The Buddhist take here would be that when you actually hone your attention, introspection reveals not a unified consciousness but a stream of discrete events: thought, visual perception, tactile, tactile, thought,…
The default is to not have enough resolution to perceive the edges.
Under this view, the unification is an illusion or an appearance, analogously to how we perceive fluorescent lights to be continuous even though they are actually flickering on and off at a high rate. The difference being, our eyes have a hardware limit on temporal resolution, whereas for attention the relevant limit here is just “software”.
Bundle theories of the self, inspired by David Hume, view the self as a collection of experiences, memories, and thoughts rather than a fixed entity. This perspective sees the self as dynamic and changing, without strict borders, yet maintaining a high degree of order and stability over time. While rejecting the idea of a core self, it doesn't advocate for "no self" or "many selves," but rather a gradualist approach that acknowledges the fuzzy distinction between self and other. The speaker emphasizes that this view doesn't negate the practical existence of individuals or invalidate logical thinking. Instead, it suggests that different levels of description are valid for understanding reality, and that metaphysical views about the self don't necessarily dictate how one should live their life.
There is an important issue with reducing this problem to linguistic conventions of how we use words.
'This block of ice is actually made up of lot of atoms and will melt away soon, but meanwhile it is a useful abstraction to treat it as a single block'
Compatibilists tackle the free-will issue in a similar way, Dennet says something like 'This chess program is perfectly deterministic, but it has free will - Even its programmer has to guess, as to what is its next move.'
The above usage of terms is OK at some level, but there is something independent of definitions - How we actually see the self, and the cause of actions. When somebody insults me, does it feel like the insult is describing I/me or does it feel like describing a bundle of thoughts/habits? Was the bad thing done by 'me' or was it done by desire and anger? Even if these are processes, we can't help but reify them into unitary agents and actions.
A major claim made by Hindu/Buddhist teachings is that once there is a shift in *internal perception* of how actions are happening, towards a more analytical view which breaks up the ego(ahamkara), this causes a major shift leading to liberation from cycles of suffering.
In Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, there is an analysis of thoughts and feelings behind actions, with a goal of liberation from chronic problems. This is very similar to a stage of manana(intellectual contemplation of certain statements in Vedanta).
With regard to your question about who or what is being insulted, Perhaps the first thing to note is that we are to others what they have observed of us, modified by what their theory of mind intuits from those observations. The former, and even more so the latter, are not all that reliable, though they are all we have to go on.
The way I think is it is like a pattern trying to maintain itself. Pattern is the ghost in the machine. But the pattern isn't significant in itself in that apart from continuing its existence there is no other requirement. It's just that intelligence either individual or collective helps in continuing the pattern further. Self in that sense is like a soliton on a water surface.
Yes, we misrepresent others constantly. A more basic point is that we are misrepresenting ourselves - Without a clear, detailed vision of thought/emotion flow, statements like 'I did this' are reifying this flow into an agent(not as a convenient abstraction to stand for a group of thoughts, but a felt sense that there is an 'I' actually doing something).
Thanks for sharing! I think these are probably the lines of reasoning that best bridge from Western philosophical traditions to the Buddhist ones.
Anatta seems to be one of the trickiest subjects in Buddhism, not least because there is a very wide range of theories across the different traditions. Some traditions literally claim nothing exists (the solipsist position?) whereas some are very clearly stating “not Self, not No-Self” ie some middle position that should probably be understood contextually against Hindu notions of eternal self that were the ground truth at the time of Buddhism’s formation.
I think the “traditional” Buddhist position is something fairly similar to Hume’s view as Bundle theory.
Or, in a nutshell, Buddhism says consciousness isn't continuous - it's pulse-width modulated[0].
There's many things in life that can be modeled this way, and I kind of forgot about this insight until your comment. I guess this is the flip side of the "refrigerator light error"[1] - sometime the thing isn't "on", it's flickering too fast to notice.
(And the way you get that "unification" is like the way RGB LEDs are made: by putting three differently colored LED close to each other, PWM-ing them independently, relying on limited temporal and spatial resolution of human perception to make this looks like arbitrarily-colored point light.).
[1] - How's that even a thing? I don't even remember thinking this way as a kid, because the first fridge-light-related memory I have is of opening the fridge doors slowly and gently enough to see the point at which the light turns on, then locating the switch and pressing it with my fingers to confirm.
The trouble with this idea is that, if there is no unity to the thoughts whatsoever -- as some seem to say -- then any kind of rational thought is impossible.
If there is no unity to the thoughts, then there is no single principle that unites the thoughts. If there is no single principle that unites them, then there is no single, unchanging person having them. If there is no unchanging person having the thoughts, then there is no connection between the thoughts. If there is no connection between the thoughts, then there is "right" or "wrong" relationship between the thoughts.
This makes all logical thought impossible, and means there cannot be correct or incorrect thinking.
But if this is the case, then any argument in favour of the position just outlined -- or any other, contrary position -- is neither right nor wrong. So everything becomes absurd.
(I don't think this is what the OP link is saying, btw -- he may think that, but his argument seems to discuss experience rather than ontology.)
Discreteness doesn't imply there is no relation in the sequence. For instance, consider a processor in a robot processing sensations at clock cycle speed.
The memory chip or processor cores or software cant be used as a basis for unity, because a relation between successive elements of the sequence is not the same as there being an underlying unity as all parts can be individually swapped out in upgrades (like in the Ship of Theseus).
Buddhist vipassana descriptions use the analogy of seeing a line of ants - From afar, they look like a single black line, but on going nearby one sees the discrete nature. Similarly, on becoming adept at mind noting practice, one can see thoughts/sensations this way.
(Not saying that I agree with the above take, as I do think there is an underlying consciouness which gives unity, but here I am attempting to steelman the argument. Also, as you indicate, the original article is talking about a different aspect - unity at a single time vs unity across moments, and a discussion of how reflection alters the contents of consciousness.)
Of course there is unity to thoughts, but that unity just boils down to ordinary cause-and-effect. There's nothing out there in the real world that points to a "single, unchanging" person or entity having the thoughts, if only because people in general are constantly affected by their surrounding environment, quite far from being "unchanging".
> If there is no unity to the thoughts, then there is no single principle that unites the thoughts.
Not sure what this means. Buddhists would say “everything is a formation”
> If there is no single principle that unites them, then there is no single, unchanging person having them.
This is the core teaching of Buddhism, so we can just start from here.
> If there is no unchanging person having the thoughts, then there is no connection between the thoughts
This is a non-sequitur. In the Buddhist view, each thought or mental moment is conditioned upon the previous one(s).
There is nothing in “logical thought”, or even illogical/emotional thought that logically requires a self. Thoughts can arise, like pure functions operating on their inputs, and returning some output into the global workspace. Subsequent thoughts can compose those previous ones, or consume new sense percepts that are emitted by the sense organs.
Now as a matter of empirical fact this model could be wrong, but I don’t think your attempt to disprove it with logic succeeds.
Thought can't be reduced to a sequence of states, or functions acting on each other. I've tried to explain why in some other comments on HN. But let's grant that it can be so reduced for the sake of argument. I think even then, your position is impossible.
>> If there is no unchanging person having the thoughts, then there is no connection between the thoughts
> This is a non-sequitur.
You're right, I apologise. I should replace 'person' with 'thing' -- then it ceases to be a non-sequitur. I'll try to explain why:
> Thoughts can arise, like pure functions operating on their inputs, and returning some output into the global workspace.
This presupposes unity. Suppose, in case A, the thought "2+2" leads to the further thought "4". Let's suppose, further, that this is the case of a pure function operating on its input ("2+2") and returning the output ("4").
Suppose, in case B, exactly the same, but it returns the output "5".
I assume we agree that A is correct and B is incorrect.
You can affirm that the content of case A has some kind of unity underlying it, or you can deny it. (We could argue about the precise nature of the unity, but let us simply say that it is some kind of unity.) If you deny it, then you must say that there is no connection between 2+2 and 4. Connection presupposes something that connects. If there is no connection, then there is nothing that makes case A correct. That obviously undermines the possibility of any argumentation or logical thoughts. Alternatively, you can affirm the proposition. I think your position requires you affirm it, because by positing any kind of sequence, or function operating on an input and returning an output, you are positing unity. A sequence of any kind has a unity to it, otherwise it wouldn't be a sequence.
So in positing a sequence, you're positing unity. And in positing unity, you're positing something that unites, and that is different from that which is united. Such a thing must change from having the thought "2+2" to the thought "4", but it must persist as something underlying these changes in order for the changes to have any unity, and therefore for the arithmetic to have any coherence.
So we must logically get to the existence of something that persists while changing.
Obviously we could argue about what that thing is -- specifically, whether it's a person. We could also argue about when it comes in and goes out of existence. But the fact that there is a thing that persists in one sense, even as it changes in another, is all I'm trying to demonstrate here. I think once that's demonstrated, the position you're arguing is undermined.
> This makes all logical thought impossible, and means there cannot be correct or incorrect thinking.
No, this is conflating paradigms. If this were true, you would expect the same Buddhist texts not to mention "right" and "wrong", and boy do they ever.
> If there is no single principle that unites them, then there is no single, unchanging person having them. If there is no unchanging person having the thoughts, then there is no connection between the thoughts.
I don't think either of these implications obviously holds, except possibly by idiosyncratic definition in the first case. (Surely nobody thinks a person having thoughts is unchanged by them, or else we'd all just be static.)
Even if most of us do not have a real unity in thoughts, there may be a potential -- i.e. a possibility to attain unity with a long, sustained effort. Because such long, sustained effort is rare, the real unity in thoughts is rare.
That’s Hume and it is indeed devastating. Only Kant had an answer, but not everyone likes it.
Simple things like causality break down if you consider events to be discrete and unconnected. I believe modern AI research could do with someone (re)thinking some of this stuff.
Kant has a solution, but it requires letting go of ever knowing True Reality(tm).
Yes. Rationality is an illusion. Rational deduction depends on "implication" which is not actually a thing in physical reality.
> there is no single, unchanging person having them
This is the essential breakthrough that Buddha had: all things are impermanent and if you go looking for yourself you eventually find that there is no "self" there.
> there cannot be correct or incorrect thinking
Yes, thoughts are totally irrelevant to living. They are just a sort of fun window dressing. It's possible to "switch off" all thinking and still function. The body carries out all it's activities including talking to other people but "you" are not "doing" anything. It's pleasant. (I typically do it while washing the dishes.)
> But if this is the case, then any argument in favour of the position just outlined -- or any other, contrary position -- is neither right nor wrong. So everything becomes absurd.
No. The above is a description of the situation, not an argument that can be invalidated.
If rationality is an illusion, then rationality is both an illusion and not an illusion, and all things are impermanent and permanent in the same respect, and Buddha both did and didn't have the breakthrough you describe, and you are both right and wrong in everything you write here, and so on.
Temporally they are not unified, but spatially they are. I am referring to the relational representation space, or the "embedding" space. We know that from neural nets, they use high dimensional vectors for language, vision and other modalities. This representation space is where we go from raw inputs to semantics.
The cool thing about this semantic space is that it emerges in unsupervised manner, and makes learning concepts so much easier, is as easy as identifying a point or sub-volume and assigning a label. It can relate any idea to any other idea. Being created from an agent's past experiences, it is first person and captures all the qualitative nuances of qualia.
I think this representation space is what we refer to when we say consciousness is unified.
> I think this representation space is what we refer to when we say consciousness is unified.
I don’t think this is what OP meant, and this is not what Buddhists are talking about RE: unified vs discrete conscious experience. It really is about temporality as I originally noted.
As in, are the actual qualia that you experience somehow a single continuous thing, even though they cross multiple sense modalities, and may interleave with complex/compount thoughts? Or are they a sequence of atoms arising that are not a single thing?
I do think embedding spaces are a great concept, but I don’t think they bear on qualia very much.
Well, that doesn't capture the whole story. If I punch your leg, you experience these "discrete" events simultaneously: the feeling of being punched, the sound of being punched, the visual phenomenon of me punching you.
Your brain uses a combination of signal delay and anticipation/prediction in order to create a seamless experience that holds until the temporal discrepancy between events is too large. So there is some cyclic, recursive element to consciousness which is not adequately explained by a linear stream of discrete events.
Indeed, there is some more detail around attention (foreground) vs. awareness (background), but the claim really is that in your foreground attention there can only be one object at a time. In your example the three sense modalities would occur sequentially in consciousness, and the rapidity would make you think they were simultaneous.
But I think what you’re also getting at is that “object of attention” can be a surprisal signal from different layers, which I think must be true, and I do agree is something that needs to be accounted for. I didn’t go deep enough to speak to what Dharma theory would say about this.
How do you know whether the discrete events are a more fundamental representation vs a higher level representation that your training and discipline produces?
It’s a great question. I have come up with two answers (though I am far from an expert):
1) this is empirically verifiable; just do an RCT where you teach people a meditation technique for attention without prompting, and see what they observe. (I have heard comments from aspiring meditators like “I tried meditating but after a while I could not find “the breath” because it broke apart into a stream of individual sensations”) - but I do worry that techniques like “noting” smuggle in an atomizing assumption, whereas other techniques like whole-body perception or Metta might lead you to a more unifying viewpoint if practiced exclusively.
2) maybe it doesn’t matter if it’s “more fundamental”; if you wire your brain to deeply believe that it is, then a bunch of positive effects occur, and that’s the goal of the whole exercise. The words “this is more fundamental” are just a cue to help you to shift. This feels less palatable to me but I haven’t seen the rewards, and if they were as good as promised maybe this would be justified.
Anyway, I’m not sure many Buddhists would endorse 2), even among the secular / non-religious/ scientific minority of the community.
You don't. Everything is mental fabrication, including calling some mental fabrications illusion. You train your mind to fabricate things that you prefer. Whether they are more fundamental or higher-level representations doesn't matter.
The default is to not have enough resolution to perceive the edges.
Under this view, the unification is an illusion or an appearance, analogously to how we perceive fluorescent lights to be continuous even though they are actually flickering on and off at a high rate. The difference being, our eyes have a hardware limit on temporal resolution, whereas for attention the relevant limit here is just “software”.