express; what if you have Tourette’s? Your willpower often fails, and you often act impulsively – so who are you, the one attempting to exercise will, or the one acting impulsively? Is the addicted you the self, or is it the one trying to fight the addiction? The insanity defense is based on the concept that the crime wasn’t committed by the person’s “self,” but why not? Why do we act superstitious, even though we tell ourselves that we don’t believe the superstitions? Why are we unable to control obsessive-compulsions that we would prefer not to have? Usually, your left brain and right brain work together, but people who do not have a working corpus collosum have two separate selves, a left brain that controls their right side and a right brain that controls their left side. Do you want your fantasies to be true or not; do you know what your “self” wants? People live entirely different lives on the internet from “real life,” but which is the person’s actual “self”? If you “pretend” to be a certain way to get “likes” and “followers,” why is the “pretend” you not the real you?
Your concept of yourself is greatly shaped by your beliefs about how others perceive you. Charles Horton Cooley explained that your identity is the result of seeing yourself the way that others see you (the looking-glass self). Humans generally act based on their beliefs about what others are thinking, and adolescents are especially influenced by what they believe others are thinking about them. Our beliefs about our “self” are often based on our status or based on the possessions that we own rather than anything inside ourselves. We often act as conformists who have a herd mentality or a hive mind and do not want to feel excluded, and the way we would act if we didn’t care what others thought would be completely different. People are influenced by their culture to the extent that “normal” people can easily be convinced to act in an “evil” way; this is the “banality of evil.”
You are a product of your genes, your physical form, and your experiences. People with very deprived childhoods (e.g. the orphans of communist Rumania or people raised without vision or without human contact) are permanently and irrevocably affected. You have bundles of sensations, perceptions, thoughts, and then you construct a narrative to make sense of it. Mirror neurons make you feel other people’s pain, and yawning or vomiting can be contagious. Like Neo in the movie The Matrix, you have no direct connection to reality; you just know what your brain tells you.
In a sense, we are our memories, but you experience so many sensations that it would be hard to remember anything if you didn’t have a “self” concept to help you figure out what information was relevant to you. Babies, who have not yet developed a “self” concept, do not form long-term memories, because they cannot integrate memories into meaningful stories. To have meaning, memories must be embedded within a “self.” Your memories are also inaccurate and subject to manipulation by others. Your conscious mind is a spin-doctor, not a commander in chief; it weaves a coherent narrative from your thoughts even when your thoughts create cognitive dissonance between your beliefs and new information. We rationalize when information does not fit existing beliefs or we repress or “forget” inconvenient truths.
Authors such as Daniel Kahneman and Dan Ariely have explained the many cognitive biases that humans have, and that humans are predictably irrational. Our idea of our self is also based on these same biases and irrational beliefs.
Interestingly, the author of this book believes that we should continue to believe the self illusion, not that we should accept reality. The self illusion serves a useful purpose. If you think about the “I” and the “me” that we usually refer to as the self, it provides a focal point to hang experiences together both in the immediate here and now, as well as to join those events over a lifetime. Experiences are fragmented episodes unless they are woven together in a meaningful narrative. The self illusion depends on a lifetime of memories that are constructed as we interpret the world. That interpretation is guided by mechanisms that seek out certain information in the world but also by those around us who help us to make sense of it all. In this way, we are continually shaped by those around us. We also treat others as individual selves. It is faster, more economical, and more efficient to treat others as a self rather than as a collection of brain activities. Just because something doesn’t really exist doesn’t mean that believing that it does is pointless. Fantasy doesn’t really exist but the world would be a much more impoverished place without storytelling. Those who reject the notion of a self in control of destiny, lead sadder, less satisfying lives. Those who embrace the self illusion feel fulfilled and purposeful.
I thought this was an interesting book that will change my concept of my “self.”
This book is very similar to Waking Up, by Sam Harris and Why Buddhism is True, by Robert Wright. Sam Harris connects Dennett’s work to the Tibetan Buddhist teachings of Dzogchen, and Robert Wright connects Dennett’s work to the Buddhist concept of anatta (non-existence of one’s self). This book is relating Dennett’s work to findings of social psychologists and behavioral economists such as Daniel Kahneman and Dan Ariely.
It is not the case that your self is an essential entity at the core of your existence that holds steady throughout your life. There is no “you” behind your eyeballs (or anywhere else) orchestrating your identity. If you think there’s a “you” inside your head, who is directing the you? If your answer is “nothing,” you are of the mistaken belief that there is a “ghost in the machine.” The concept that you are exercising “free will” is undermined by the fact that the “readiness potential” in your brain can be measured before you take action; in other words, your brain is telling you what to do, not the other way around.
Over the course of your life, you have many different “selves.” You change over time, you act differently in different situations and with different people. Your nature is different when you are asleep, “under the influence,” or hypnotized. What makes you laugh? Are the thoughts inside your head “you” or the thoughts you express; what if you have Tourette’s? Your willpower often fails, and you often act impulsively – so who are you, the one attempting to exercise will, or the one acting impulsively? Is the addicted you the self, or is it the one trying to fight the addiction? The insanity defense is based on the concept that the crime wasn’t committed by the person’s “self,” but why not? Why do we act superstitious, even though we tell ourselves that we don’t believe the superstitions? Why are we unable to control obsessive-compulsions that we would prefer not to have? Usually, your left brain and right brain work together, but people who do not have a working corpus collosum have two separate selves, a left brain that controls their right side and a right brain that controls their left side. Do you want your fantasies to be true or not; do you know what your “self” wants? People live entirely different lives on the internet from “real life,” but which is the person’s actual “self”? If you “pretend” to be a certain way to get “likes” and “followers,” why is the “pretend” you not the real you?
Your concept of yourself is greatly shaped by your beliefs about how others perceive you. Charles Horton Cooley explained that your identity is the result of seeing yourself the way that others see you (the looking-glass self). Humans generally act based on their beliefs about what others are thinking, and adolescents are especially influenced by what they believe others are thinking about them. Our beliefs about our “self” are often based on our status or based on the possessions that we own rather than anything inside ourselves. We often act as conformists who have a herd mentality or a hive mind and do not want to feel excluded, and the way we would act if we didn’t care what others thought would be completely different. People are influenced by their culture to the extent that “normal” people can easily be convinced to act in an “evil” way; this is the “banality of evil.”
You are a product of your genes, your physical form, and your experiences. People with very deprived childhoods (e.g. the orphans of communist Rumania or people raised without vision or without human contact) are permanently and irrevocably affected. You have bundles of sensations, perceptions, thoughts, and then you construct a narrative to make sense of it. Mirror neurons make you feel other people’s pain, and yawning or vomiting can be contagious. Like Neo in the movie The Matrix, you have no direct connection to reality; you just know what your brain tells you.
In a sense, we are our memories, but you experience so many sensations that it would be hard to remember anything if you didn’t have a “self” concept to help you figure out what information was relevant to you. Babies, who have not yet developed a “self” concept, do not form long-term memories, because they cannot integrate memories into meaningful stories. To have meaning, memories must be embedded within a “self.” Your memories are also inaccurate and subject to manipulation by others. Your conscious mind is a spin-doctor, not a commander in chief; it weaves a coherent narrative from your thoughts even when your thoughts create cognitive dissonance between your beliefs and new information. We rationalize when information does not fit existing beliefs or we repress or “forget” inconvenient truths.
Authors such as Daniel Kahneman and Dan Ariely have explained the many cognitive biases that humans have, and that humans are predictably irrational. Our idea of our self is also based on these same biases and irrational beliefs.
Interestingly, the author of this book believes that we should continue to believe the self illusion, not that we should accept reality. The self illusion serves a useful purpose. If you think about the “I” and the “me” that we usually refer to as the self, it provides a focal point to hang experiences together both in the immediate here and now, as well as to join those events over a lifetime. Experiences are fragmented episodes unless they are woven together in a meaningful narrative. The self illusion depends on a lifetime of memories that are constructed as we interpret the world. That interpretation is guided by mechanisms that seek out certain information in the world but also by those around us who help us to make sense of it all. In this way, we are continually shaped by those around us. We also treat others as individual selves. It is faster, more economical, and more efficient to treat others as a self rather than as a collection of brain activities. Just because something doesn’t really exist doesn’t mean that believing that it does is pointless. Fantasy doesn’t really exist but the world would be a much more impoverished place without storytelling. Those who reject the notion of a self in control of destiny, lead sadder, less satisfying lives. Those who embrace the self illusion feel fulfilled and purposeful.
I thought this was an interesting book that will change my concept of my “self.”
April 11, 2020
Another social science book with a lot of info and a few terrible parts that no one should ever read.
Pro:
There is a lot of good science introduced here. As long as the author writes about simple studies he tends to keep it scientific. A lot of well-known studies, most of us already have heard about, are introduced here. I always support people who present real science to the masses.
Con:
Unfortunately there is some lousy social science in this book too. We can't seem to avoid it. As I keep saying, 9/10 of social science books have these crappy outdated assumptions. The blank slate assumption rears its ugly head again and again even though no good social scientist really ought to believe in such silliness. And of course he uses correlations to prove causations several times over, but only when he tries to prove some blank slate hypothesis. That's horrible social science I really do not expect in a book about such a serious topic. But mostly it's explaining without assuming.
Another bad thing here is that he doesn't seem to clearly explain why he is talking about this or that study at any one point. The studies are interesting, but his points are not made clear in large parts of the book. For example, he seems to at times say that the no-self theory depends on there being some blank slate. This makes no logical sense to me at all. He never really explains his thinking on this issue and I'm not sure if he believes in some black slate and therefore assumes it must mean something or if he just got lost in some other line of thinking.
Conclusion:
I don't believe that the self exists. I do think people should know that the self doesn't seem to exist and seems to be an illusion. No one has ever proven it exists or presented a valid self-theory. But this is not a book I could recommend to readers even though 90% of it is fine enough. If you read it it's not a bad thing. But unless you can think very critically about social science you will be tricked by some correlation proves causation thinking.
Edit:
The year is 2020. I still to this day recommend this book to readers who don't understand how the mind works. Just saying. I highly recommend this book. I will be rereading it because I feel like my review overlooked some good things in the book.
Pro:
There is a lot of good science introduced here. As long as the author writes about simple studies he tends to keep it scientific. A lot of well-known studies, most of us already have heard about, are introduced here. I always support people who present real science to the masses.
Con:
Unfortunately there is some lousy social science in this book too. We can't seem to avoid it. As I keep saying, 9/10 of social science books have these crappy outdated assumptions. The blank slate assumption rears its ugly head again and again even though no good social scientist really ought to believe in such silliness. And of course he uses correlations to prove causations several times over, but only when he tries to prove some blank slate hypothesis. That's horrible social science I really do not expect in a book about such a serious topic. But mostly it's explaining without assuming.
Another bad thing here is that he doesn't seem to clearly explain why he is talking about this or that study at any one point. The studies are interesting, but his points are not made clear in large parts of the book. For example, he seems to at times say that the no-self theory depends on there being some blank slate. This makes no logical sense to me at all. He never really explains his thinking on this issue and I'm not sure if he believes in some black slate and therefore assumes it must mean something or if he just got lost in some other line of thinking.
Conclusion:
I don't believe that the self exists. I do think people should know that the self doesn't seem to exist and seems to be an illusion. No one has ever proven it exists or presented a valid self-theory. But this is not a book I could recommend to readers even though 90% of it is fine enough. If you read it it's not a bad thing. But unless you can think very critically about social science you will be tricked by some correlation proves causation thinking.
Edit:
The year is 2020. I still to this day recommend this book to readers who don't understand how the mind works. Just saying. I highly recommend this book. I will be rereading it because I feel like my review overlooked some good things in the book.
January 8, 2017
It extends with several details the original one Consciousness Explained which introducing consciousness as information gravitation center function and "self" as pandemonium. That was revolutionary. One of those rare best of the best "aha! here's how that works!" moments.
This book explains it a bit more, for example, that "self" (as "daemon" or "server", just though off this definition) is "switching" to "another" (relatively, as probably there are no such clear boundaries) daemon depending on social environment, e.g. "me" basically is what others think about "me".
I'm regretting I didn't choose to be a scientist as from my own intuition (and some psychedelics understanding) I was saying years ago that "we" don't exist, it is just reactions to to environment. Likewise if we had removed the body, there would be no emotions, no sensory input and as a consequence - no "self". (Like probably I had already mentioned with many misses in Sci-Fi where authors think that AI would have "emotions" like humans do).
From that understanding came several practical things, which those books didn't mention, but I had realized. For example, IF "self" demon depends on sensory input, AND main purpose of a replicator is to survive, THEN any statism is "death" for "self" and dynamism is "life". Life is basically a motion. Move and you'll never experience unprofitable emotions for the "self". It works in an instant. Conversely, people who form static habits (the "walking dead") can't experience life in full and come into various mental problems.
Maybe it's all about the most powerful daemon, but I'm not sure, probably not (not what you can read in books about "will power", something different and that interests me), as several times I was thinking "something changed, I can't get what, I just woke up, probably I had traveled to parallel universe, as I remember Obama wasn't elected, where are my kids and lover gone, where I am...", haha.
This book explains it a bit more, for example, that "self" (as "daemon" or "server", just though off this definition) is "switching" to "another" (relatively, as probably there are no such clear boundaries) daemon depending on social environment, e.g. "me" basically is what others think about "me".
I'm regretting I didn't choose to be a scientist as from my own intuition (and some psychedelics understanding) I was saying years ago that "we" don't exist, it is just reactions to to environment. Likewise if we had removed the body, there would be no emotions, no sensory input and as a consequence - no "self". (Like probably I had already mentioned with many misses in Sci-Fi where authors think that AI would have "emotions" like humans do).
From that understanding came several practical things, which those books didn't mention, but I had realized. For example, IF "self" demon depends on sensory input, AND main purpose of a replicator is to survive, THEN any statism is "death" for "self" and dynamism is "life". Life is basically a motion. Move and you'll never experience unprofitable emotions for the "self". It works in an instant. Conversely, people who form static habits (the "walking dead") can't experience life in full and come into various mental problems.
Maybe it's all about the most powerful daemon, but I'm not sure, probably not (not what you can read in books about "will power", something different and that interests me), as several times I was thinking "something changed, I can't get what, I just woke up, probably I had traveled to parallel universe, as I remember Obama wasn't elected, where are my kids and lover gone, where I am...", haha.
March 21, 2014
Hood does his best to demonstrate the book's central thesis without (over-)overwhelming those uninitiated into the convoluted realm that is neuro-psychology. The self is evidenced to not actually be the autonomously singular entity we all like to believe it is. Rather it is an emergent sum of various brain processes we do not control nor consciously know of. These processes, in turn, are heavily influenced by both nature and nurture--again, factors we have very little control over.
Where this whole anecdote-laden cerebral adventure fails me is in cohesion in explaining how this leaves our existence with any real sense and purpose. Hood comes up with centuries' worth of irrefutable proof to show that we have very little to no free-will, that most of our decisions happen in a place we do not control, but that we need to believe in an illusion anyway because it's this illusion of the in-control self which has kept our species surviving through millenia. And while I get the message, it all begs asking the question: Are we then left to just submit to the idea that we are forever at the mercy of this tug-of- war between neuro-network activations? The book does ask
this question a number of times but never really answers it.
The problem with cohesion may actually say more about the book's publisher than the author himself, but my problem with the book's central proposal (or lack thereof) is likely telling of its intention to be a strictly psychological commentary and never a philosophical one.
This still shouldn't undermine the enlightenment (even the awakening) the book offers on the nature of our 'neurally imagined' selves, but what then to do with this new knowledge is an entirely different matter better explored in movies like The Matrix.
Where this whole anecdote-laden cerebral adventure fails me is in cohesion in explaining how this leaves our existence with any real sense and purpose. Hood comes up with centuries' worth of irrefutable proof to show that we have very little to no free-will, that most of our decisions happen in a place we do not control, but that we need to believe in an illusion anyway because it's this illusion of the in-control self which has kept our species surviving through millenia. And while I get the message, it all begs asking the question: Are we then left to just submit to the idea that we are forever at the mercy of this tug-of- war between neuro-network activations? The book does ask
this question a number of times but never really answers it.
The problem with cohesion may actually say more about the book's publisher than the author himself, but my problem with the book's central proposal (or lack thereof) is likely telling of its intention to be a strictly psychological commentary and never a philosophical one.
This still shouldn't undermine the enlightenment (even the awakening) the book offers on the nature of our 'neurally imagined' selves, but what then to do with this new knowledge is an entirely different matter better explored in movies like The Matrix.
July 10, 2012
This book is much less about the self and how it's generated than it is about the tricks our minds play on us. As an argument for why we should not trust our intuitions about the nature of the self the book is solid, but there's little here to justify the author's conclusion: that since our intuitions aren't right about the self it's actually an illusion. Nor does he do much to justify his claim that the self is socially generated (a claim I'm generally inclined to agree with) other than give a laundry list of ways in which social interaction is important for development.
Hood mentions the complex philosophical debates on the nature of the self but he doesn't do justice to even the well-known arguments on the subject. This is understandable, since he's neurologist not a philosopher, but it is a serious weakness in the stated goal of the book.
It would have improved the book to leave out chapter 8, on the impact of the internet on the development of the self. It was mostly hand-waving and angst, worrying that the internet could have negative consequences for society without any concrete dangers or suggestions.
Despite these shortcomings, the experimental evidence he covers that cast our reflective notions of self-hood into doubt are important and make salutary reading. This is an age that could use some serious examination of the nature of the self, and while this book doesn't live up to its title, it is a good start.
Hood mentions the complex philosophical debates on the nature of the self but he doesn't do justice to even the well-known arguments on the subject. This is understandable, since he's neurologist not a philosopher, but it is a serious weakness in the stated goal of the book.
It would have improved the book to leave out chapter 8, on the impact of the internet on the development of the self. It was mostly hand-waving and angst, worrying that the internet could have negative consequences for society without any concrete dangers or suggestions.
Despite these shortcomings, the experimental evidence he covers that cast our reflective notions of self-hood into doubt are important and make salutary reading. This is an age that could use some serious examination of the nature of the self, and while this book doesn't live up to its title, it is a good start.
May 13, 2016
im reading the turkish translation.. Benlik Yanilsamasi...B Hood benlik (self) konusunda insanin kendi kendini nasil kandirdigini o kadar cok veriyle acikliyor ki moral bozuluyor biraz.. hatiralar yanilsama, kimlik yanilsama, dusunceler yanilsama, algilar yanilsama, dunya yanilsama... yani hersey bir yanilsama (illusyon) ... ustelik bunu yani benliginizin bu yanilsamasini goremezsiniz, kavrayamazsiniz, boyle evrilmissiniz.... determinizmin aci gercegi.. ne arasan bu tip pesimist bulgular samar olarak insanin yuzune iniyor.. sonra da diyor ki optimist yanilsama iyidir bu bizi ayakta ve hayatta tutuyor... gelecek ile ilgili kismini ise begenmedim
okuyun sonra da kolaysa depresyona girmeyin... sanirim bu kadar az yildiz almasinin bir sebebi de bu pesimistlige surukleyen yaklasim
spoiler alert ;)
1-benlik beynin urunu.. o gelistikce gelisir, o bozuldukca bozulur
2-deneyimler ayrik ve kurgulanmis oykulerden ibaret
3-kimlik algisi tamamen digerleriyle olan sosyal etkilesimlerdir
4-benlik illuzyonunu gormek cok zordur
5-sizi sekillendiren anilar ve deneyimlerdir ve guvenilir kesinlikle degildir
6-bir cok kimlik algisi vardir ama ayri algilayamazsiniz
7-kognitif dissonans (bilissel uyumsuzluk?) basarisizliklara takilip kalmaktan korur ve
8-bu gizli algilanmayan surecleri bilmemek iyidir yani yanilsama iyidir
okuyun sonra da kolaysa depresyona girmeyin... sanirim bu kadar az yildiz almasinin bir sebebi de bu pesimistlige surukleyen yaklasim
spoiler alert ;)
1-benlik beynin urunu.. o gelistikce gelisir, o bozuldukca bozulur
2-deneyimler ayrik ve kurgulanmis oykulerden ibaret
3-kimlik algisi tamamen digerleriyle olan sosyal etkilesimlerdir
4-benlik illuzyonunu gormek cok zordur
5-sizi sekillendiren anilar ve deneyimlerdir ve guvenilir kesinlikle degildir
6-bir cok kimlik algisi vardir ama ayri algilayamazsiniz
7-kognitif dissonans (bilissel uyumsuzluk?) basarisizliklara takilip kalmaktan korur ve
8-bu gizli algilanmayan surecleri bilmemek iyidir yani yanilsama iyidir
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