It is very familiar to feel like a single, uninterrupted person, and as a result, this idea is rarely questioned. When a person wakes up in the morning, they take it for granted that the individual who went to bed the night before is the same person. They remember their childhood, can recognise their own face in the mirror, know their personal preferences, and generally have the experience of thinking, feeling and making decisions as if they all belong to one person: “me”. Nevertheless, psychology, neuroscience and philosophy pose a difficult question: what exactly is the self?
Is there a stable inner entity that stays the same throughout one’s life, or is the feeling of being a single, continuous person constructed by the brain? And if everything about us can change our body, memories, beliefs, personality and relationships what is it that makes us feel that we are still the same person? If our memories shape who we think we are, what happens when those memories change? And if the brain constructs our sense of “me”, then who, or what, is actually experiencing the world? Perhaps the self is not as simple or as permanent as it feels. To understand this, we first need to ask: are we discovering a self that already exists, or is the brain creating one for us?
The situation grows complicated since almost all the things that define identity are capable of changing. A person who was shy when they were fifteen might be confident by the age of thirty. Memories tend to become incomplete, beliefs may change, relationships affect personality, and the body itself keeps on changing. Yet the individual generally perceives these changes as affecting the same person.
William James (1890) drew a distinction between the self as the “I”, that is, the subject which experiences, and the “Me”, which refers to the various things about a person that can be known, such as their body, social identity and personal history. The importance of this distinction lies in the fact that it implies the experience of self may involve a number of psychological processes rather than one fixed inner entity.
The Self Is Not Necessarily One Thing
The self is not generally regarded by modern psychology as being made up of a single structure situated in one particular area of the brain. On the contrary, scientists speak of a number of aspects of selfhood, such as bodily ownership, self-awareness, autobiographical memory, personality, agency and social identity (Neisser, 1988; Gallagher, 2000; Damasio, 2010).
Thus, Ulric Neisser (1988) suggested that the self could be understood in terms of various kinds of information, such as the ecological, interpersonal, extended and conceptual aspects of identity. Likewise, Shaun Gallagher (2000) made a distinction between the minimal self, which relates to immediate bodily experience, and more developed forms of personal identity.
This can be explained by referring to a common situation. If someone says, “I am sitting here, I know that this is my body, I remember what happened yesterday, and I am planning out what to do tomorrow,” then a number of different psychological functions are going on at the same time. The brain is dealing with the sensations of the body, bringing up memories, keeping an eye on the environment, assessing goals and imagining possible future situations.
Nevertheless, consciousness treats all these different processes as if they belong to one person. Metzinger (2003, 2008) claims that the brain builds a phenomenal self-model, that is to say a representation by means of which the organism experiences itself as a subject. The person does not become aware of this model as being a model; on the contrary, it is experienced as immediate reality.
It doesn’t follow that the person is ‘fake’; the body, the brain, the memories and the behaviour are all real. What can be constructed is the specific experience of there being a unified ‘I’. Daniel Dennett (1991) had made a similar argument against the notion of there being a single central area in the brain where a complete self or observer sits and watches over mental events. According to this view, conscious experience arises out of the coordinated activity of a number of different processes rather than from a hidden inner observer.
The Body Creates the First Feeling of “Me”
It is usual for people not to doubt that their hands, legs or face are their own; this feeling of body ownership is so automatic that it seems almost part of their identity. Yet studies indicate that the brain creates this experience by integrating data from what we see, our sense of touch, movement and our internal sensations (Gallagher, 2000; Tsakiris, 2010).
The rubber hand illusion is a clear example of how adaptable this phenomenon can be. In the experiment created by Botvinick and Cohen (1998), the participants saw a rubber hand while their actual hand was kept out of sight. They started to feel as though the artificial hand belonged to them when both the rubber hand and their real hand were stroked at the same time; the effect decreased when the visual and tactile stimulation was not synchronised.
Further research carried out by Ehrsson, Spence and Passingham (2004) found that activity in areas such as the premotor and intraparietal cortices was linked to the experience of ownership, indicating that the brain combines different sensory inputs in order to produce the sensation that a body part belongs to the self.
For instance, when someone sees a hand being touched at the same time as their own hidden hand is touched, the brain gets matching visual and tactile input. Rather than regard the signals as coming from two different objects, it combines them into a single representation. Tsakiris and Haggard (2005) also demonstrated that body ownership relies on the artificial limb being sufficiently compatible with the individual’s existing body image.
This indicates that the brain does not simply ask, ‘What is being touched?’ but rather, in effect, asks ‘Does this sensory information match the body which I consider to be my own?’ Accordingly, the apparently simple experience of ‘this is my body’ is not just passively received; it is actively generated as a result of multisensory processing.
The Feeling of “I Did It”
People do not simply perceive themselves as the owners of their bodies; they also experience themselves as the ones who carry out actions. For example, whenever someone raises their hand, sends a message or decides what to eat, they usually feel that they have caused the action. This is what psychologists refer to as the sense of agency.
According to Patrick Haggard (2017), agency is the experience of controlling one’s own actions and of using them to affect events in the external world. It has been found that the brain makes predictions regarding intended movements and then compares these predictions with what actually occurs. The greater the degree of agreement between intention, action and outcome, the stronger the sense of authorship over the action (Haggard, 2017; Sidarus, Vuorre & Haggard, 2017).
Imagine someone flipping a light switch. They have the intention to do so, their finger moves, the switch clicks, and the light goes on. The way these events fit together is so seamless that the experience is described as “I turned on the light”. Yet the brain is always anticipating the sensory effects of the movement. When an unexpected event takes place, the sense of control can diminish. Research carried out by Beck, Di Costa and Haggard (2017) showed that having a meaningful degree of control over an outcome can strengthen implicit measures of agency.
It doesn’t imply that people have no sense of responsibility or no control at all; on the contrary, it indicates that the subjective sense of control is itself the result of brain activity. The person does not directly see an internal ‘agent’ carrying out an action; instead, the brain combines intentions, movements and their outcomes to create the experience of ‘I did this’ (Haggard, 2017).
Is The Fact That We Have Memories Evidence of a Continuous Self?
Over and over again, psychological research has shown that memory is reconstructive rather than perfectly reproductive. One of the first researchers to show that remembering involves reconstruction was Bartlett in 1932. Subsequent work by Elizabeth Loftus proved that memory can be affected by later information, expectations, and suggestion (Loftus & Palmer, 1974; Loftus, 2005). It therefore follows that recalling an event is not necessarily the same as playing back an exact recording of what actually happened.
Conway and Pleydell-Pearce (2000) created the Self-Memory System. On this basis, it is suggested that autobiographical memories are formed as a result of the interaction between existing autobiographical knowledge and the individual’s present goals and sense of self. For instance, someone might recall having failed an exam when they were a teenager and later see that event as the one that taught them to be resilient. Although the event took place in the past, its meaning can vary as the person’s identity changes. The younger version of the individual would have remembered the experience mainly as something embarrassing. The older version would regard it as a significant turning point.
Endel Tulving’s (1972, 1985) research into episodic memory also showed the link between recalling events that one has personally experienced and the ability to mentally position oneself at a certain point in time. This ability is what gives rise to the sense that our present self is connected to our personal past. Conway and Loveday (2015) later stressed that autobiographical memory is closely linked to the working self. It is also closely linked to the process of constructing imagined futures.
Personality Changes, Yet Identity Survives
Dan McAdams, in his work from 1995 and 2001, stated that identity includes more than just personality traits. People also develop life narratives. They arrange their experiences into a story which explains who they are and the direction of their lives. A person may thus have relatively stable tendencies at the same time as changing as a result of experience and forming a new interpretation of those experiences.
For instance, a person who had previously seen themselves as “shy” might gradually become more socially confident as a result of going to university. They form friendships and take on leadership roles. The individual could still see the earlier version of themselves as being the same person, even though their behaviour has changed a great deal. This indicates that identity may rely less on having a personality that does not change. It may rely more on keeping a psychological link between the different aspects of the self.
The Brain Does Not Have a Single “Self Centre”
Neuroscience offers another reason to doubt the notion of a single inner self. Instead of having one clearly definable “self centre,” self-related thinking involves several interacting brain systems. Studies of the default mode network have associated this network with autobiographical memory, self-referential thinking and internally directed thought (Raichle et al., 2001; Buckner, Andrews-Hanna, & Schacter, 2008). The default mode network comprises areas such as the medial prefrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex.
For instance, a person may sit down in silence and start to think about their childhood, their future plans, personal concerns and relationships. Their mind might quickly switch from one type of self-related thought to another. Even though a number of cognitive processes are at work, these experiences seem as if they belong to a single central thinker. Damasio (1999, 2010) claimed that consciousness and selfhood are closely linked to the brain’s representation of the body and the organism’s internal state. According to this view, the sense of self arises as the brain continuously maps the organism and its relationship with the environment.
This is important since it changes the nature of the question. Rather than posing “Where is the self located?”, neuroscience is now more likely to ask “How does the brain produce the experience of selfhood?” The two questions are quite different. The first one presumes that there is a self already existing somewhere in the brain. The second looks at the processes by which selfhood emerges.
What Neurological Cases Reveal
The strongest evidence against the idea of a simple, indivisible self comes from neurological studies. Experiments by Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga showed that communication between the brain’s two hemispheres can be greatly impeded. In some cases, each hemisphere can then process information differently (Sperry, 1968; Gazzaniga, 1967). This has cast doubt on the belief that a single, fully unified system must combine all mental information.
Further research has since shown that we should not regard split-brain patients as merely having “two separate personalities.” For instance, Pinto et al. (2017) found that the idea of there being two entirely independent conscious beings is too simple. Their results indicate that the unity of consciousness is complex and relies on communication and integration among different neural systems.
Other neurological disorders also offer similar evidence. Damage to specific brain systems can affect autobiographical memory, emotional processing, decision-making, or awareness of the body. Other parts of personality may be left unchanged. These cases indicate that the ordinary self is not a single, unified psychological system. Instead, a number of separate functions, which usually work together, make up the self.
Is The Self Therefore An Illusion?
In 2008, Metzinger said that the brain generates a self-model that can explain the conscious sense of self. In 1991, Dennett opposed the notion of a single central observer within the mind. Damasio, in 2010, stresses the importance of bodily regulation and representation. Gallagher, in 2000, makes a distinction between immediate bodily self-awareness and broader personal identity.
In 2000, Conway and Pleydell-Pearce demonstrated how memory helps construct autobiographical identity. In 2001, McAdams pointed out the role of personal narratives. These views are different. Yet they all come to the same important conclusion. The experience of selfhood involves many interacting processes rather than merely one simple psychological entity. Therefore, we might compare the self with a river.
Even though the water which flows in a river is always changing, the river has a clear identity. Its sense of continuity is due to the organisation of the whole system and not to a single set of permanent molecules. Similarly, human identity could work in this way. The body changes, the brain reconstructs memories, beliefs develop, and personality alters. Relationships also cause behaviour to change. Yet the brain keeps incorporating these changes into an organised sense of continuity.
Conclusion: A Constructed Self Can Still Be Real
The question of whether the self is an illusion may have a more complicated answer than a simple yes or no. Psychological and neuroscientific evidence indicates that the brain constructs the self. This does not mean the self does not exist. The experience of being a person arises out of the interaction between several elements. These include bodily sensations, memory, personality, agency, emotions, social relationships, and future goals (James, 1890; Neisser, 1988; Gallagher, 2000; Damasio, 2010).
Therefore, we can see the self not as a fixed entity but as a process that we are constantly building. Each memory, each decision, each bodily sensation, and each social interaction helps the brain continuously update its understanding of the individual. Moreover, the sensation of being a single, unbroken ‘I’ might be the way the brain organises all that changing information into a unified experience.
References +
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