Eastern philosophy says that there is no “self”. Science agrees

The individual endowed with the power of the brain, variously called the self, ego, mind, or “me,” is at the center of Western thought. From the West’s worldview, we herald the greatest thinkers as world-changers. There is no more succinct example of this than the philosopher René Descartes’ famous statement, “Cogito, Ergo sumor, “I think, therefore I exist.” But who is this? Let’s take a closer look at the thinker, or “I”, that we all take for granted.

Western view: the soul is a pilot

This “I” for most of us is the first thing that comes to our mind when we think about who we are. The “I” represents the idea of ​​our individual self, the one that sits between the ears and behind the eyes and that “drives” the body. The “pilot” is in charge, it doesn’t change much, and it feels like the thing that brings our thoughts and feelings to life. He observes, makes decisions and carries out actions – just like the pilot of an aircraft.

This ego/ego is what we think of as our true selves, and it is this individual self that experiences and controls things like thoughts, feelings, and actions. The pilot itself feels like it’s running the show. It is stable and persistent. It also controls our physical body; For example, this self is aware that it is “my body.” But unlike our physical body, it does not see itself as changing or ending (except, perhaps for atheists, physical death), or affected by anything other than itself.

The eastern view: the self is an illusion

Now let’s move to the east. Buddhism, Taoism, the Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism, and other schools of Eastern thought have a very different view of the self, ego, or “I”. They say this idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe “I” is fiction, although it is very convincing. Buddhism has a word for this concept – Anatawhich is often translated as “no-self” – which is one of, if not the most important, fundamental tenets of Buddhism. the the most important.

This idea seems radical, even irrational, to those trained in the Western tradition. It seems to contradict our everyday experience, even our whole sense of being. But in Buddhism and other schools of Eastern thought, self-concept is seen as the result of a thinking mind. The thinking mind reinvents the self from moment to moment so that it is in no way similar to the coherent, stable self it thinks it is.

In other words, it is the thought process that creates the self, rather than a self having any independent existence separate from thought. The self is closer to the verb than to the noun. To take it a step further, the implication is that without thought, the self, in fact, does not exist. In the same way that walking exists only when walking, the self exists only when there are thoughts about it. As a neuropsychologist, I can say that, in my view, science is now catching up to what Buddhists, Taoists, and Advaita Vedanta Hindus taught over 2,500 years ago.

There is no “self center” in the brain

The great success story of neuroscience has been brain mapping. We can refer to the language center, the facial processing center, and the center for understanding the emotions of others. Practically every function of the mind has been assigned to the brain with one important exception: the self. Perhaps this is because these other functions are stable and consistent, while the story of the self is hopelessly creative with much less stability than assumed.

While many neuroscientists have claimed that the self resides in this or that neural location, there is no real agreement among the scientific community as to where to find it—not even whether it is on the left or right side of the brain. Perhaps the reason we can’t find ourselves in the brain is just that There is not.

Why are you not happy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think about, and everything you do, is yours – and there isn’t one.

Wei Wu Wei

This can be a difficult point to understand, mainly because we got it wrong practical of thinking it is real something For a long time. It will take some time to see the idea of ​​”me” as just an idea rather than a reality. Your illusory self – the voice in your head – is very convincing. It tells the world, defines your beliefs, brings back your memories, learns about your physical body, makes your predictions of what might happen in the future, and creates your judgments about the past. This sense of self is what we feel from the moment we open our eyes in the morning until the moment we close them at night. It seems so important, so it often comes as a shock when I tell people that based on my work as a neuropsychiatrist, the word “me” just doesn’t exist — at least not in the way we do. He thinks that it.

The big difference between Eastern spiritual traditions and psychology is that the former grasped this empirically and the latter did so empirically (and coincidentally, for that matter). And, in my view, this means that those who study and teach psychology are still largely unable to appreciate the implications of these findings.

Accidental discovery

As a background matter, it is important to remember that the brain has two mirror hemispheres that are connected by a large bundle of fibers called the corpus callosum. In research done to try to alleviate epilepsy, Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga believed that by severing this bridge between the two sides of the brain, seizures would be easier to control. They were right, and Sperry won a Nobel Prize in 1981 for this work.

While each side of the brain is specialized to perform certain types of tasks, both sides are usually in constant communication. When this connection was severed, it became possible to study the function of each side of the brain in isolation. With the two sides separated in these epileptic patients, scientists can test each on its own and gain insight into the functional differences between the right and left sides of the brain. These patients were referred to as ‘split-brain’ patients.

To understand this research, it is also important to know that the body is synaptic—that is, all inputs and outputs from the right hemisphere of the body cross over and are processed by the left brain, and vice versa. This intersection also applies to vision, so that the left half of what we see goes to the right side of the brain, and vice versa. Again, this only became apparent in split-brain patients. Research into these subjects has led to one of the most important discoveries about the left side of the brain – a discovery that has not been fully appreciated by modern psychology or the general public.

In one of Gazzaniga’s experiments, the researchers presented the word “walk” to a patient’s right brain only. The patient immediately responded to the request and stood up and began to leave the van in which the test was taking place. When the patient’s left brain, which is responsible for language, was asked why he was walking, the interpreter came up with a plausible idea, but in full incorrect Interpretation: “I’m going home to get a cola.”

In another exercise, the word “laughter” was presented to the right brain and the patient complied. When asked why she was laughing, her left brain responded with a joke: “You guys come up and test us every month. What a way to make a living!” Remember, the correct answer here would be, “I got up because you asked me to” and “I laughed because you asked me to,” but since the left brain can’t access these requests, it formed a response and believed them instead of saying, “I don’t know why you did that.” just yet”.

Untrustworthy translator

Gazzaniga determined that the left side of the brain creates explanations and reasons to help understand what is going on around us. The left brain acts as a “translator” of reality. Furthermore, Gazzaniga finds that this compiler, as in the examples cited, is often completely and completely mistake. This discovery should have rocked the world, but most people hadn’t even heard of it.

Think about the importance of this for a moment. The left brain was simply making explanations, or stories, of events that were happening in a way that made sense to that side of the brain, or as if it directed action. None of these interpretations were correct, but that did not matter to the interpretive mind, which was convinced that its interpretations were the correct ones.

Over the past 40 years, many additional studies have shown this The left side of the brain excels at creating an explanation for what’s going on, even if it’s not trueEven in people with normal brain function. For example, all things being equal, we prefer what’s on the right side, but almost no one knows this, so the researchers presented participants without prior brain injury three nearly identical items and asked what they preferred. There was an obvious right preference, but when asked why, they made up a completely wrong story like, “I just like color more.” Even when the researchers told them the study idea, the participants’ left brains couldn’t help but believe the stories it created.

The truth is, your left brain has been interpreting reality for you your whole life, and if you’re like most people, you’ve never understood the full implications of this. This is because we get the story wrong about who we are I think we are Who we really are.

Uncontrollable inner voice

Most of us live our lives under the guidance of the interpreter, and this makes the mind our master, and we are not even aware of it. We may feel angry, offended, sexually aroused, happy, or afraid, and not question the validity of these thoughts and experiences. While it is clear that these experiences happen to us, we somehow retain the idea that we are still responsible for everything.

Test that out and test the interpreter firsthand rather than assuming it’s who you are. For the rest of the day, notice if the inner voice creates theories to explain what is happening. The voice might say, “This person seems happy,” “This person seems smart,” or “Maybe I shouldn’t have sent that email.” If these stories are who you are, you should be able to turn them off. can you? This is another way to test this. Read the next two numbers but don’t complete the pattern by filling in the blank using your inner voice. 3,2,_. Did your inner voice finish the pattern and say “one”? Try again, and really try not to finish the pattern in your head. Next time it’s an intrusive thought, bear in mind the fact that your inability to stop it proves that there is no inner self controlling it.

Science supports the eastern view

So, for the first time in history, the findings of scholars in the West strongly, in many cases without any meaning, support one of the most basic ideas in the East: that the individual self is more akin to a fictional figure than to a real one. something.

Why is all this important? The unfortunate truth is that each and every one of us will experience a lot of mental pain, misery, and frustration in our lives. Mistaking the voice in our heads for something and calling it “I” brings us into conflict with the neuropsychological evidence that shows there is no such thing. This error – this illusory sense of self – is the main cause of our mental suffering. When you can’t sleep at night, is it because you’re worried about a stranger’s problems, or is it for you Problems that keep you awake? For most of us, we worry about it for me business problems, for me Money problems, and for me Relationship problems. What would happen if we removed the “self” from these problems?

I distinguish psychological suffering from physical pain. pain It happens in the body and is a physical reaction – like when you bump your toe or break your arm. the suffering I’m talking about what just happens in the mind and describe things like anxiety, anger, worry, regret, jealousy, shame, and a host of other negative mental states. I know it is a big pretense to say that all of these kinds of suffering are the result of an illusory sense of self. For now, the essence of this idea has been brilliantly captured by the Taoist philosopher and author Wei Wu Wei When He writes“Why aren’t you happy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, of everything you do, belongs to you – and there isn’t one.”