S Is the Self Real? (Hood, The Self Illusion, 2012)

 Bruce Hood. The Self Illusion. (2012) An excellent overview of the implications of neurological

research on questions of awareness, both of the external world and of the self. Hood’s reporting of the research is IMO fair, based on my (gappy) knowledge derived from reading several dozen miscellaneous sources.

I think that the term “illusion” is unfortunate, since it suggests that the Self is not real. It is as real as all the other simulations generated by the brain. I note that the Self is centred on the body, and that my sensations of my body’s shape and colour etc are the same kind as my sensations of the shapes and colours of other bodies and objects in the world around me. So I conclude that these sensations are simulations, not illusions. As simulations, they must match reality well enough that I can do whatever it takes to survive and procreate. Evolution rewards mechanisms that enable those processes, so I conclude that the simulation my brain creates is good enough for those purposes.

Study of other organisms has revealed that their senses are not exactly the same as ours, so presumably their simulations of reality are different. This stance suggests that the famous conundrum about what it’s like to be a bat can be reframed as not knowing what a bat’s simulation of reality is like. But then we can’t know exactly what another human’s simulation is like either. A favourite question of my students was “How do we know that we see red the same way?” The answer is, we don’t. But we can tell whether we see the same differences between red and green. If we don’t, the we agree that one of us is red-green colour blind.

This principle of comparing perceptions underlies all scientific research. Science has expanded from describing and classifying perceptions to recording measurements and devising mathematical models that predict the measurements. If we record the same measurements, then presumably we have stumbled on some constant in the simulations, and may infer that this implies some constant aspect of reality.

Hood spends some time discussing free will, and concludes that free will is also an illusion. There is no free will because all decisions are determined by a multiplicity of factors, starting with how our genes and environments interact to produce our individual brains. He reports cases of how tumours have changed people’s personalities and perceptions, and how removing the tumours has changed people more or less to back to what they were. It’s clear that if perceptions and altitudes change when the brain is damaged in some way then the notion of free-willed choice becomes questionable at least. That’s important because of our assignment of moral and hence sometimes of criminal guilt.

It seems to me that this approach to the free will problem misses the point. As framed, there is no way to distinguish between a freely willed and a determined choice. Both ways of choosing finally depend on preferences. Reasoning cannot choose, it can only present options. Whether our brain simulates a free choice, or we actually perform one, the result is the same. For free choice will act on options exactly like determined choice. Basically, we choose. Hood argues that insight into factors that influence or determine choice, and the extent to which the chooser cannot control them, should guide our notions of guilt and responsibility. I think he’s right.

All in all, a book well worth reading. ****