Eastern philosophy says there is no “self” – science agrees | Hacker News Reader

Eastern philosophy says there is no “self” – science agrees

bigthink.com

94 pointsBrajeshwar96 comments

The claim that science is just now catching up to Eastern philosophy has been around for quite a while. This version of it doesn't look any better to me than past versions.

The idea that the "self" is a process rather than a thing, which is basically what this claimed "new scientific discovery" amounts to, is actually not new to cognitive science. But it's also not the same as claiming that the "self" doesn't exist. Yes, there is no particular set of neurons in the brain that corresponds to the "self". But the whole process that your brain and body are constantly executing is a reasonable scientific embodiment of your "self".

To the extent there is an Eastern philosophy counterpart to this, it is the idea that it is wrong to pick out one particular part of the whole process going on in your brain and body--say the part that constructs a "narrative" that you can speak, either to yourself or to others--and treat that as though it were something separate from the rest. Much of the teaching of, for example, meditation can be seen as simply trying to make you more aware of all the other processes that are just as much a part of your "self" as the "narrative" process. But this article is taking the opposite view: that the only candidate for your "self" is the narrative process. I don't think that is a valid reading of Eastern philosophy any more than it is a valid conclusion from the science.

> The idea that the "self" is a process rather than a thing, which is basically what this claimed "new scientific discovery" amounts to, is actually not new to cognitive science.

It definitely isn't new. Humans reify reflexively. A more straight-forward HN-friendly example is infinity -- it's a process (algorithm) that we treat like a number.

All numbers are just processes we treat like a number. "Four" is not a "real thing", it's a mental model / description that sometimes applies to real things; infinity too.

Thanks. Reification again.

you keep using that word

That is indeed the right word - the way that we "concretize" processes into objects.

See in particular Anna Sfard's papers on this, e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226161879_The_Gains...

Clojure programmers are welcome here.

You appear to be trying for a gotcha moment but Buddhism agrees. The suttas describe a method to directly experience what some science professes to measure. Why don't you give it a shot and see if your experience matches? No more than a couple months on retreat is enough for most to have their first absolute proof of anatta (not-self) with evidential experience within the first three weeks.

> You appear to be trying for a gotcha moment

Not for "Eastern philosphy" (of which Buddhism is just one branch), just for the claims made in the article.

> anatta (not-self)

I'm not denying that such experiences exist. I'm just pointing out that the "self" which is asserted to not exist (or not be experienced, or however you want to describe it) in such experiences is a very limited concept of "self".

> Why don't you give it a shot and see if your experience matches? No more than a couple months on retreat is enough for most

A few months away from work is a luxury that I don’t think I’ll have in my lifetime.

Aaaaactually (damn I'm such a cliche), I specialised in Buddhism for my degree (Religious Studies).

> anatta, which is often translated as “no self”

It might seem like a subtle point, but "not-self" and "non-self" are more accurate and widely-accepted translations in academic circles. The point being that Buddhism very much does accept that there is a conventional self, just with the one, mundane proviso that: you can't point to any _one part_ of our being or experience and say that that's the irreducible self.

Like Trigger's broom from the British comedy show, Only Fools And Horses:

"I've maintained this broom for 20 years, it's had 17 new heads and 14 new handles"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqZEr1Y-lZU

I am amused by the idea of presenting philosophical "terms of art" with obscure television skits dedicated to them. (i.e. Ship of Theseus is now Trigger's broom). Got any more in the bag?

Fry & Laurie had a sketch[0] that, behind the silliness and ridiculous characterization, sets out Ferdinand de Saussure’s distinction of langue versus parole that is the foundation of modern linguistics.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MWpHQQ-wQg

While "obscure" is probably a fair assessment for most of the world, in the UK and any serious consumers of British comedy, Trigger's Broom is one of the most famous scenes of Britain's favourite ever comedy, Only Fools and Horses, so its as famous and un-obscure as scenes come, in that context.

I remember watching it for the first time and thinking it was the cleverest joke I'd ever seen, until its ancient origin dawned on me. Then it seemed even cleverer.

That ‘triggers broom’ sketch and Del boy falling through the bar being ‘sophisticated’ was the height of comedy for me as kid. I suspect we are similar ages!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63rcdLeXiU8

Yup! The chandelier scene, the hang glider, etc, etc, just amazingly creative and funny series.

Milinda: I have spoken no untruth, reverend Sir. It is on account of its having all these things—the pole, and the axle, the wheels, and the framework, the ropes, the yoke, the spokes, and the goad—that it comes under the generally understood term, the designation in common use, of “chariot.”

Nagasena: Very good! Your Majesty has rightly grasped the meaning of “chariot.” And just even so it is on account of all those things you questioned me about—The thirty-two kinds of organic matter in a human body, and the five constituent elements of being—that I come under the generally understood term, the designation in common use, of “Nāgasena.” For it was said, Sire, by our Sister Vajirā in the presence of the Blessed One:

“Just as it is by the condition precedent Of the co-existence of its various parts That the word chariot is used, Just so is it that when the Skandhas Are there we talk of a being.”

Milinda: Most wonderful, Nāgasena, and most strange. Well has the puzzle put to you, most difficult though it was, been solved. Were the Buddha himself here he would approve your answer. Well done, well done, Nāgasena!

So we're all, metaphysically speaking, a Ship of Theseus?

We only have a 'stable' reality due to memories and biological characteristics. If you minimized those, you'd have something more radical than the ship of Theseus because eventually it wouldn't even seem like the same ship. Someone can lose 'themself' permanently using drugs etc.

Yes, exactly. At least that's certainly what I think Buddhism saying.

“Trigger’s broom” is an identifier not the physical thing itself. So it makes perfect sense for the physics to change while the identifier stays constant. The same way that the identifier of a mutable variable in a programming language never change; but its value might change all the time.

> you can't point to any _one part_ of our being or experience and say that that's the irreducible self.

This is why I find Buddhist reasoning superior to "Western" reasoning when the concept of the Self is the topic. There is no real model of the self, what it is at bedrock, in the Western tradition. Reason can't be applied to a non-model. Buddhism has a model. A good model can be improved and a bad model can be corrected. It's still better than no model.

I found Chandrakirti’s metaphor of the chariot helpful:

"A chariot is not asserted to be other than its parts"

https://nonduality.com/goode6.htm

You might have a very narrow view of the Western tradition, then. There is plenty of discussion of the nature of "self" and there are plenty of models.

I've not found the models in the Western tradition to be helpful, few and paltry as they are.

What is "irreducible self"?

I personally agree with Trigger that there's a legitimate sense in which he still has the same broom after 20 years. Though I also accept why somebody would say it's not the same broom. The problem for that person though is: at what point does it become a new broom? What is that fundamental (irreducible) part of the broom, that once changed, makes it a new broom?

There never was a broom. I.e. it never existed as a permanent, indivisible thing.

According to the poster you're replying to it's a universal synonym which can be pointed at anything.

What is a broom?

David Hume said[1]:

> For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception.

and also:

> I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement. Our eyes cannot turn in their sockets without varying our perceptions. Our thought is still more variable than our sight, and all our other senses and faculties contribute to this change; nor is there any single power of the soul, which remains unalterably the same, perhaps for one moment

To be fair, he was from Edinburgh, in the East of Scotland.

1: https://schoolworkhelper.net/humes-bundle-theory-of-the-self...

A college philosophy professor of mine memorably critiqued this idea of Hume's by asking "Who is doing the observing? It's like a man who wants to know if anyone is home, so he goes outside and looks in the window."

brilliant

A scholar of Hume has speculated that Hume might have heard about Buddhism from a traveling Jesuit priest.

http://alisongopnik.com/Papers_Alison/Gopnik_HumeStudies_wit...

> Modern neuroscience provides evidence that aligns with the Eastern view, revealing that the left hemisphere of the brain constantly creates narratives to interpret reality, leading to a mistaken identification with these self-narratives. This false sense of self, which is often equated with the incessant internal dialogue, contributes significantly to human mental suffering.

What or who is identifying with self-narratives, and what or who suffers? What is the stable entity which could experience internal dialogue as incessant?

The subjective, aka “point of perspective.”

Part of this interpretation given is narrative storytelling. There is certainly an embodiment, an identity, and a subjective experience, however the symbolic and “self referential” part is fraught with illusions.

I'm not sure the subjective is a candidate for the what/who I'm asking about, since the subjective, not being an object, cannot be in a state of either identification or non-identification. Your second paragraph I don't fully parse.

The subject is the instance of subjectivity, counter intuitively “objectivity” does not refer to an object, everything is an object to objectivity, the subject is the instance of the subjectivity.

As for the rest, that of which they speak means more toward that we are one instance sub divided by barriers, yet there remains a continuity among us.

It does not mean there are no distinct identities, or containers of individuals cohabitating this continuous experience of our lives. Rather there are so many.

On top of all that, mostly we make up satisfying stories to make forgivable the crude details of our lives. Thinking about most things will only drive you crazy anyways. Such idle comprehension is a luxury of modernity.

Is this philosophical extrapolation, or a crude and forced attempt at something profound for someone‘s investment?

I cringe to their connection either way. Though a fascinating interest just the same.

The right half of my brain, or whatever it is that generates narratives, is part of me. Don't try to take it or speak for it.

And, a narrative can't tell itself. How could anyone write an extended comment, narrative, story, or whatever if to do it they had to manage a narrative about writing it? And one about the narrative about...? Stack overflow!

And one more thing...if a person is a self-narrative, how can that person realize that such a narrative is false?

Who indeed! Is that that that the question!

This sounds eerily like LLM hallucination:

--- In one of Gazzaniga’s experiments, researchers presented the word “walk” to a patient’s right brain only. The patient immediately responded to the request and stood up and started to leave the van in which the testing was taking place. When the patient’s left brain, which is responsible for language, was asked why he got up to walk, the interpreter came up with a plausible but completely incorrect explanation: “I’m going into the house to get a Coke.”

In another exercise, the word “laugh” was presented to the right brain and the patient complied. When asked why she was laughing, her left brain responded by cracking a joke: “You guys come up and test us each month. What a way to make a living!” Remember, the correct answer here would have been, “I got up because you asked me to,” and “I laughed because you asked me to,” but since the left brain didn’t have access to these requests, it made up an answer and believed it rather than saying, “I don’t know why I just did that.” ---

This is precisely what psychologists call “confabulation“. This is what hallucinations in language models should be called. For the same thing is happening there: An answer is given that is factually wrong, but that is plausible and consistent with a prior action.

https://twitter.com/ylecun/status/1667272618825723909?s=46&t...

> Eastern philosophy says there is no “self” – science agrees

I find that unlikely. Science doesn't agree about much about anything. The entire practice is a big exercise in disputing things.

There's a few theories that nobody's been able to disprove. We call those "laws," and there's only a few of them. Just about everything else is up for dispute

In general, articles about "what science says" about something are frustrating. At minimum, they could say, "these scientists agree." As an added bonus, it would be nice if, in general, the story and headlines actually matched what the research papers said as well.

Sorry. I think I just got triggered. Too many bunk pop-science articles this month.

The idea you need a single part of a network to correspond to this phenomenon is ridiculous and is imho a flawed assumption. It’s like writing, “If you can’t find one piece of the puzzle that is the whole puzzle, then it must not be a puzzle!” Network level emergent effects of systems are fundamentally different than something you can just isolate in a reductionist way.

Maybe the problem isn’t the fact they can’t find a reductionist explanation for “Self,” but rather that they’re inventing a problem wherein the lack of a known reductionist explanation for a holistic phenomenon implies it is absent. I would argue the sense of self is an obviously measurable phenomenon (agency). Without a self, there would be no capability to express emotion or planning, we would only refer to abstract concepts in the void. As our language and experience both fundamentally involve perspectives including the first person, it seems a bit odd for anyone to claim these perspectives don’t exist.

Somebody’s overthinking it, and creating a problem of language (this is a problem because I label it so!), not a problem of neuroscience.

I’d go even further, and argue there is no hard problem of consciousness. Just folks who don’t want to accept the obvious answer, we’re thinking animals with a generative world model in our heads.

What could be some consequences of a failure to accept simple and obvious solutions to the hard problem of consciousness?

Well, if you don’t accept machines could be conscious, because you don’t like the idea your brain is made of atoms and we play by the rules of the universe, then you’re a lot more likely to engage in exploitative use of AI.

After all, we all know all computers are just “zombies,” right? Actually, we can be sure that a computer with a stateful predictive generative world model is likely to be conscious and self aware.

I wrote a random short paper about this way back in 2015, here’s a link if anyone cares.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i595e8q97bs8a7p/maximumentropycrit...

>Actually, we can be sure that a computer with a stateful predictive generative world model is likely to be conscious and self aware.

The idea that computation leads to consciousness is ridicolous. The claim that some functioning world model leads to inner experience seems to not even be worth considering, because it is so obviously wrong.

You seem to be using "the hard problem of consciousness" to mean something different than I've always taken it to mean.

I fully believe I am just a machine; the question is why there are qualia happening. Wipe my memory, change my identity, alter my consciousness – regardless, why, when I'm awake, does my mind seem to be the seat where a subjective experience is occurring?

It's a hard problem because the only appeal I can make for its existence is that it's happening for me. I can't prove it to you; it's conceivable there are p-zombies, who also vigorously assert they have qualia. This makes it seem dubious, a religious matter taken on faith, and yet paradoxically for me it is perhaps the only thing I can be truly certain of.

Perhaps qualia (subjective experience) is merely a feature of our universe: wherever structure arises, the universe experiences itself (in some commensurate way).

> Perhaps qualia (subjective experience) is merely a feature of our universe: wherever structure arises, the universe experiences itself (in some commensurate way).

What do you mean by 'structure'?

> I’d go even further, and argue there is no hard problem of consciousness. Just folks who don’t want to accept the obvious answer, we’re thinking animals with a generative world model in our heads.

Supposing that I'm a thinking animal with a generative world model in my head, wouldn't the notion of being a thinking animal necessarily be a part of the generative world model?

This is a case of "scientism", not science. Science is only equipped to address claims that are falisifiable. The question of whether or not there is a self isn't something that can be proven or dispproven, since consciousness appears to be an emergent property rather than a thing that can be pinned down and measured.

> since consciousness appears to be an emergent property rather than a thing that can be pinned down and measured.

Emergent properties can be pinned down and measured. Molecules have measurable emergent properties. The viscosity of water is an emergent property and you can measure it.

https://www.britannica.com/science/systems-biology#ref121807...

Much of science deals with emergent properties. Strange that you'd say science cannot pin down and measure such properties.

Neuroscience will one day what self and consciousness is by showing us how the collective parts of the brain interact to bring about the emergent property of consciousness/self. That is if computer science doesn't do it first via generalized artificial intelligence. My best guess is that the self is an illusion/lie resulting from consciousness that gave humans an evolutionary advantage.

The thing I've learned from many areas of Eastern philosophy is that they don't seek to give you "the hard truth of the universe", but rather tools to understand reality and lenses under which to view it. Of course, if we conflate it with religious beliefs then it's easy to think that they are laying out the truth under their worldview... But that's not how I've found it.

The true usefulness of the eastern conceptions of the self, the ego, the thinking mind, the emotions, it's all to help us see our faults and try to correct some of them to reduce unnecessary suffering. But under the esoteric veil of using Sanskrit or Pali terms like antahkarana, advaita, ahamkara, Brahman and Maya, it can be confounding.

If a lens reveals a truth about reality isn't it true? Also I don't know what artificial distinction you're making between this and a religious belief. That's what all religions do.

I never said that about what the lens reveals. The thing is that it doesn't reveal truth. It's a tool that you only use when you need, not a dogma that is guaranteed to hold.

"There is a self I can pinpoint" is as valid as "There isn't a self I can pinpoint". "God(s) exist(s)" is as valid as "God(s) doesn't(don't) exist". When I have this problem, I can use a hammer. When I have this other, I need a CNC mill. That's my understanding.

Some religions are teleological (they have purpose mapped out) and you just have to have faith or commit some actions. Others give you some necessary but insufficient tools, because the truths they want to express to you are somewhat ineffable.

Can science even prove such as thing? Saying "there is no self" doesn't seem like a scientific claim to me. It seems more like a philosophical question. The fact that scientists don't agree on a particular center of the brain which corresponds to a "self function" doesn't mean that science "proves" the self doesn't exist.

Western philosophy absolutely does not consider the self stable and hasn't for ages. Further, the experiment is very similar to tests Freud conducted under hypnosis where he would instruct people to open a window and then ask them why they did it (after ending hypnosis) and they would come up with a post justification ("it was stuffy!").

Western science perhaps is catching up with thinkers like Deleuze, Foucault, Hegel, etc which they have scorned.

It is non-sensical. Let me put it in a tech analogy: Does a process exist only when it is scheduled to exist or does it cease to exist when it is suspended? No, right? Because the memory and execution context are still valid.

If the brain is a computer then the self is the software, the collection of code and data that comprise the OS and other available programs. This silly concept is saying "there is no operating system or programs, there is only execution and ram memory, when things are not being executed, they don't exist"

The data (our memories) and collective code (mind) that operates on that data, including code that isn't actively executing makes up a separate unique entity, separate from the execution state of the brain at a specific point in time.

Talk about missing the forest for the trees. Next science will believe the tree didn't really fall because no one saw it fall, even if you can see a fallen tree because falling and observing a fallen artifact are separate.

Love this analogy. I think most of the arguments above seek to establish that the soft, as your analogy goes, is not the main or the only participant in the whole.

What about the Default Mode Network (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network#Function)? This comprises the regions of the brain responsible for our sense of self, including our internal monologue and personal memories. It's most active when we're not engaged in any complex tasks, and least active when we're "in the zone", or meditating, or tripping on psychedelics (which, in high doses, cause ego dissolution).

This sounds so much like generative ai “excels at creating an explanation for what’s going on, even if it isn’t correct”

There are some ideas only a PhD philosopher can convince themselves of.

Love this comment. It elegantly captures something that most of us know, but is very hard to express.

It's a hard earned comment from experience unfortunately.

> the self is an illusion, a byproduct of *our* thought processes.

I don't think they thought this through.

“ This may be a difficult point to grasp..” yeah because Occam’s razor say yes there is a self

Can you even properly define "self" using Occam's razor?

I just feel it, also if you remove the word self from the English, it would be difficult to say “I’m by myself right now”

You mean, "I am alone"?

Utter parent comment destruction (+100 damage)

Saying the "self is an illusion" is a strange statement to me. An illusion implies something is being deluded. What is that something if not the self?

This is my own analogy but think of the concept of pressure and brownian motion. At a micro level pressure doesn't seem to exist in the way we understand it. There's just little spheres exchanging momentum. But at a macro level we can talk about pressure.

My takeaway with many discussions about self and Buddhism is just that it's a macro or emergent property, and not just one "thing".

Language can be imprecise but I think that's what is being referred to when we say self is an illusion.

I don't think that answers my question. I understand emergent properties.

When it is said the self is an illusion, what, exactly, is being fooled by this illusion if not my self?

Advaita, which my orthodox Brahmin family believes and practices, proclaims the supremacy and totality of the self.

Buddhism which was dominant among the elites and aristocrats by 8th century was largely displaced out of India via scholarly debates.

This idea that east doesn’t believe in self is hokum

The English word "Self" used in Advaita translations (and all Hindu philosophies and their derivatives like Buddhism) and Western Philosophy mean very different things.

In Western Philosophy they are synonymous with "Self-Identity/Ego" etc.

In Hindu philosophy, the basic idea of "Self" comes from the "Samkhya System" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samkhya) which is what is followed by/built upon by other schools of Hindu Philosophy. In this model, "Self" aka "Purusha" is immutable and untainted/undifferentiated pure Consciousness. In Advaita it is known as "Atman". It is "Prakriti", the other aspect of reality which is mutable, that gives rise to "Buddhi"(Intelligence), "Ahamkara"(Self-Identity/Ego) and "Manas"(Mind).

You can see now how confusion arises when people use the same English word "Self" to describe different things in different contexts.

Since you mention Advaita, some might find this talk by Swami Sarvapriyananda on "Vedantic Self and Buddhist Non-Self" interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAZPWu084m4.

The conventional academic opinion is that Buddhism was wiped out in India by the Muslim invasions in the 8th century, not by scholarly debate.

Muslims didn’t come till 11th century

Interesting. Wikipedia says Muslim invasions started in 712 AD, "with increasing frequency". I guess they got it wrong.

They didn’t establish a kingdom. And they didn’t affect most of India.

If your contention is that buddhism was wiped out of India by academic debates with Hindus, it's not borne out by the facts. Certainly, the shift in royal patronage from Buddhism to Hinduism was also a factor, not only the Muslim invasions. But philosophical debate was not the root cause - nothing is ever resolved in philosophy anyway, and if it were, that would hardly impact lay practitioners.

Were westerners this obsessed with 'self' in the 1950's, or is this something that modern advertising convinced us was so real that we should spend all of our money on it?

I had trouble parsing your comment - are you thinking of the 1950s as before "modern advertising"?

Anyway, if yes, then the answer to your question, I guess, is probably yes:

"The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generationers in the 1950s, better known as Beatniks.

The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_Generation

(The "silent generation" is a term for Westerners a bit too young to fight WWII, but too old to be Boomers)

I’m thinking 1950’s as, “After WWII”

I generally buy into the argument that advertising is the peacetime dividend of military psyops, and an uptick in our ability to manipulate people during WWII

What is that argument, or evidence, for the transfer of military expertise to advertising in the late 40s/early 50s?

We are all in a superposition of states and each sensory input collapses this superposition and produces a thought, and part of the context of that thought is a glimpse of the self. And this glimpse is an illusion in the sense that there is no consistent self. I find that all very plausible. ...

But that conclusion? What the fuck was that? That makes no sense. It seems to be advocating some sort of extreme nihilism. Which does not even follow logically from the rest of the content of the article.

If you're interested in that line of thought, read about illusionism. I first heard it from Chalmers, but specialized philosopher actually think on what that would mean, and it's more interesting than the conclusion imho.

>> We can point to the language center, the face processing center, and the center for understanding the emotions of others.

So what are these "others"? If they exist then surely I exist right? Of course out conception of them is not actually them, and our conception of ourself is also not actually ourself.

If we look at our entire body we find the self in the brain. No need to localise it further.

Good article but it uses the English word "Self" in a different sense than its usage in Hindu/Buddhist philosophy.

See my explanatory comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36277694

The inner interpreter is already bound to civilization and losing the bond is traumatic. We will deepen the dependence by using AI. Maybe even replacing it completely. It is scary but feels inevitable, as the biological interpreter seems to be failing too much.

Actually this is a rather 'thin' pop version of an idea proposed by Peter Carruthers. His 2011 book "Opacity of Mind" definitely is not a light read but makes a very compelling case indeed. If this is your jam, I highly recommend this book.

"... it is one thing to say, 'The self is an illusion' and quite another to confess, 'I am an illusion' ..." -- Charlie Heunemann in a review of the book The Ego Trick by Julian Baggini

I'd highly recommend The Tao Of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism by Fritjof Capra, for anyone interested in the subject. It's an excellent read.

"The Ego Trick" by Julian Baggini might be a bit more directly related to the subject at hand.

Thanks! I will check that out. You are right, Capra's book touches more on quantum physics than on neuroscientific basis.

Anyone else with book recommendations, let's hear 'em.

I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter

A really great intro to these ideas for people growing up in western frameworks is Alan Watts’ “The book on the taboo against knowing who you are”

tldr: self is a leaky abstraction

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