LSE Literary Festival 2014: Understanding the Self

Podcast: LSE: Public lectures and events
Date: February 28, 2014
Speakers: Raymond Tallis (RT), Mary Midgley (MM), Jonathan Rée (JR)
Host/Moderator: Danielle Sands (DS)

Overview

This thought-provoking panel explores the perennial question: "What is the self and how can we understand it?" Philosopher and physician Raymond Tallis, moral philosopher Mary Midgley, and philosopher/historian Jonathan Rée draw on philosophy, neuroscience, literature, and personal experience to interrogate whether the self is real or an illusion, how identity endures (or doesn’t) through time, and the pitfalls of reductionist scientific accounts. They reflect on the "humiliation" of human pride by science, the relationship between selfhood and roles, the influence of imagination and narrative, the embodied nature of selves, questions of moral and legal responsibility, the challenge of dementia, and whether neuroscience can truly comment on metaphysical questions of the self.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Do We Mean by the Self?

Raymond Tallis’ Opening (01:26-09:23)

• Complexity of the Self:
  The self is not just the first-person perspective but more: it’s the enduring sense of “I am this,” a conscious being persisting through time.
• Social & Personal Constituents:
  Stability comes from memory, personal habits, social roles, and responsibility for past actions.
• Self-Denial Paradox:
  Denying the self presupposes a self sophisticated enough to entertain such a notion—denial is self-defeating.
  • RT: “It takes a self to form the concept of what is being denied and to engage in the kinds of arguments that are mobilized by those who deny self.” (06:24)
• Science’s Limitation:
  Neuroscience, despite its value, cannot address metaphysical questions of the self. The absence of a “self” in brain activity doesn't mean it doesn’t exist.
  • RT: “If you go away tonight with the notion that neuroscience has nothing to tell us about metaphysical problems, I feel I will have done a good day’s work.” (02:28)

2. Critique of Reductionism & 'No Self' Views

Mary Midgley (09:23-15:42)

• Misuse of Buddhist ‘No Self’:
  The Buddhist ‘anatman’ isn’t a denial of all selfhood, but of an isolated, immortal, unchanging essence. Its point is positive—unity with life, not nihilism.
• Fallacy of Physicalist Exclusivity:
  Focusing purely on brain cells or physical explanations excludes real, felt subjectivity. Physics’ triumph since Newton, once counterbalanced by religion/spirit, now flattens complexity if uncritically embraced.
  • MM: “They didn’t notice for quite a long time what a bad effect this has come… all the interesting things were on the spirit side and they could afford to say physics is the only solid reality. But as they gradually... got left with only the physical matter.” (12:20)
• Multi-faceted Reality:
  Human beings require understanding from many angles: physics, sensation, intersubjectivity, etc.—none negates the others.

3. Fragmentation of Concepts: Self, Person, Mind, Identity

Jonathan Rée (15:42-29:29)

• Variety of 'Human' Concepts:
  Self, personhood, consciousness, mind, soul, will, identity—each has distinct uses and should not be merged under a single term.
• Cultural Narrative of Science vs. Human Dignity:
  The “three blows” (Copernicus, Darwin, Freud) story is about human humiliation, but can inadvertently unite disparate ideas in resistance.
  • JR (on Freud): “Psychoanalysis had delivered a third blow to humanity’s self-love. ...It had served notice on the ego that it is not even master in its own house." (18:02)
• Danger of Exclusive Identity Talk:
  The concept “identity”—introduced by Locke—now conflates absolute facts (like DNA, legal documents) and subjective affinities (e.g., national/sexual identity), eroding useful distinctions.

4. Selfhood, Self-Image & Social Mediation

Panel Discussion (29:30-32:03)

• Self-knowledge & Social Mediation:
  Is selfhood directly accessible or always filtered through language, roles, interactions?
  • MM: “The idea of a substance is obviously wrong. ...The word self wasn’t used as the name of something until fairly lately.”
  • RT: Draws on Kant: “Out of the crooked timber of human discourse, no straight thing was ever made.” (32:03)
• Unity of Consciousness:
  Despite fragmentation and forgetting, “threads of memory” and overlapping self-narratives maintain a form of continuity.

5. Animals and the Self

(34:17-36:09)

• Mirror Test and Animal Selfhood:
  Some animals demonstrate self-recognition (e.g., monkeys, elephants), but humans differ in narrative continuity and linguistic complexity.
  • RT: “Higher primates have little arias of selfhood, but what’s missing is the … continuous narrative, the internal narrative that adds up to our own sense of self.” (35:01)

6. Roles, Moral Responsibility, and Personal Continuity

Q&A Segment (36:34-40:34)

• Roles as External Supports:
  Social roles help stabilize selfhood, but moral/ontological identity isn’t just about memory or legal/auditable continuity.
  • RT: “Roles are part of this external carapace, the exoskeleton, that supports a sense of a continuing self.” (38:59)
• Amnesia and Responsibility:
  To reduce moral agency to contiguous memory risks problematic outcomes—ethical accountability is more than recollection.

7. Subjectivity—Describable or Ineffable?

(41:34-47:02)

• Is Subjectivity Indescribable?
  MM: The term 'subjectivity' is an abstraction used in diverse ways for different cases.
  • JR: Literature, especially the novel, reveals subtleties in representing subjectivity; science has much to learn from fiction on this front.
    • “If there is ever going to be such a thing as the science of subjectivity, then we're going to look to novelists to provide it.” (46:03)

8. Limits of Scientific Mapping & the Fractal Nature of Knowledge

(48:24-50:21)

• Science’s Map Is Not Total:
  Knowledge isn’t divided between science and superstition—a fractal complexity remains, unexplained by current science.
  • RT: “There is an area that science has conquered... but within that territory it covers, there is an enormous amount that science doesn’t even touch.” (49:29)

9. Imagination, Narrative, and the Self

(51:21-53:57)

• Role of Imagination:
  Imagination enables us to build narratives, empathize, and creatively relate to past and future selves.
• The Same Broom Paradox (Ship of Theseus):
  Identity in objects is parasitic on human selfhood: “Identity... has to be asserted, appropriated, owned by the thing that has that identity.” (53:02 - RT)

10. Embodiment: The Self as Body and Beyond

(55:10-61:47)

• Emphasis on Embodied Self:
  Selfhood is inseparable from the body, but not reducible to mere physical matter.
  • RT: “You cannot have a sense of self without... the continuing human body that you've been from [birth]… There's also psychological continuity, the sense of memories that are your own.” (56:31)
  • MM: “Talk of body is to talk in abstraction of whatever part of you could be weighed, measured, and put in a coffin. … The thoughts themselves are not part of the body.” (58:38)
• Storytelling Animals:
  Narratives (rather than static matter) give humans temporal depth and self-understanding.

11. The Unconscious, Free Will, and Neuroscience

(63:37-69:19)

• Neuroscience Experiments (Libet):
  Panel critiques claims that unconscious neural processes disprove free will.
  • RT: “Let’s think about the person who got involved in the experiment. … The whole frame of reference… isn’t the few seconds before… it’s the whole person who’s got engaged in this experiment.” (64:36)
• Active Choices vs. Automatic Movements:
  Free will concerns significant, effortful acts, not trivial finger movements in lab experiments.
  • MM: “There is no serious choice involved in when you move your hand about. … Free will operates in that sort of area ... making serious choices deliberately.” (67:02)

12. Immortality and the Possible Survival of the Self

(70:29-76:22)

• Personal Continuity After Death:
  Skepticism about survival of the personal self after death; practical, embodied identity is time- and context-bound.
  • JR: “The more you actually try and imagine [afterlife], the less sense it makes.” (73:23)
  • RT: “If you disembodied me, what would I have to do? … If you were to join the choir immortal, you would end up as part of the long noise that gradually fades away…” (74:35)

13. Dementia and the Loss of Self

(76:38-81:21)

• Dementia as a Test Case:
  Personhood can be eroded by organic disease, but remains complex—fragments of the self may persist late into advanced dementia.
  • RT: “Although we have very much talked about, as it were, the transcendence of the self over the body, there are certain situations where as the body deteriorates, you become, unfortunately you act out the deterioration of your body.” (77:24)
  • JR (on dementia): "Just letting a discourse about the dysfunctional brain take over at a certain point… must be mistaken." (80:26)

14. Selfhood Despite Gaps in Awareness

(82:17-85:22)

• Sleep, Unconsciousness, and Discontinuity:
  The self remains despite lapses in consciousness (sleep, blackouts, stages of dementia).
  • MM: “The self is...the whole being, the whole person. It’s very important not to go splitting the person up as if they were made...from...different components.”
  • RT: “We do fluctuate… but it doesn’t undermine the continuity itself. When I wake up the following morning… I don’t think that’s all my sins forgiven.” (83:41, 85:22)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• RT (On reductionism):
  “If neuroscience, or more generally physical science can't see it, then it doesn’t really exist. Unfortunately, this would oblige us to deny the existence of other things… namely the ordinary experience of qualities, the unity of consciousness at any given time…” (08:10)
• MM (On complex reality):
  “Reality is terribly complex. It's a great big cake into which we cut from various angles. The angles are not continuous with each other.” (13:27)
• JR (On narrative and science):
  "If there is ever going to be such a thing as the science of subjectivity, then we're going to look to novelists to provide it." (46:03)
• RT (On identity):
  “Identity...has to be asserted, appropriated, owned by the thing that has that identity.” (53:02)
• Panel (On dementia):
  “One of the most harrowing aspects of dementia is the way people lose aspects of personhood in part and retain other aspects...to the very, very end.” (77:38)
• JR (On afterlife):
  "The more you actually try and imagine it [afterlife], the less sense it makes..." (73:23)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:26] — Raymond Tallis on the metaphysical complexity of the self
• [09:23] — Mary Midgley critiques reductionist denials of self
• [15:42] — Jonathan Rée on the cultural narrative of science "humbling" humanity
• [29:30] — Discussion: self-knowledge and whether it’s socially mediated
• [34:17] — Are animals selves? The role of narrative continuity
• [36:34] — Q&A: roles, memory, and moral responsibility
• [41:34] — Subjectivity: ineffable or expressible? The perspectival analogy
• [48:24] — Fractal knowledge: critique of scientific imperialism
• [55:10] — Embodied self: can self be separated from body?
• [63:37] — Free will, neuroscience, and the Libet experiments
• [70:29] — Immortality, afterlife, and the continuity of self
• [76:38] — Dementia as a loss of self, neuroscience, and metaphysics
• [82:17] — Selfhood and discontinuity in consciousness

Tone & Language

The exchange is wry, incisive, and playful, with a deep respect for intellectual nuance and audience engagement. Philosophical references abound, as do literary and neuroscientific asides. The panellists are candid in their uncertainties and disagreements, notably about animal selves and issues of embodiment and memory.

Conclusion

The panel ultimately resists any simple answer to “what is the self?”, instead insisting on multiplicity of concepts, sources, and experiences that inform selfhood. While science offers vital insights into the material basis of experience, it cannot exhaust the richness or resolve the enduring puzzles of agency, identity, continuity, and consciousness. The self—far from being a settled scientific or metaphysical entity—remains a “crooked timber” best approached from many angles, in philosophy, science, and art alike.