Imaginal self

November 10th, 2023

I think the question „What is a self” is wrong and misleading. I think the question should be “Is there such a thing as a self at all?” because looking at that subject tells me that there is a possibility that, as far as we can know — nobody has ever been or had a self. Really. Hear me out — and I don’t want to go into this subject from the standpoint of modern philosophy of mind or from an understanding of cognitive neuroscience. I don’t have the brains to understand concepts in this matter thrown from both sides.

What I understand is the fact I have a few kilos of grey matter in my head with numerous nervous receptors — so how my thoughts and emotions and sense of self can arise there? How something that is invisible and untouchable and unquantifiable as self-consciousness and self-worth can arise in a purely physical object as my brain is. To the best of our current knowledge — there is no such thing, no indivisible entity that is ME or YOU, neither in my brain nor in the metaphysical realm beyond. Since the conscious experience of our life is a subjective phenomenon, what exactly is that entity that has those experiences? And not only has them, but it can also adjust and modify itself to them and react, predict, and plan ahead based on received stimuli.

And most of all — imagine and then create things that weren't there ever before. How can my creative and imaginative self come from a physical object like my brain? How ethereal can come up from the material?