As I’ve already stated elsewhere, and in reply to the recent question, “what is your endgame?”, the answer is clear: to overthrow the minimal self. SZ is not a disease.
For those who might have forgotten what the minimal self is:
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This is an inductive argument. That’s is all.
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I’m not really here to engage philosophically. I think that’s nice that you can feel open to it. Keep striving for a better life. Just be honest and critical of your opinions.
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I don’t think there’s anything to overthrow. Additionally, evolution here is better than a revolution.
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If you’re real self is really an illusion do you work a job and have them pay you in illusion money.
I will give you one real dollar to work for me 444,000 hours and I will also pay you 999,000 illusion dollars. Sounds like a good deal to me.
That’s not what the author is defending. People remain as real as before, but our ordinary common sense undersntading of self comes under scrutiny in the light of new evidence, and rightly so.
I always felt a sort of resort in Joseph Parnas and Dan Zahavis concept of the minimal self.
The flux between objects, interpersonal cause and effect, the retrospect dramatization of our own life and then these glimpse of an ownership, the mineness, just popping up here an now in the stream of being.
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The title of the article is “the illusion of self,” but the whole article neglects to talk about that topic. Interesting.
A loud thought:
Some people, by some scholars, thinks that the minimal self (we alle carry around) is distorted in some patients they call “Schizophrenics.”
But what if the schizophrenics have a true glimpse of the Minimal Self other ppl carry around without noticing because they are too engulfed in the stream of thoughts and actions.
Then it’s the schizophrenics who have the true glimpse of being and therefore are in awe and fear of these glimpse of awakening.
I couldn’t agree more, and at this point I don’t know if it’s my rational or not-rational self doing the agreeing.
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Basically when something feels like it exists, but doesn’t stand up to scrutiny when examined and confronted, it actually doesn’t. It just feels that way. When you try to find the sense of self, there’s nothing to be found. It’s one of the experiences that turns some people away from meditation.
I don’t think Harris on the one hand and Zahavi etc on the other are disagreeing.
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Yes, but like with the issue of free will our mental a prioris are too resilient and completely embedded. That’s not to say that they cannot be challenged at all in some contexts, for example, the use of psychiatry to determine exculpatory circumstances in criminal cases.
This I didn’t know, I’ll look into that.
Also sometimes meditation shows some aspects of the mind that practitioners were not aware of before.
To be honest I’ve always been wary of meditation, I experienced ego death a few years ago and it wasn’t pretty.
It’s not for everyone. But wow. I’ll never reach that level as I am doing it rather casually.
