The Illusion of the Self

An Ever-Unusual Game

~ Mormon Mouse ~ Leave a comment

An Ever-Unusual Game
(for Alan Watts)
I am what I am,
I am what I do,
And I can be what I am
Because I’m not You.

I am what I think,
I am what I feel,
I’m what I remember,
But am I real?

Some of I Is, 
Some of I’s Not,
And I could not remember
If I never forgot.

You are what You are,
What else could You be?
You are what You do,
You’re You and not me.

You are what You think,
You are what You feel,
And what You remember,
But are You real?

Some of You Is,
Some of You’s not,
And you could not remember
If You never forgot.

But If I don’t know I 
Unless I know You,
And we both feel like I,
What the hell do we do?

If not for You I never was born,
And if not for I You neither—
If not for the both of You and I,
Nothing exists that is either.

If I do something to I,
Or if You do something to You,
Both You and I will find that we
Both do it to I and You.

And if You do something to I,
Or if I do something to You,
Both You and I will still find that we,
Both do it to I and You.

So if all that we do affects I and You,
Then are we different or are we the same?
Or just two-sided parts in a whole of no parts,
In an ever-unusual game?

-Saint Andrew of Snohomish

Three Truths for Mormons 091622

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1. There is no body inside your body.

Despite what we read in The Book of Mormon about the Brother of Jared’s experience with Jesus, there is no credible evidence beyond personal belief that you are a human-shaped, full-sized, spirit body inside of a human-shaped, full-sized temporal body, like a ghost dressed in a flesh and bone suit. It may feel that way sometimes, but it also feels like the Earth is standing still in space and we know that it’s not.

I think we can know beyond a reasonable doubt that there are no spirit bodies inside of our bodies because surgeons throughout modern medical history have cut open live human bodies in all kinds of ways with no consideration at all for the spirit body supposedly living in there, tinkered around inside, and then stiched them back up and brought them to a full recovery. No evidence of spirit body damage, no evidence of spirit body spillage or leakage, and really no room at all in there for a full-sized spirit body to be living. Is there a spirit body shaped hollow inside each of us? No. What’s inside a human body other than the insides of a human body? There is no space inside your body for another full-sized version of you. Where would it go? The human body is too full of its own insides to accomodate a second version of itself like some kind of Russian nesting doll.

And by the way, what happens to the spirit body limbs of amputees? If I had to get my arm amputated, would my spirit arm get amputated too and I’d get it back in the resurrection as well? Or would I need to somehow fold it like a chicken wing, nice and snug next to my temporal torso? If I had to get both arms amputed, maybe I’d be like a spirit body in a temporal body straitjacket.

A faithful believer might reason that the spirit body must somehow be fused with the temporal body in such a way as to be undetectable until death, but to that I would say, maybe so, but isn’t it undetectable after death as well? Although people have claimed to see spirit bodies of the departed, these bodies never seem to make it from the inner space of subjective reality to the outer space of objective reality long enough for any disinterested outsiders to confirm that they are really there. How long should something go undetected in our shared objective reality before we admit that it doesn’t exist in our shared objective reality?

And how can a spiritual form that is so weak or so hidden as to be undetectable by modern science, have sufficient size, shape, and power to control a temporal form as large and as solid (and detectable) as the human body? I don’t think that Joseph Smith knew about things like particle accelerators (such as The Large Hadron Collider) when he wrote Doctrine and Covenants 131:7-8.

Faithful believers might reason that although there may be no scientific proof that they have spirit bodies, they believe they have them nonetheless because they can feel it, they know what they feel, and so they are confident that someday they will be vindicated in their belief. Well, I don’t feel it (anymore), and I know what I feel, so I too am confident that someday I will be vindicated in my belief. I’m also confident that if you slowly sawed off my left leg without anesthesia, that before I passed out I would only feel the saw going through one left leg and not two, because there is no body inside my body. Any spirit body that is strong enough to move my temporal body around, should feel the saw in addition to its temporal body feeling it. And if I can’t feel each of them individually because the spirit body and the temporal body are one, then there is no difference between them, and if there is no difference between them then aren’t they the same thing?

2. You can’t control your feelings.

It may feel like you can sometimes, but, SURPRISE! The feeling of being in control of your feelings is just another feeling. And aren’t feelings the effects of what has already happened? And if the feeling of being in control of your feelings is just another feeling, then in order to control your feelings it seems that you would need to control the effects of what has alread happened with the effect of what has already happened, a sort of double impossiblity. In order to feel your feelings, including the feeling of being the feeler of those feelings, that which produces those feelings must first occur. And besides, knowing what we all know about human nature, don’t you think if people could control their feelings that they would spend a lot more time feeling good and a lot less time feeling bad? Aren’t feelings actually like the weather in many ways? Many may feel in control when they obtain and use an umbrella and keep smiling through the rain, but no one controls when the rain stops.

3. You can’t change yourself.

This one doesn’t feel right at first to many people, especially those who are more achievement oriented. But what do I mean by “yourself?” I mean that feeling that you have (and I believe it’s a subjective reality that is an objective illusion) of being the subject of your own experiences, located inside of “your” body. And if that self is what you feel yourself to be, then that is the you that can’t change yourself, because “you” in that sense of the word is an illusion, and by an illusion I mean just a feeling, and feelings only exist to their subjects subjectively, and do not exist out in objective reality. And although an illusion may be able to cause change to some degree, an illusion cannot change itself. I found the following statement in my notes from about a year ago, so I am quoting myself here:

“I am not the scientist in the experiment of my life,  rather “I” am the continually updating result of the ongoing experiment, a result which changes and which can be changed, but which cannot change itself.”

You Are That Vehicle

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(As a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one of the things I have been most frequently taught as if it were an indisuptable fact is that I am a spirit body from another world inside a physical body here on Earth, and that I am here in this physical body in order to be tested, to see if I will use it to do whatever God tells me to do through his authorized agents.)

I assume I experience the illusion or something like it as much as anyone. It feels kind of like I am riding around inside the vehicle of my body, freely making it go where I want and do what I want as best I can given whatever circumstances I find myself in.

I look out through the windshield of my eyes at the world. I look down at my vehicle, my body, and I see some of my parts and I can move them, arms and legs for instance, but I can’t move around inside my vehicle.

I can’t tell how I got inside this thing, and even though I can obviously move it around I don’t know how I do it, not really, because I can’t perceive or access the controls anywhere.

Can I really be inside a thing that has no entrance? There are access points, yes, but those serve other purposes. There is no soul hole from what I can tell, no place to blow my spirit body in from the outside.

Can I really be in control of something that has no controls, at least none that I can perceive or access? There is no steering wheel on this thing, no keyboard or touchscreen interface, no neuron controller on board for me to operate, that I am aware of.

And so the illusion continues, every day, and for most of the day I feel like I have a body and that I am inside my body, running the show from the inside. But I try to see past it when I can, and at times I can feel the truth directly and it’s a tiny thrill that can reoccur to me again and again – this thing works on its own – look Ma, no hands!

You can believe whatever you want about whether there is really anybody home inside your body, but I hope you’ll remember this:

If you ever find yourself traveling stuck and alone in a vehicle with no entrance and no accessible controls, and you can move it but you can’t move inside it, then most likely you are not inside that vehicle, most likely you are that vehicle.  

The Feeling of Being the Feeler of Feelings

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The Mormon concept of the self as an immortal “intelligence” inside of an immortal spirit body, inside of a mortal physical body, that will someday be inside an immortal physical body is a subjective truth, but it’s also an objective fiction.

As I’ve deconstructed my religious beliefs over the years I’ve been led to reading, watching, and listening to the work of a number of scientists and scholars that have had a great influence on my understanding of and thinking about the world. People like Richard Dawkins, Neal deGrasse Tyson, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Carl Sagan, Sean Carroll, and Bart Ehrman. They’ve revealed to me a view of what’s really going on in the world, and given me the tools to navigate the rest of my life with one foot in the subjective world, and one foot in the objective world, better understanding each and the differences between them. I will always be grateful to them and others for their work and the positive difference it has made in my life.

It is thanks to Sam Harris that I have thoughts like the following, and so I dedicate this post to him:

I am not the cause of my thoughts, feelings, and behavior – I am the effect of them.

But what do I mean by “I?”

By “I” I mean the feeling of being inside of and separate from, my body, looking out through my eyes. The feeling of being the subject of experience. The feeling of being the operator of my body, the puppet master, the driver. If my body is a vehicle, it is the feeling of being the driver of the vehicle.

But I’ve come to realize that there is no driver, there is only the vehicle. And the vehicle drives itself. That feeling of being the driver of the vehicle – it’s what it feels like to be a self-driving vehicle.

My body is a self-driving vehicle that moves and works on its own and there is no one in the driver’s seat. True, it does feel like “I” am in the driver’s seat, but it also feels like the Earth is sitting still in space, and we know that is not the case.

My body (including my brain) uses its senses to interact with and remember things about itself and the world around it , which produces an endless stream of feelings, and in addition to all the feelings coming in, there is always one additional feeling born of the complex and self conscious nature of the human brain – the feeling of being the feeler of feelings – and that is the thing that feels like “Me,” “Myself,” and “I.”

But it’s not a being, it’s a feeling. It can be altered by time, growth, experiences, drugs, disease, or injury. It’s just another feeling and it is always stuck in the present moment. No one is inside the vehicle, driving it around, feeling all the feelings, which would require two different sets of feelings for two different subjects. The vehicle is feeling the feelings. Objectively, I am a highly complex, self-driving vehicle that feels things subjectively, including the feeling of being the feeler of its own feelings.

“I don’t have a body, I am a body,” as Christopher Hitchens beautifully observed in his book Mortality (86). While I agree with Hitch’s observation on the one hand, I would like expand upon it on the other hand by adding that there is also a very real sense in which “I” (as the subject of experience) do not exist as anything more than a feeling. I don’t have a feeling, I am a feeling – a feeling which changes and can be changed, but which cannot change itself – a feeling which is the effect of causes outside of itself, but which is never the cause of itself.