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So far, we have divided the theories about the self into two categories: ego theories that bring a kind of permanent continuity and bundle theories that do not. Egotheories make it difficult to design testable hypotheses and bundle theories have no explanation for the fact that people feel that they have a self. Egotheories have something like the idea of a Cartesian theater, in which the self perceives all sorts of things. It is difficult to deny that the self exists. We do have the feeling that we have a self. James has written a lot about consciousness and self. His work is mainly about how the self feels. We feel that we have a personal identity. Central to this is continuity and unity of the self. We also feel that our thoughts are ours and are close to us; in this we distinguish and differ from others. He distinguishes between what he calls:the empirical self or objective person ('me') andsubjective thoughts or the pure ego ('I').The empirical self is easy to deal with and contains three aspects:the material self; consistsing of the body, clothes, belongings, family and friends,the social self; which is about someone's reputation and what image others have of that person and how he esponds to them,subjective experiences, which are the source of attention and effort.James states that the pure ego ('I') is difficult to describe. According to some, the pure ego stands for the mind and according to others is invented. The latter group therefore believes that the self does not exist. James rejects both ideas and goes for a middle way.James sees continuity of the self only as a potential: the thought is a temporary administrator of other thoughts. James' theory is not able to give an explanation to for how and why the existence of temporary human language is connected with the functioning of our minds. James states that his theory is between the...
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The problem of consciousness is related to some of the oldest questions of philosophy: what does the world consist of? Who am I? It relates to the mind-body problem: what is the relationship between the physical and the mental?
Despite the fact that we are learning more and more about the functioning of the brain, consciousness remains a mystery. In the past, they used the term 'élan vital' to explain how non-living things could be made alive. Nowadays this concept is no longer used, since we know that biological processes are responsible for this. Some scientists believe that the same will also happen with the term consciousness. Once we understand how brain processes create a sense of consciousness, then we might not need to use this term anymore.
Consciousness requires some sort of dualism: objectivity vs. subjectivity, inner vs. outer, mind vs. body...
For example: Take a pencil in your hand and look at it. You see the pencil from your own unique perspective, which you cannot share with others. The pencil is part of the outside world, your experience with the pencil is part of your inner world.
The way philosophers view the consciousness problem can generally be divided into monist theories, which suggest that there are one kind of things in the world, and dualist theories, which suggest that there are two kinds of things. Some theories state that the mental world is fundamental and some theories state that the physical world is fundamental.
Monistic theories assume that the world consists of only one kind of matter (body or mind). Some monistic theories state that everything consists of the mind, according to these theories we only have ideas and perceptions of a pencil. We do not know if a pencil really exists. People who assume this are called mentalists or idealists. Berkeley supported this principle. The disadvantage of this perspective is that we can never know for certain whether objects with fixed characteristics exist.
Materialists are also monists. They believe that there is only matter. An example for this is the identity theory, which states that mental experiences are the same as physical experiences. Another example is functionalism, which assumes that mental experiences are the same as functional experiences.
Epiphenomenalism assumes that physical processes cause mental events, but that mental events have no effect on physical events. Huxley was a supporter of this idea. He did not deny that consciousness or subjective experiences existed, but stated that they have no (causal) connection with physical processes. He used
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