Where Self Comes From

When you look at a cup, your brain creates a representation of that cup in order for it to enter your consciousness. As we have discussed, the cup in your head is at the object-level . In fact, the information being transmitted to the brain is much more than will ultimately enter into consciousness. Consciousness does not have the bandwidth to accommodate all of the real-world data pertaining to the cup and its position on the table. The brain binds relevant data and sends the bound image to your consciousness. I believe scientists have established this much to their mutual satisfaction. The brain creates a singularity out of the diverse data bits from which it gets to choose. As the British biologist Richard Dawkins puts it, ˜˜Maybe [self] consciousness arises when the brains simulation of the world becomes so complete that it creates a model of itself.

Of course we dont really know for sure where self comes from. Thats one problem with the meta-world. It posits the existence of things that cant be touched or proven. The meta-level specializes in things that are over and above the facts of the world. In our case, at the object-level we have our bodies, our activities, our histories, our connections with other people and things. The binding of all of these aspects of our lives into a singularity is a meta-level creation. As such, self is evanescent. Our identity is never as fixed as we think it should be.

For example, many people experience what some refer to as a spiritual crisis. When someone goes through such a period, he asks himself things like, ˜˜Who am I? and ˜˜What is my meaning? I believe these questions flow very logically from our experience of self. Such a person at once has the visceral experience of ˜˜I exist, or, ˜˜I am, and the logical questions that flow from that experience˜˜But what am I? and ˜˜Why am I?is what theyre asking.

These questions are not to be treated lightly. As a coach I help people who are facing such crises of meaning to first experience the loneliness of the questions. People slowly need to embrace the possibility of there being no external, object-level answer to the question, ˜˜Who am I? other than ˜˜Whoever I want to be. The question, ˜˜What is my meaning? is answered , after some terror over the fact there is nothing forthcoming, with, ˜˜Whatever I take on as my meaning. Initially people hope there is some externally assigned answer. But there isnt. There is personal choice.

Our sense of self, when it is independent of the object-level, is pretty much limited to the judgments that cross its mind. These can be positive judgments , as in, ˜˜What a lovely sunset! Or they can be negative ones, as in, ˜˜That man is evil! But when the sense of self is grounded in object-level thoughts, we have more down-to-earth reactions like, ˜˜Sitting at my computer, reading this message, John is asking for help.

There is no sense of independent ˜˜I in this statement. It is a peaceful, nonjudgmental experience of the object-level. There is no sense of a self, busy making value judgments or moving to defend itself or commence an attackthere is no ego.