What Does This Have To Do With Me?

Who is reading this sentence?

Answering that question might unveil an assumption that lies behind much of our built-up knowledge. That assumption is the existence of self.

One concept intertwined with that of self is that of volition (will, choice).

What is choosing?

Choosing feels like being the cause, origin and source of some particular action. But what basis do we have for this feeling? Can we describe it without making too many assumptions?

The concept of choice relies partly on two assumptions that we have already examined. One of these is cause-and-effect, such that choice is believed to cause an action. The other is the "somethingness" of self; self is believed to be distinct, capable of being separated from everything else such that it can be a unique cause.

These assumptions, which are at the very least questionable, are not necessary to describe the feeling of choosing. Having stripped away assumptions, we can say: choice is awareness of the idea of choosing, together with the immediately following awareness of expected sensations. Put concretely, the belief "I choose to lift my arm," really means, "I am aware of a feeling labelled 'choosing to lift my arm,' and this feeling is immediately followed by sights and feelings labelled 'my arm is lifted.'"

Put this way, the issue of "free will" versus "fate" is sidestepped at this point. Either (or neither) could be true without affecting this concept of volition.

As sensory experience flows -- sights, sounds, thoughts, volition -- the idea of "self" provides a tidy center to the flow.

Our vision takes the angle of our physical bodies' eyes; our hearing takes the orientation of our bodies' ears; and so on. The fact that there are exceptions -- dreams, hallucinations, moments of disorientation -- rarely causes us to question the idea of self as center.

The idea of center is tied very closely to our idea of an internal space-time grid. If space and time are not as we think they are, then the center might not be either.

In any case, it is by inference that we assume that there even is a center to the flow of awareness. We do not experience it directly.

It might be true that sensory experience behaves as if the physical body is a reference point -- but it behaves the same way in a dream or in a virtual-reality game. The intrepid seeker must at least allow the possibility that the center is not what it seems.

The assumption of the existence of "self" implies the possibility that there are other beings, each one a self, in the world.

Two philosophies, solipsism and monadism, take a different view.

Solipsism starts out by affirming that all I can directly know is my own experiences. The only reason to believe that someone else exists is by inference and analogy, which are not as authoritative as direct experience. In other words, I don't directly see, hear and feel anyone else's experiences, so I cannot be absolutely sure that anyone else even has experiences.

While this might seem ridiculous at first glance, two everyday situations illustrate the problem. First, special effects in movies can create the illusion of an intelligent being that perceives and thinks and feels, even though there is no such being. Second, when we dream, we sometimes have conversations with "other people" in the dream, but when we wake up, we do not generally believe that there really were other people there.

The solipsist merely observes that the existence of other people is a leap of faith made by inference and analogy, and that these are fallible.

Monadism takes a different approach, saying that while we each exist separately, there is no interaction between us. Our existences reflect the larger whole universe of which we are a part, and these reflections appear as interactions with other beings. In fact, according to monadism, there is a pre-established harmony or parallelism that makes it appear this way, and not causality or interaction.

Solipsism and monadism bring up important questions about the certainty of our knowledge, and whether it is possible that our assumptions could lead us drastically far from reality.

This brings us full circle to the assumption of "self." The assumption of self creates a dividing line in the universe. Some parts of the universe, on one side of the line, are labeled as the "self," and everything else is (by definition) "other." Once the line is drawn, self and other are defined.

What is the nature of this line? Is there any way to find out?

Next: Inside Knowledge