So… assuming the “self” is a mental construct, in which disparate and conflicting emotional currents are tied together by a chain of memories into something that feels vaguely coherent… what “should” one do?
I mean, if I know that parts of me want to do terrible things, and other parts want to do selfish but basically normal things, and still other parts want to refrain from doing anything immoral and act honourably, and some parts just want to end everything… and I know that whatever I choose, there will never be peace in my mind… what do I do with that realisation?
Does it matter? Does it matter if I kill myself? Does it matter if I deceive and wrong others for my own fulfilment? Does it matter if I do terrible things to other people? Does it matter if my choices make me miserable?
What I’m trying to get at is, if you believe there is no “true self”, and that you’re just a collection of conflicting impulses… what matters? What do you do? What guides you? Which impulse do you follow? Do any of them actually matter?
If you recognise that you want a million conflicting things from life, and none of them will bring you peace… do any of your desires mean anything? Does anything mean anything? Is any state of affairs preferable over another?
I’ve just been so lost, so torn between conflicting desires for so long. And maybe that’s the only way it ever could’ve been. And maybe it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if I’m miserable. Because that’s just the kind of creature I am. Tortured by a mixture of good and evil motivations, unable to really commit to either.
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Your description of the self, which I agree with, could also describe any complex biological system or even nature itself. The evolution of life on this planet has been a violent conflict of impulses since the first microbe ate the 2nd microbe. If earth had a single consciousness the way your brain has over your body, it would say the same thing. What does any of this matter if it’s such a tangled chaotic mess?
And yet we can see over billions of years that there has been some clear direction, or at least a pattern that asserts itself over the chaos. We aren’t a soup of microbes anymore but life on earth has refined itself, diversified, specialized, almost like the development of an embryo from a bunch of cells.
So maybe consciousness is just an awareness of this mess. It can’t really direct its overall progress but it can observe and maybe make small adjustments. For example if you have an angry violent personality, there isn’t much you can do about your course in life but maybe there are certain times when you can force yourself to refrain from violence. We do have some control over the more extreme impulses; I believe that’s the point of a central consciousness (We aren’t just stimulus-response machines).
Course that doesn’t answer the main question, what’s the point of all this and why don’t we just end it. I guess that’s one possible outcome.
I’m not sure I think of consciousness in the same way – as a centralised, controlling thing. I think there’s some evidence that multiple separate sources of awareness can exist within the same brain – experiments with split brain patients, where one part clearly has information and intentions the other does not.
I think the way I imagine consciousness is more like a kind of shifting tide, rolling back and forth between different conflicting emotions, depending on circumstances/triggers. But I’m not sure the conscious experience itself actually controls that – I think it might more just be the passive experience of it – kind of a passenger along for the ride. The consciousness is of whatever the brain does, rather than dictating it.
And maybe those disparate parts of me are always “conscious” to some degree, even when “I”, as this chain of memories, am not aware of the experience. Maybe only whatever impulses/emotions are most dominant at the time get recorded into memory and integrated into the idea of the self?
I’m not saying that parts of the brain don’t suppress/control the impulses of other parts – more that I don’t think it’s the experience of a centralised “self” that’s doing it.
And I guess the question for me is, how do you respond to believing that about “yourself”? If some parts of you want to do legitimately monstrous things, and other parts desperately want to somehow deceive others into loving you, and other parts want to avoid doing anything whatsoever to hurt or wrong others, and others are so full of shame and despair that they want to end your existence entirely… how should one respond to such a belief?
Anyway, all that is near impossible to think about coherently, let alone communicate to others, so apologies if that all comes across as complete gibberish.
No, it’s not gibberish at all. It’s a very compelling thought as it touches on the major questions of existence: awareness, fate and freewill. It’s possible that our consciousness is completely passive and we are nothing but observers. This would gel with a lot of ancient philosophies and faiths. I’m not quite ready to believe that, although in my most pessimistic moods I lean that way.
I’m sure there have been times in your life when you’ve made a decisive effort to oppose your nature. Or hell, I think there’s some truth to the idea of “fake it til you make it.” Say you’re in a foul mood but forced to attend a social gathering; sometimes acting the role of being sociable can rub off and before you know it, you’re not completely acting anymore. I think life is full of these small examples of being more than a passive observer.
But I really think these are nudges at best. For example, from a very young age I’ve been obsessed with suicide. Even before I had anything to be depressed about. Now, in the thick of depression, I realize that suicide is something that will eventually happen to me whether it’s this month or in 20 years. So that part is set in stone (fate, programming, call it whatever).
But I do think, as with a terminal diseas, we can make small steps to delay the outcome. Maybe even break free from the pain once in a while. And this must be due to our singular consciousness, because it’s certainly not out individual cells that are deciding to have a positive outlook. Things like positivity/negativity come from the central consciousness.
The idea of multiple consciousnesses within a body is intriguing. I suppose being bipolar, or being an addict who swings wildly between extremes, would back up that idea. I don’t know if there’s a spiritual aspect to it (two souls in one body) or simply a physical one like the corpus callossum of the brain being damaged and preventing information from one hemisphere to the other. I used to imagine spiritual explanations for everything, but lately I just boil it down to nuts and bolts. I think the human brain is chemically erratic, and this may give us the perception of things like multiple personalities and whatnot, but to me it’s just a computer running 20 different apps that are in conflict with each other.
The solution (in the computer analogy) is to develop a better OS that can manage all these concurrent apps. That’s where the human brain is in beta testing.
So I think part of what’s led me to this way of thinking is having the experience of very resolutely “deciding” to resist behaving in a certain way ever again, and that decision seeming very firm and genuine. Only for it to be reversed in very short order, with very little conscious thought. And it seemed kind of like the “conscious decision” didn’t actually have any real impact. Because other parts of my brain had other ideas. So at one point, maybe I was strongly consciously experiencing the part of my brain that was resistant to the impulses. And later, I was strongly experiencing the part that generated those impulses. But in between, there wasn’t really a considered “conscious decision” to give in to those impulses. It was more just like the tide shifted, and I was inhabiting the experience of someone who didn’t care at all about resisting.
I don’t really see how the example of feeling more sociable after acting the part cuts against that? I think in my way of thinking maybe that would be the parts of your brain that enjoy socialising becoming more stimulated by the circumstances, thereby becoming prominent enough to intrude into what you remember as “yourself”?
I believe that parts of our brains develop to have a positive outlook (“there’s always small things you can do to improve your situation”), and others develop to have a negative outlook (“suicide will inevitably happen to me, sooner or later”). I’m not sure there is a “central consciousness” that actually has traits. I think maybe consciousness shifts depending on which parts of the brain are most active/dominant at the time, and this somehow gets modulated by the input of memory into some experience of a coherent, singular self.
I guess I am an addict (of a kind), who does swing wildly between extremes. And the idea of designating one of these extremes my “true self” seems simplistic and false to me.
20 (or 20,000) different apps in conflict with each other fits with my view. I suppose I’m just not sure about the operating system part. I don’t think there’s a separate “true self”, sitting apart from the conflict, making the final decisions. I do agree that some parts of the brain can in certain circumstances inhibit the impulses of others. But I’m not sure that means they’re the seat of consciousness, pulling the levers.
I was about to post something similar because, as we’ve discussed before, I experience similar appetites. Its like being a very hungry tiger, surrounded by tasty cows.
My thoughts are this: there is no “Should”. There is no good, no evil. Morality does not naturally exist. It is merely a creation of our minds. But pain exists, and joy exists.
Whether or not you “should” do something all depends on you. Do you value having societal freedom? Do you value whatever amount of empathy you have for others?
Theres a line Ive walked for a very long time. I have flirted with the other side of that line, but I havent fully crossed it. And once you cross that line, theres no going back. You either allow yourself to be a sociopath, or you live with unbearable regret. My apetites cause me great suffering internally. While I struggle coming to terms with these hungers knowing full well that I only have one life and that my time here is limited, Ove found that Im not able to completely kill or discard my empathy. I value human connection too much, and my spcietal freedoms as well. I like getting popcorn at the movies, and the quiet solitude of a walk in the forest along the Grand River, and resting in a comfortable bed privately. Ive lost those things before, and would hate to lose them again.
This was precisely why I was going to therapy. I live with a hunger and I dont feed, and live with chronic internal torment as a result.
I suppose the issue is that I value very different things, presumably depending upon what’s going on in my brain at any given point. I value my freedom, but apparently not enough to restrain me from doing small things that may put it at risk. I value compassion for others, but not enough to refrain from fantasizing about doing things that would hurt them.
I think I’ve crossed my own line in a way I can’t go back from. I don’t think I’m a sociopath, and I do live with a lot of regret. But the I suppose there are still further lines that I don’t think I’d cross. Likewise, I don’t think I could ever kill my empathy, though I’ve largely made human connection impossible for myself.
I don’t think I could countenance losing the freedoms that I do have. I think that would be hell, and I’d really rather kill myself. But I don’t value them enough for them to seem consistently worth protecting.
Possibly my hunger is different to yours – in a sense I do feed, though hopefully in a way that doesn’t impact others. The torment for me is the shame I feel as a result, and how much it alienates me from what seems to make life actually worth living – connection.
You and I are so very much alike. Im actually of the impression that we have a hunger for the same thing, but with different “side dishes”, if you get me.
I do not consider myself something feeds. Perhaps someone who nibbles on what particles of dust fall from the real thing…but ive never been someone who took a full bite. Not as an adult, anyway.
I suppose that analogy could also apply to me. For me to fully give in to what parts of me crave would require radically different circumstances, or a massive shift in the balance within my mind. But the potential is always there.
It’s not that I feel I’m a danger, or that I might snap at any minute. But I guess it’s kind of like I’m an animal at the zoo. If someone somehow managed to get past all the warning signs and find their way into my enclosure, things could potentially get nasty. Otherwise, I’m pretty harmless. But I’m still an animal, which separates me from love & human connection, and causes the more human parts of me a lot of shame, regret & despair.
There’s also a sense in which I do feed those more animalistic parts of me, in that I indulge them in fantasy and allow them to take up a lot of my attention. Possibly that keeps them alive, or more powerful than they would be otherwise. It’s not like I’m strictly denying them or starving them.
I’ve gotten a lot closer to that line lately, but I still won’t cross it. For years I redirected it, or satisfied it through fantasy or reading about others doing horrible things. I still do, in fact. That’s my answer to how darkness is handled. It carries the liability which is obvious, I am prone when very upset to desire to act out fantasy.
Sick puppies, that’s my favorite term I’ve ever heard for what we are. I worked with this old grandmotherly lady at the mental hospital and that’s what she called the boys we worked with, she was one of the best people I ever met. She worked on my shift but with the younger batch of sex criminals, 12-15 year olds where I worked with 15-18s.
Sorry, got caught up in memory. What’s the point? Well, I can tell you why I keep it all hidden. I want to try and reform the system that made me. If I can make it so one less like me is made, there’d be a lot of damage undone. it takes enormous willpower to hold this all in.
So if one less like me is made, or one like me goes another way, doesn’t get stuck in a black hole of pointless hell like this state, that’s a huge win. I really want to indirectly kill a few of the jerks that turned me into what I am. That’s the big leagues. If I can take them out of their positions, make it so they can’t infect more young men, that’s what I really want.
Influence, man, that’s what I want, either way it’s all about influence. Influence to hurt those who DESERVE to be hurt, and influence to save those who DESERVE to be saved, and to do it legally, without having to lose anything, that’s the ultimate twist, and I know it can be done because it was done to me.
However, if I slip, if I act out of rage or raw emotion and take my revenge out in a way the law doesn’t like, I lose all my influence and ability to see my will acted out…… that would be total futility.
I deserve better than that, and so do the other people I’ve seen the system rape and desecrate. That’s why I don’t slip into anarchy.
I like what you said about deserving. Some people deserve, others dont. Something about that is useful. Im grateful you said it
“Nothing matters” in fundamental sense but practically they seem like they do. I get the conflicting desires thing. But understand that they are not ‘your’ desires. They are desires with whom you’re currently associating. It’s like hunger. Hunger comes, from somewhere, without our will, but we say that ‘we are hungry’. No, the stomach is empty and we are associating ourselves with its process. Similar is with desire. Who knows what circumstances and processes led to their creation. They may be in same direction, they may be in different directions, you may associate strongly with one and diminish others, you may be equally faithful to many. No one has right to morally direct other but if you’re suffering from their conflict that means you yourself want to get out of the conflict. There is no fixed path but faith plays a role. How much faith one has in feelings he is feeling, how much one really believes in them. Everything ends eventually, but stronger faith can prolong their demise while weaker faith can quicken it. Having a purpose also helps.