Skip to main content

Heart or head: where is your sense of self, your sense of I-ness?



Is your sense of self in your heart or in your head—or some other part of your body? Is your sense of self within your body at all, or is it a nebulous feeling and not really part of you? An article in Discover asked this very question (December 2014, www.discovermagazine.com), seeking to find the answer in children.

When Emma Harris, science writer, asked her four-year-old daughter where her “self” was, the child immediately pointed to her heart. This surprised Harris because she identified her “self” as “sitting behind my eyes.” When she asked her friends to ask their children, the answers ranged from the side of the head, inside the eyes, or their heart. So who is right?

In 2008 Italian researchers asked 59 participants, through structured interviews, to point on a human model “the I-that-perceives.” It resulted in 83% of them pointing between and behind their eyes.

In 2011 two German researchers showed 87 online participants a silhouette of a human form and asked them to indicate a spot where they believed their “self” was. Most indicated a point near their brain, while others indicated a point near their heart.

Two Danish researchers from the University of Copenhagen used physical pointers to locate the position of “self” with their participants. The sliding pointer travelled over their body and participants were asked to call out when the pointer hit a spot believed to be the “self.” However, they found that if the researchers began the movement of the pointer from the top of the body, most participants stopped at the upper face. When the researchers started the movement of the pointer from the feet, the same participants stopped the pointer at the upper torso (body). When questioned about the discrepancy, they said, “both felt right.”

How can researchers answer the abstract question without bias? And what does a sense of “self” mean anyway? Is it the same notion as consciousness as defined by philosophers studying consciousness and the self? The early philosophers, such as Rene Descartes believed that our conscious selves (our minds) are separate from our physical bodies, but recent philosophers don’t necessarily agree with this dualist view. Neurologists, the brain scientists, indicate that “self” is a result of all activities from the brain and body of a person. Philosopher Daniel Dennett calls it the multiple draft model because the sense of “self” changes constantly.

We are no clearer—is a sense of self the place where we think, or the place where we feel, or is it where we act, or hear, or see, or touch, or know …


So, where is your sense of “self” – the point where you say this my “I-ness”—this is me: the heart or the head or a multiple model or a separation schema? Try asking your children.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...
1 comment
Read more

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sister cities discussed: Canberra and Islamabad

Two months ago, in March 2015, Australia and Pakistan agreed to explore ways to deepen ties. The relationship between Australia and Pakistan has been strong for decades, and the two countries continue to keep dialogues open. The annual bilateral discussions were held in Australia in March to continue engagements on a wide range of matters of mutual interest. The Pakistan delegation discussed points of interest will include sports, agriculture, economic growth, trade, border protection, business, and education. The possible twinning of the cities of Canberra, the capital of Australia, and Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, were also on the agenda (i.e. called twin towns or sister cities). Sister City relationships are twinning arrangements that build friendships as well as government, business, culture, and community linkages. Canberra currently has international Sister City relationships with Beijing in China and Nara in Japan. One example of existing...
1 comment
Read more