"You are not what others think of you; you are not even who you think you are. Thoughts label but do not live."
~ Robert Rosenbaum, Walking the Way
~ Robert Rosenbaum, Walking the Way
- Thread starter Daniel E.
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"Now" is not only a cognitive illusion but also a mathematical trick, related to how we define space and time quantitatively. One way of seeing this is to recognize that the notion of "present," as sandwiched between past and future, is simply a useful hoax. After all, if the present is a moment in time without duration, it can't exist. What does exist is the recent memory of the immediate past and the expectation of the near future. We link past and future through the conceptual notion of a present, of "now." But all that we have is the accumulated memory of the past--stored in biological or various recording devices--and the expectation of the future.
~ Marcelo Gleiser, There Is No Now
~ Marcelo Gleiser, There Is No Now
Interview: Susan Blackmore -- Philosophy Now
I don’t have a theory of consciousness now. I have had in the past, but each time I decided it was wrong. Doing five years in parapsychology and then having to change my mind about almost everything has made me good at letting go of theories. I think Dan Dennett is right that almost all the theories of consciousness we have today are basically forms of Cartesian materialism in disguise. If you ask, “What is in my consciousness now?”, and you think that there must be an answer, then you are a Cartesian materialist. You are still assuming that there is some part of you separate from your thoughts which owns your thoughts, which experiences them. Every time you ask yourself “Am I conscious now?”, it seems to me you draw a backwards story of what you must just have been thinking about. This gives you the illusion of a conscious self who was already there, but it is an illusion. The stream of consciousness and the person experiencing it are both illusions. The interesting question is then how and why are we so deluded?...
An illusion is something that is not what it seems to be. If I seem to be a persisting self having a series of experiences I am wrong. Actually there are parallel, multiple streams that stop and start and join up. And the self is a verbal construction.
I don’t have a theory of consciousness now. I have had in the past, but each time I decided it was wrong. Doing five years in parapsychology and then having to change my mind about almost everything has made me good at letting go of theories. I think Dan Dennett is right that almost all the theories of consciousness we have today are basically forms of Cartesian materialism in disguise. If you ask, “What is in my consciousness now?”, and you think that there must be an answer, then you are a Cartesian materialist. You are still assuming that there is some part of you separate from your thoughts which owns your thoughts, which experiences them. Every time you ask yourself “Am I conscious now?”, it seems to me you draw a backwards story of what you must just have been thinking about. This gives you the illusion of a conscious self who was already there, but it is an illusion. The stream of consciousness and the person experiencing it are both illusions. The interesting question is then how and why are we so deluded?...
An illusion is something that is not what it seems to be. If I seem to be a persisting self having a series of experiences I am wrong. Actually there are parallel, multiple streams that stop and start and join up. And the self is a verbal construction.
How does Personal Identity Persist through Time? | Closer to Truth
How Does Personal Identity Persist Through Time? | Episode 1205 | Closer To Truth - YouTube
How do identity and consciousness persist through time? Is the self an illusion? Decades roll by; every molecule of our bodies changes many times. Yet our sense of self remains the same; continuous, a unity. How can this be? Featuring interviews with Simon Blackburn, Stephen Law, Richard Swinburne, Robert Bilder, and Roger Walsh.
How Does Personal Identity Persist Through Time? | Episode 1205 | Closer To Truth - YouTube
How do identity and consciousness persist through time? Is the self an illusion? Decades roll by; every molecule of our bodies changes many times. Yet our sense of self remains the same; continuous, a unity. How can this be? Featuring interviews with Simon Blackburn, Stephen Law, Richard Swinburne, Robert Bilder, and Roger Walsh.
Awe May Promote Altruistic Behavior
American Psychological Association
May 19, 2015
"Our investigation indicates that awe, although often fleeting and hard to describe, serves a vital social function. By diminishing the emphasis on the individual self, awe may encourage people to forgo strict self-interest to improve the welfare of others. When experiencing awe, you may not, egocentrically speaking, feel like you're at the center of the world anymore. By shifting attention toward larger entities and diminishing the emphasis on the individual self, we reasoned that awe would trigger tendencies to engage in prosocial behaviors that may be costly for you but that benefit and help others.
Across all these different elicitors of awe, we found the same sorts of effects-people felt smaller, less self-important, and behaved in a more prosocial fashion. Might awe cause people to become more invested in the greater good, giving more to charity, volunteering to help others, or doing more to lessen their impact on the environment? Our research would suggest that the answer is yes."
American Psychological Association
May 19, 2015
"Our investigation indicates that awe, although often fleeting and hard to describe, serves a vital social function. By diminishing the emphasis on the individual self, awe may encourage people to forgo strict self-interest to improve the welfare of others. When experiencing awe, you may not, egocentrically speaking, feel like you're at the center of the world anymore. By shifting attention toward larger entities and diminishing the emphasis on the individual self, we reasoned that awe would trigger tendencies to engage in prosocial behaviors that may be costly for you but that benefit and help others.
Across all these different elicitors of awe, we found the same sorts of effects-people felt smaller, less self-important, and behaved in a more prosocial fashion. Might awe cause people to become more invested in the greater good, giving more to charity, volunteering to help others, or doing more to lessen their impact on the environment? Our research would suggest that the answer is yes."
The Self Under Siege
How much of our identity or 'self' is truly representative of our own wants, needs, and goals in life and how much does it reflect the desires and priorities of someone else? Are we following our own destiny or are we unconsciously repeating the lives of our parents, living according to their values, ideals, and beliefs? In this thought-provoking book [The Self Under Siege], noted clinical psychologist Robert Firestone and his co-authors explore the struggle that all of us face in striving to retain a sense of ourselves as unique individuals. The self is under siege from several sources: primarily pain and rejection in the developmental years, problems in relationships, detrimental societal forces, and existential realities that affect all people.
Through numerous case studies and personal stories from men and women who participated in a 35-year observational study, the authors illustrate how Voice Therapy, a cognitive/affective/behavioral methodology pioneered by Firestone, is used to illicit, identify, and challenge the destructive inner voice and to change aversive behaviors based on its prescriptions. The theory they describe integrates the psychodynamic and existential approaches underlying Voice Therapy and is enriched by research findings in the neurosciences, attachment research, and terror management theory (TMT)...
How much of our identity or 'self' is truly representative of our own wants, needs, and goals in life and how much does it reflect the desires and priorities of someone else? Are we following our own destiny or are we unconsciously repeating the lives of our parents, living according to their values, ideals, and beliefs? In this thought-provoking book [The Self Under Siege], noted clinical psychologist Robert Firestone and his co-authors explore the struggle that all of us face in striving to retain a sense of ourselves as unique individuals. The self is under siege from several sources: primarily pain and rejection in the developmental years, problems in relationships, detrimental societal forces, and existential realities that affect all people.
Through numerous case studies and personal stories from men and women who participated in a 35-year observational study, the authors illustrate how Voice Therapy, a cognitive/affective/behavioral methodology pioneered by Firestone, is used to illicit, identify, and challenge the destructive inner voice and to change aversive behaviors based on its prescriptions. The theory they describe integrates the psychodynamic and existential approaches underlying Voice Therapy and is enriched by research findings in the neurosciences, attachment research, and terror management theory (TMT)...
Our basic suffering is rooted in a kind of original separation anxiety, which he called a "fear of life." We fear what has already irrevocably happened―separation from the greater whole―and yet we also come to fear the loss, in death, of this precious individuality. "Between these two fear possibilities," Rank wrote, "these poles of fear, the indivdual is thrown back and forth all his life, which accounts for the fact that we have not been able to trace fear back to a single root, or to overcome it therapeutically."
― Mark Epstein, Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective
― Mark Epstein, Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective
"Self-consciousness is not knowledge but a story one tells about oneself."
“Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it.”
― Simone de Beauvoir
“Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it.”
― Simone de Beauvoir
Humanistic Approaches and Their Existential Roots
The authentic self is fluid, in the moment, without rigid, predetermined reactions, but open to new experiences.
The authentic self is fluid, in the moment, without rigid, predetermined reactions, but open to new experiences.
“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”
~ William Blake
~ William Blake
Volunteering and Why It's Good for You
Dr. Deepak Chopra, author of You Are the Universe...said the philosophical underpinnings in India come from the Vedas and Buddhist traditions, where all human suffering is a result of the hallucination of the separate self.
Dr. Deepak Chopra, author of You Are the Universe...said the philosophical underpinnings in India come from the Vedas and Buddhist traditions, where all human suffering is a result of the hallucination of the separate self.
The Science of Spiritual Narcissism - Scientific American
“Our results illustrate that the self-enhancement motive is powerful and deeply ingrained so that it can hijack methods intended to transcend the ego and instead, adopt them to its own service.... The road to spiritual enlightenment may yield the exact same mundane distortions that are all too familiar in social psychology, such as self-enhancement, illusory superiority, closed-mindedness, and hedonism (clinging to positive experiences) under the guise of alleged ‘higher’ values.”
...Healthy transcendence doesn’t stem from an attempt at distracting oneself from displeasure with reality. Healthy transcendence involves confronting reality as it truly is, head on, with equanimity...
Perhaps it's time for all of these yoga and mindfulness centers to chill on all of the extrinsic purported benefits they are claiming (“Better heath!” “Better sex!” “Amazing concentration!” “Great success at work!”), and just focus on the benefits of such spiritual practices for allowing us to realize that such concerns of the ego are just the ego doing its thing. That awareness, in and of itself, is enough of a benefit to last an enlightened lifetime.
“Our results illustrate that the self-enhancement motive is powerful and deeply ingrained so that it can hijack methods intended to transcend the ego and instead, adopt them to its own service.... The road to spiritual enlightenment may yield the exact same mundane distortions that are all too familiar in social psychology, such as self-enhancement, illusory superiority, closed-mindedness, and hedonism (clinging to positive experiences) under the guise of alleged ‘higher’ values.”
...Healthy transcendence doesn’t stem from an attempt at distracting oneself from displeasure with reality. Healthy transcendence involves confronting reality as it truly is, head on, with equanimity...
Perhaps it's time for all of these yoga and mindfulness centers to chill on all of the extrinsic purported benefits they are claiming (“Better heath!” “Better sex!” “Amazing concentration!” “Great success at work!”), and just focus on the benefits of such spiritual practices for allowing us to realize that such concerns of the ego are just the ego doing its thing. That awareness, in and of itself, is enough of a benefit to last an enlightened lifetime.
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"Control is suffering. Control is the bars that lock us in our cage of identification with our suffering as being all we are."
- Stephen & Ondrea Levine
- Stephen & Ondrea Levine
“Simply put, mindfulness is moment-to-moment non-judgmental awareness.”
― Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living (Revised Edition): Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness
― Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living (Revised Edition): Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness
225: The Self-Centered Podcast Feeling Good
by David Burns
Although Wittgenstein did not focus [on] emotional problems, his solution to all the problems of philosophy is very similar to cognitive therapy. Here is the parallel: You don't try to solve the classic "free will" problem. Instead, you see through it and give it up as nonsensical, as language that's "out of gear," so to speak. Once you "see this," and understand why it is true, it is incredibly liberating. But it can be a lonely experience, because you suddenly "see" something super-obvious that seems to be invisible to 99.9% of humans. It's as if you had a "third eye," and could see something incredible that people with only two eyes cannot see.
By the same token, when you suddenly "see" that the idea that you have a "self" which could be "superior" or "inferior" is nonsensical, it is also incredibly liberating. This, in fact, is the cognitive therapy version of spiritual "enlightenment." And that's also one of the goals of the TEAM-CBT that my collegues and I have created.
by David Burns
Although Wittgenstein did not focus [on] emotional problems, his solution to all the problems of philosophy is very similar to cognitive therapy. Here is the parallel: You don't try to solve the classic "free will" problem. Instead, you see through it and give it up as nonsensical, as language that's "out of gear," so to speak. Once you "see this," and understand why it is true, it is incredibly liberating. But it can be a lonely experience, because you suddenly "see" something super-obvious that seems to be invisible to 99.9% of humans. It's as if you had a "third eye," and could see something incredible that people with only two eyes cannot see.
By the same token, when you suddenly "see" that the idea that you have a "self" which could be "superior" or "inferior" is nonsensical, it is also incredibly liberating. This, in fact, is the cognitive therapy version of spiritual "enlightenment." And that's also one of the goals of the TEAM-CBT that my collegues and I have created.
“An entire mythology is stored within our language.”
“Hell isn't other people. Hell is yourself." [Wittgenstein commenting on Sartre's "Hell is other people.”]
― Ludwig Wittgenstein
“Hell isn't other people. Hell is yourself." [Wittgenstein commenting on Sartre's "Hell is other people.”]
― Ludwig Wittgenstein
A Quiet Ego Quiets Death Anxiety: Humility as an Existential Anxiety Buffer
The recognition of the dark side of the self has generated an interest in the “quiet ego” in recent years (Wayment & Bauer, 2008).
The recognition of the dark side of the self has generated an interest in the “quiet ego” in recent years (Wayment & Bauer, 2008).
• Ecosystem vs. egosystem perspectives (Crocker, 2008)
• Hypoegoic self-processes (Leary & Guadagno, 2011)
• A quieter ego would be less under the “curse of the self” (Leary, 2004).
Frontiers | Me, myself, and I: self-referent word use as an indicator of self-focused attention in relation to depression and anxiety
Self-focused attention (SFA) is considered a cognitive bias that is closely related to depression. However, it is not yet well understood whether it represen...
www.frontiersin.org
Self-focused attention (SFA) is considered a cognitive bias that is closely interconnected with the experience of acute and chronic negative affect (Mor and Winquist, 2002). It is defined as “an awareness of self-referent, internally generated information that stands in contrast to an awareness of externally generated information derived through sensory receptors” (Ingram, 1990, p. 156)...
SFA in the context of negative but not positive events is associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety, and more strongly with depression...
The present findings close a gap in the literature by showing for the first time that first-person pronoun use during negative but not positive memory recall is positively related to brooding which is considered the more maladaptive subcomponent of ruminative self-focus.
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Why Your ‘True Self’ Is An Illusion
Most people believe they have a "true self" deep down that is fundamentally morally good. They don't, but the belief affects the way everyone behaves and sees the world.
www.vice.com
A more positive spin for this thread:
www.psychologytoday.com
"An expanded sense of self is a strong sense of self. It is a self that is centered, connected, and confident. The alternative, which is stagnation or contraction, often leads to a life of frustration and dissatisfaction. In psychology, self-expansion theory asserts that a satisfied life comes from a person’s ability to expand and grow throughout their lives."
Expand Your Sense of Self With Creativity
Creativity coach Michele Jennae provides top tips on the creative life.
www.psychologytoday.com
"An expanded sense of self is a strong sense of self. It is a self that is centered, connected, and confident. The alternative, which is stagnation or contraction, often leads to a life of frustration and dissatisfaction. In psychology, self-expansion theory asserts that a satisfied life comes from a person’s ability to expand and grow throughout their lives."
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