Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Social effects of technology in society
Social effects of technology in society
Define the concept of self
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Social effects of technology in society
What is the self? Defining this concept has been a struggle for man since the earliest thinkers first looked inwards on themselves, only to find that they could not truly comprehend what was there, or as some came to believe, not there. Over time, everyone from philosophers, to psychologists, and neuroscientists, to religious thinkers, and the ordinary man have thought on this, yet many have come up empty. Two prominent theories, which see themselves at the forefront of the debate on the truth, are known as ego theory, and bundle theory. The majority of world religions teach their followers the concept of a spirit, or soul that “transcends the physical”, continuing to exist in some way, shape, or form after the death of the body (Thagard). …show more content…
According to this theory, the self is simply a bundle of constantly changing perceptions, unified only by “various kinds of causal relation” (Parfit 20). This is often seen as giving the false impression of an ego, which the human mind manipulates its user into believing, just as it gives the illusion of three-dimensional vision. The bundle theory of self is often compared to, or even equated with the Buddhist concept of anattā (Rudd 869). That is, to say, the idea of “no self” (Rudd 869). The idea that there is no self is very difficult for human beings to accept, as it implies that it is “an empty question whether one is about to die, or will instead live for many years”, and that, compared to ego theory, their death is rather meaningless (Parfit 23). Bundle …show more content…
Recent science fiction works such as Shirow Masamune’s Ghost in the Shell have tackled the issue of self by creating worlds in which the self can exist separate from the body it originally inhabited. In the world of Ghost in the Shell, science has rapidly progressed over time to the point where an individual can no longer be identified by their body, and the concepts of personal identity, the self, and humanity have been blurred by technology. By the time the show takes place, the vast majority of the population of Japan has what is known as a “cyberbrain”. That is, an artificially-enhanced biological brain with components added to increase memory capacity, and processing speed, and which gives users the ability to directly interface both with computers, and with other people. In some cases, individuals who have suffered severe, life-threatening trauma have had as much as 97.5% of their brain replaced with digital components. The majority of people have at least some cybernetic components in their body, and some, referred to as “cyborgs”, have little remaining of the body that they were born with. This begins to blur the line between humans, and androids, who are not considered to be people, and thus have no rights, despite the increasingly limited differences between themselves, and the humans who created
It is the idea that once we strip ourselves from our ego or the idea of a real and fixated self, one may reach nirvana, which again, cannot be seen, but only experienced. However, here it is important to note a striking difference between Armstrong’s Being and Thurman’s Void: Being relates to an unseen force while void refers to a lifestyle and a mental state. More specifically, Thurman focuses on the idea of self-knowledge. For instance, Thurman claims that “because the only thing that’s frightened by the word ‘selflessness’ is the artificially constructed, unreal, and unrealistic self” (Thurman 441). This artificial self isn’t real, because it doesn’t really exist. Rather, it’s a manmade concept that we hold onto so tightly because we feel it necessary. Here it is necessary to point out why so many are frightened by the idea of acknowledging one 's selflessness: they fear becoming nothing. But “realizing your selflessness does not mean that you become a nobody, it means that you become a type of somebody who is a viable, useful somebody, not a rigid, fixated, I’m-the-center-of-the-universe, isolated-from-others somebody” (Thurman, 443). In other words, realizing your selflessness does not mean that you disappear or become nothing, because that is quite impossible. It’s quite the opposite actually. Once we realize our
Self could be defined in different ways. In John Perry’s “dialogue on personal identity and immorality”, both characters Weirob and Cohen are correct on their argument of personal identity, there are just some imperfections on each of the views. My view of “persons are identical with brains” fills the gaps of ideas of them. Brain is the junction that could bring mind and
Afterlife myths explain what becomes of the soul after the body dies, as humans have a problem accepting the possibility that the soul becomes nothing.
Anil Ananthaswamy describes the self as the role the brain plays in our notions of self and existence. That our sense of self is layered, pulling information from
“Egoism, the fear or not near but of distant death… are not, I think, wholly natural or instinctive. They are all strengthened by the beliefs about personal identity which I have been attacking. If we give up these beliefs, they should be weakened” (Parfit, 1971, p. 4.2:14).
... the self which avoids the difficulties which result from the universalization of the deep ecology modes as well as those which result from individual egocentrism. Cyborg selves are neither isolated egos nor world-souls which merge individuals. Cyborg selves are contingent, multiple, adaptive, connected. The mutable character of cyborg selves points out the necessity for acknowledging, rather than assuming, the boundaries of the self as a part of ethical deliberation.
In this paper, I will look at the no-self view Nagasena argues for, and question its demand for a permanent self. I will argue that the self exists because it is created, that the self does exist from its point of creation. I will then attempt to justify my argument’s premise as they help to resolve the contention that the self’s memory and history, which Nagasena does not account for, are what defines the self.
Hinduism’s view on human nature is complex and involves the concept of the self or soul. According to the Hindu concept of self, it is recorded that “the atman is beyond sound and form…it is eternal, unchangeable, and without beginning or end: indeed above reasoning” (Wall, 30). What this refers to, is that Hindus believe there to be a deeper self that lies within us. This self hides behind our experienced self and is referred to as atman. Atman is what survives our deaths and continues to be reborn again. This type of self is continually reborn into different bodies until it escapes the wheel of rebirth. Through prayer, meditation, and ascetic practices, this self can become known, especially because it is essentially the same in all human beings. The idea behind atman tends to be more complex because of its dealings with the levels of consciousness, samsara, etc.
In order to understand how one perceives situations and how they can determine the way one communicates; we first must understand the value of self-concept. Self is easily defined; it is one's beliefs, attitudes, feelings and values. It is who one is and what one stands for. Self-concept, is a relevantly stable set of perceptions and emotional states. It is the way one sees and understands oneself, and contributes to how one perceives oneself and perceives situations. One's self-concept may alter their perception, and either enhance or impede one's communication effectiveness. The way one sees oneself can influence the way they see their social surroundings. Only after one become aware of oneself can they be aware of their physical and social surroundings, which will allow one to perceive situations and people with a truer idea and create a more positive outcome.
We created our ego self in our attempt to protect ourselves from the losses we fear loss of self, loss of other, loss of security, loss of face. As children, when we didn’t get the love we needed, we decided that our true Self must be unlovable. In our attempt to feel safe, we buried our true Self and created the false self the ego, our wounded self. The ego self then went about learning how to feel safe through trying to control others and outcomes. The ego believes that having control over how people see us and feel about us, as well as over the outcome of things, will give us the safety we
For example, if someone were in a car accident they would more than likely say, “you hit me!” rather than, “you hit my car!” this is because we substitute a shell for our bodies. In this example the car is the body while the person inside is the soul. The soul or person can get out, file a police report, then proceed to purchase a new vehicle, a body. The example demonstrates how the mind associates with the body, thinking they are one unit, while it is actually possible for the soul to leave. No one can say for sure whether our souls have lived before in a different shape or form previous to the current body it is in. In the “Who Am I?” podcast with Radiolab they talk to the daughter of a woman who claims that she has lost her “self” or “soul”. The mother woke up with a horrible headache, so she got up and went to her exercise class per usual. Her headache had not gotten any better so she was taken to the hospital. She had a brain aneurism and fell into a coma for 4 months, but still had her consciousness. When she awoke she began going to recovery and therapy class, but her daughter did not recognize her any longer. She claimed her mother had died the day she had the aneurism. After months of recovery the mother explained that she believed she had a different soul. She no longer was concerned with the same trivial concerns. She was more free, and outgoing without having to feel perfect all of the time. She even got a tattoo. Here the mother is
According to Locke, through consciousness, we are self-aware and, therefore “self” can be used directly to describe ourselves (Jacobson: 55). The position of self is crucial to the theory as identity is often pertained in reference to an
Truth of oneself makes it visible when faced with absurd events in life where all ethical issues fade away. One cannot always pinpoint to a specific trait or what the core essence they discover, but it is often described as “finding one’s self”. In religious context, the essential self would be regarded as soul. Whereas, for some there is no such concept as self that exists since they believe that humans are just animals caught in the mechanistic world. However, modern philosophy sheds a positive light and tries to prove the existence of a self. Modern philosophers, Descartes and Hume in particular, draw upon the notion of the transcendental self, thinking self, and the empirical self, self of public life. Hume’s bundle theory serves as a distinction between these two notions here and even when both of these conception in their distinction make valid points, neither of them is more accurate.
Initially, Buddhism believers said that there is nothing like soul which exists. Gautma Buddha was the one who rejected ‘Atman’ which was considered by Hinduism.But Epps (170) cited soul as continuous flow of consciousness which links one body form to another. This entire flow of link is called as Punarbhava which directly means becoming again or re-becoming. Considering Tibetan Buddhism assumed that humans do not reborn instantly after one life form to another. It clearly presumed that cycle of birth and death is an infrequent phenomenon. There are six realms (levels) of existence. The astonishing feature that catches attention is that human cannot come to human life form again in next birth instantly. In book Afterlife, it is described by the author that when one life form dies then it enters intermediate state which is of forty-nine days and it provides opportunity to regret for bad karma and improvement. On the other hand, Theravada school of Buddhism criticizes that there is presence
The concept of the term “self” is a topic that has been analyzed for many years by many people. The self is the whole part of the being that contains the person. This is a very broad topic and although the term is simple it holds a vast amount if information. One of these people is a man by the name of Sigmund Freud. In the paper “The Dissection of the Psychical Personality” written by Freud, uses the term “Psychical Personality,” to explain the human thought processes, thinking and feelings that make up concept of “the self ” part of the person’s personality (Freud, The Dissection of the Psychical Personality, 2004, p. 70). The concept of the structural model of the psyche contains the Id, Ego and Superego, as developed by Freud tries to