What is the "self"?

Question

I ask for purposes of better understanding...hopefully there's enough of it(understanding) around to give us all a better idea, and perhaps a steadier ground from which to live our lives effectively and beneficially.

Answer 1

Self is one of the hardest concepts to put into words, yet we have some deep understanding of it. Self is a function over time, self takes on various values for each input of time. The self of Sue Smith is made up of all of the instantaneous Sue Smiths over time. Sue Smith at any given time is the sum of the values at that time of the body assigned to Sue Smith and the consciousness assigned to Sue Smith. It can be expressed as a function of ssSelf(t) = ssBody(t) + ssConsciousness(t). With the proper system, self could be made into a graph with three dimensions (time, body, and consciousness) so that at any given time, a value is produced for the stage of Sue Smith at that time. The self of Sue Smith is the set of all of these values. The graph as a whole would be a visual description of Sue Smith the self.
The value of a self is usually a person-stage, but it doesn't have to be. A self is defined as a specific body/consciousness pair. If one of the two factors is lost (the body loses consciousness, for example), the value of the self is just the value of the body, because the zero value of consciousness contributes nothing. This body without consciousness is not a person-stage because it's not a person, it's merely a stage. Hope this helps!!!

Answer 2

Self is a crystallized thought, It is a shadow of reality trying to be real. It is the totality of all memories we call knowledge. It is the past trying to live in the present and projecting itself to the future. The self feeds on thought to strengthen itself through identification. The self is the you's and the me's that is always afraid, greedy, and lonely. The self is ignorant to what is true. The self is the one making the world suffer. The self is the one destroying the world.

Answer 3

I've got a cold, so at the moment I don't have the brainpower available to give a proper answer to this question ... so I'll give you something even better: read John F. Crosby's book The Selfhood of the Human Person. Crosby is a good philosopher.

Here's the description of the book from amazon.com:

We often hear it said that "each person is unique and unrepeatable" or that "each person is his own end and not a mere instrumental means." But what exactly do these familiar sayings mean? What are they based on? How do we know they are true? In this book, John F. Crosby answers these questions by unfolding the mystery of personal individuality or uniqueness, or as he calls it personal "selfhood." He stands in the great tradition of Western philosophy and draws on Aquinas wherever possible, but he is also deeply indebted to more recent personalist philosophy, especially to the Christian personalism of Kierkegaard and Newman and to the phenomonology of Scheler and von Hildebrand. As a result, Crosby, in a manner deeply akin to the philosophical work of Karol Wojtyla, enriches the old with the new as he explores the structure of personal selfhood, offering many original contributions of his own. Crosby sheds new light on the "incommunicability" and unrepeatability of each human person. He explores the subjectivity, or interiority, of persons as well as the much-discussed theme of their "transcendence," giving particular attention to the transcendence achieved by persons in their moral existence. Finally he shows how we are led through the person to God, and he concludes with an original and properly philosophical approach to the "image" of God in each person. Throughout his study, Crosby is careful not to take selfhood in an individualistic way. He shows how the "selfhood and solitude" of each person opens each to others, and how, far from interfering with interpersonal relations, it in fact renders them possible. "Crosby makes an invaluable contribution to the future of Catholic. This book will become must reading for anyone interested in the relation of John Paul's personalism to the perennial philosophy and neo-Thomism. For those interested in mediating personalism and Thomism, Crosby is their best guide.

Answer 4

when you say "self" I'm guessing you mean your conscince. Alot is known about the biochemical reactions of the brain and how our neurons are structured; a mass of on and off switches exciting and inhibitting eachother, but we still don't know enough about how we form this into our self being. As I've come to understand it, the conscienceness of a person is like the graphic user interface of our bodies and our brain is the CPU. We are constantly growing as a person, incorporating the present into our past. we are growing with every passing moment. I suggest you look into some readings on human perception, specificly perception of time and how our brain interprets it.

Answer 5

the self is a reflection of everything else. It cannot exist alone, and arises from other causes/conditions.

in other words, you do not exist independently, and so do not have a self as is commonly thought..because it's just that...a thought.

Answer 6

The self is that portion of you that reacts to feelings and thoughts, the 'thinker', the 'feeler', the person whom you have chosen to be.