It had been a while since the Great God Amazon blessed me with another book about how our usual conception of the self is an illusion. But after prayerfully searching for "neuroscience" titles, my faith was rewarded with No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology is Catching Up to Buddhism, by Chris Niebauer.
This won't be my favorite book is this genre, but I'm enjoying the first part of it.
I did peek ahead to a later chapter on consciousness and was disappointed to see positive mentions of Rupert Sheldrake. That's an annoyance. However, what I've read so far seems neuroscientifically correct. Niebauer has a Ph.D. in cognitive neuropsychology so that's to be expected. I'll give him a pass on the Sheldrake mentions if that's the only woo-woo stuff in his book.
On the plus side, after I read his chapter on "Language and Categories" this morning I had a strangely satisfying insight that left me feeling lighter and more relaxed. I say strangely because Niebauer didn't say anything that I didn't already know. He just said it in a way that made me feel a bit differently about my own beliefs and conceptions.
The lead-up to that chapter was "Meet the Interpreter." Here Niebauer described the experiments with split-brain patients whose connection between the left and right parts of the brain was severed, often in an attempt to prevent serious epileptic seizures. These experiments demonstrated that the left part of the brain is where language happens, providing interpretations of sensory information known to the right part.
For example, a split-brain patient had a picture of a chicken's foot presented to the left brain only, and a picture of a snow scene was shown to the right brain only. Then the patient was shown several pictures to both sides of the brain at the same time and asked to pick which was the most related to the original image they were shown.
The right brain pointed to a picture of a snow shovel while the left brain pointed to a picture of a chicken. Then the experimenter asked "Why is your left hand pointing to a snow shovel?" (The input and output from each side of the body is processed by the opposite side of the brain; so the right brain used the left hand to point to the snow shovel.) Niebauer writes:
Keep in mind, when the experimenter was talking to the split-brain patient, he was talking only to the patient's left brain, since the left brain controls speech. The left brain should have said, "I haven't talked to the right brain in a long time, I don't know why it does what it does with that left hand," but it didn't.
Without hesitation, the left brain said, "Oh, that's simple: the chicken foot goes with the chicken and you need a shovel to clean out the chicken coop." The patient stated this with absolute confidence. Here is what's most important about this: the talking left side of the brain easily came up with a plausible and coherent, but completely incorrect explanation based on the evidence it had available.
That's interesting, but few of us are split-brain patients. So what meaning does that have for me? Niebauer explains.
Now I would invite you to think about the interpretive mechanism of your own mind in light of what I've just told you about these experiments. For instance, if something noticeable happens, say a person cuts you off in traffic, someone gets up and suddenly runs out of a room, or an attractive person looks at you a second longer than normal, you hear a voice in your head that creates an explanation of the event: "He is a jerk," "They must have forgotten something," or "He or she is interested in me."
Notice that those are all interpretations; they may be true or they may not be. However, because many people are not conscious of the left-brain interpreter, they can't even consider that their thoughts are interpretations, but rather feel secure they are seeing things "as they really are."
This passage moves the interpreter from the outside to the inside of us.
Because the left brain looks outward and only focuses on objects, categorizes them, and labels them, is it possible that it also looks inward and does the same thing? In other words, does the left brain see thought happening in the brain and continuously create a "thing" out of the process of thinking, which it then labels "me"?
Is the sense of self related to seeing patterns in randomness? Is it possible that the self we invest so much in is nothing more than a story to help explain our behaviors, the myriad events that go on in our lives, and our experiences in the world?
Have you ever looked up at the stars in the night sky or the clouds during the day and been convinced some pattern was out there? Is it possible that you might be making that same mistake every day when you look within and find an ego or self?
In his next chapter, Niebauer talks about categories.
Another characteristic of the left brain is its constant propensity to create categories. In fact, almost everything the left brain does, from language to its perception of objects in space, is categorial in nature.
What do we mean by category? Categories are just another type of map of reality. They are mental representations that don't exist "out there" in the world, but rather they are only in the human mind — the left side of the brain to be specific.
Categories are based on the left brain's ability to see differences and create opposites and are formed when things in the world that are continuous are grouped by some common features and then treated as one unit.
This has many benefits for us humans. But it also can lead us to wrongly believe that we know more about the world than we really do. This passage resonated with me. It left me with the aforementioned "lightness of being," because it reminded me that my beliefs, and everyone's beliefs, shouldn't be taken as seriously as most of us do.
Simply becoming aware of the interpreter and the endless categories it creates through judgment frees you from being tied to the inevitability of these judgments. That is to say, when you become conscious of the interpreter, you are free to choose to no longer take its interpretations so seriously.
In other words, when you realize that everyone's brain is constantly interpreting, in ways that are subjective and often inaccurate or completely incorrect, you might find yourself able to grasp this as "just my opinion" or "the way I see it" rather than "this is the way it is."
You being to see your judgments as simply a different line in the sand than others. When someone approaches you with a "this is the way it is" attitude, you can appreciate that this person is dominated by the left brain, that they are a servant to its master.
As a result, there is no need to take their actions or attitudes personally; it's a biological function that they have not yet recognized. This small perspective shift is enough to change how we live with each other and ourselves.
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https://joantollifson.substack.com/p/consciousness
Joan Tollifson on Chris Niebauer and Bernardo Kastrup
“that my beliefs, and everyone’s beliefs, shouldn’t be taken as seriously”
Absolutely. Not the beliefs per se.
But how someone arrives at, discusses, and defends those beliefs? Particularly whether they do that with honesty, with integrity? Surely *that* should be taken seriously?
And specifically when the whole point of the engagement is coherent discussion leading to better understanding? Surely that should *then* be taken seriously?
———-
“it’s a biological function that they have not yet recognized. (…). As a result, there is no need to take their actions or attitudes personally; it’s a biological function that they have not yet recognized. This small perspective shift is enough to change how we live with each other and ourselves.”
In as much as that is true of each and every thing about us, then I’m not sure why that’s relevant.
We’re essentially retreading Sapolsky. While I defer to Sapolsky the scientist, always: but Sapolsky the philosopher I believe I am, we all are, equipped to take head on if we are able to. No less than Penrose, or, indeed, Dawkins. And I’ve done that, and found Sapolsky incoherent. For reasons I’ve already explained at length.
Bottom line: The conclusion you draw? While we may “get on” with whom we like, and on whatever terms we like: but the left-brain-right-brain business would appear to be a non sequitur, irrelevant to that question.
And in any case: Functionally if one were to stop taking seriously those that, in some specific context, demonstrably are not worth taking seriously, in that specific context: then that, again, is surely a whole different question, that rests more on functionality than morality or ethics? …And how one gets on with someone, separately from that, is tautologically and obviously a wholly separate matter again, surely?
“In other words, when you realize that everyone’s brain is constantly interpreting, in ways that are subjective and often inaccurate or completely incorrect, you might find yourself able to grasp this as “just my opinion” or “the way I see it” rather than “this is the way it is.””
On what basis do we know that everyone’s thinking “is often inaccurate or completely incorrect”?
That sounds like a description of bedlam.
And how do we realize this if our own thinking isn’t to be trusted? How do we ultimately know the difference between true and false?
And what does it mean to “not take a person’s actions personally?” You’ve regularly written about your outrage over a variety of people, places and things. Was this just your left brain in action, or do you still hold those opinions as, your favorite word, reality? Given that we’ve never seen you retract or amend anything, never mind.
Hey, no blame, you’re no more judgmental than the rest of us. It’s OK to have opinions; as the saying goes, we’ve all got em. Dr. Neuroscience doesn’t want to acknowledge this. He’s pitching a pablum of everyone’s brains is faulty…yet we can trust our brains as we distrust everyone else’s brains, because we’ve woken up and they haven’t. Tommyrot!
This all points to the problem I have with this neuroscience. It boils down to a strategy of going through life with the notion that one’s opinions are golden, and everyone who disagrees with you as “dominated by their left brain.” Oh, the poor dears, their biological functions have gone awry…there’s something wrong with his medulla oblongata.”
Call me crazy…wait, the Phd already did…but isn’t there a less self-serving, more practical way of dealing with people who differ with us? Like maybe, take other people’s perspective seriously and cogitate on how it just might be in some way valid? In some way based on legitimate concerns that we may have overlooked?
That, instead of immediately dismissing their views as a product of their wonky brains?
“That, instead of immediately dismissing their views as a product of their wonky brains?”
Not “immediately”. Only after careful examination. Only then. (You can’t have forgotten, for instance, Aquinas.)
Then, when a pattern is discerned, of what is essentially trolling: *then* it is fine to dismiss such, immediately and automatically. …Even though that’s admittedly an ad hom, even so. Even though it’s possible the third time the boy crying wolf may actually have been set on by a pack, even so. …As a practicality, as a reasonable heuristic. Given life’s too short.
Just looked up Neibauer’s book and the review states: – “Niebauer writes that our sense of self, or what we commonly refer to as the ego, is an illusion created entirely by the left side of the brain. Niebauer is quick to point out that this doesn’t mean that the self doesn’t exist but rather that it does so in the same way that a mirage in the middle of the desert exists, as a thought rather than a thing.” Whether or not the left brain/right brain theory explains such things (and it seems to) as the self-illusion is interesting and who knows, it could later go to explain the other mental conundrums – mind and consciousness, perhaps (in the same way that a mirage in the middle of the desert exists).
Consciousness is indeed a concept when it is thought to be an entity, a thing called consciousness; the ‘ness’ adjective identifying it as something definite. On the other hand, to be conscious is a fact, not a concept and thereby a fact that can be explored by science to advance theories as to how the brain gives rise to it.
The term mind like self is not a thing, an entity but a concept that covers the entire range of mental faculties. We automatically use the term ‘mind’ as a convenience to explain what we are thinking or feeling. Investigation into the contents of mind show it to be the accumulation of information and experience. Again, this can be investigated by science to advance how the brain ‘stores’ and retrieves such info or memories.
Concepts are indeed valuable and are the first steps in querying something to arriving at workable and debatable theories. As Brian’s heading says:- “Obvious, but needs repeating: our conceptions may seem true, but often aren’t.”
Um, thanks. I get Joan Tollifson’s posts regularly. I read this post last March: – “I (J. T.) recently watched and then posted on my Facebook pages a video of Bernardo Kastrup and Francis Lucille discussing the question, “Is AI conscious?” Chris Niebauer then wrote this comment to my FB post: “The question itself is flawed, no thing is conscious. Consciousness gives the impression of things.”
When J. T. writes of consciousness I prefer awareness – or to be aware – a huge question. Whereas consciousness (or rather, being conscious) is relative to its content; consciousness is always of something – a secondary phenomenon.
@ Ron E.
You are welcome!
The last days the feeling to withdraw myself from kayaking this river of concepts has be come stronger and stronger … after all in order to drink coffee, I do not need to do it and it can easily become an distraction and worst a trap.
Some might find pleasure in these mental rapids, mastering them, and in doing so derive this or that personal satisfaction, but I don’t .. I never did.
If that’s cue for you to retreat from commenting, Um, then I’d like, very much, to shake your hand before you do that, if I may. For past times’ sake.
(Just don’t spoil it by uttering some more faux-wise nonsense, please! I’m allergic to charlatanry in all its shapes and forms, I’m afraid. And that includes going through the motions of discussion, rather than actually discussing.)
Cheers, old friend, and God bless.
Gurinder singh dillion is the leader of the rssb perception manipulation machine. The cult sucks you into its beliefs , that you are not worthy and they have the keys to heaven. Its all deception, lies, cold calculating manipulation, and a touch of dark magic. Gurinder and now jasdeep know who their master/ lord is and carry on spinning these lies without remorse- they are loving playing God here, but really they are dirty dogs wrotten to the core. They are the pied piper, with the fake shabad flute leading to kaals kingdom – jot niranjan, the light of the devil. Beware of this trap , even christ said there will be many false prophets – Gurinder and jasdeep and rssb cult is one of them.