Subjectivity: mind, self and soul

I've alluded to (I don't want to go into it) in the past my own experience. I had no worries or problems at all in the beginning and yet I knew without any question that this was not the first time I'd been here. (I could tell you more than that of course).  What I'm saying is this me (now) is just the same as that me (then), only this me has, during the course of this life, (like everyone else) been buffeted by the relentless 'bombardment' that is life. I'm encrusted with barnacles, many I would like to remove but I can't. If you've got barnacles like me, all you can do is live with them. You can forget about them but they're still there, but that's okay.

I'm not quite sure whether you're referring to physical or mental conditions when using the term 'barnacles' here.

My personal perspective is that I brought too many barnacles with me into the present from some past existence. I don't think I've quite removed all of them, though most have fallen away by now. But I picked up more along the way. One of my goals this time is carry as few of those things as possible with me when I leave here. My usual terminology is to say things like 'travelling light' and 'not carry unnecessary baggage'.

I think this (travelling light) is a goal of many spiritual practices though some become convoluted and may not be so effective in that particular regard.

Here's one question I have following this excellent post by nbtruthman.


If this convinces me that free will exists when it comes to making choices, does that mean the rest of our mental experience is also "free"?

When I introspect into my experience, whether during meditation or observing my mind more generally, I notice what appears to be a very chaotic and unmastered and to some extent unguided process (or maybe a set of competing processes, some probably unconscious). Memories, thoughts get triggered or generated seemingly out of nowhere, even as I'm attempting to be still. There seems to be no freedom there. And I recognize here something close to the buddhist understanding of the "self" as a "bundle" of wishes and aversive reactions, stray associations and thoughts, etc.

I am not automatically and definitively concluding that there is therefore no "self" (nor would many buddhist traditions, where the concept of "non-self" or "no-self" is often misread in this way), but something inside "me" is observing that the contents of that "self" are discontinuous, impermanent, dependent on other mind activities or external factors (see also the buddhist theory of dependent origination or conditioned arising). How is this reconciled with free will, or am I confusing or conflating two different realities of the "mind"?

I think that this is very insightful and may be interpreted along the lines of Libet's "free won't" experimental observation, that the chaotic memories, thoughts etc. coming from seemingly nowhere, and emotions like fear, which are typically part of normal waking consciousness, are all coming from the activity of the material brain neuronal structure while in the basically animal body. Modes of activity that were developed for survival over the span of whatever process "evolution" really has been. And where the spirit is very intimately intertwined with the microstructure of the physical brain so as to facilitate the mind-brain interaction essential for physical embodiment. 

Your observation that there seems to be no freedom in this phenomenon, in that it is independent of the conscious will, would be a true observation of the inevitable result of the interactive dualistic mind-brain interface while in body, where the conscious will is both an aspect of the immaterial self or spirit inhabiting the physical body, and the sometimes apparently chaotic but ultimately deterministic and non-free data processing of the neuronal structures. 

The Self while in body is therefore a complex entity, partly physical and determined by the activity of brain neuronal structures and therefore not free, and part immaterial spirit and truly free.

[Ninshub]

I think that this may be interpreted along the lines of Libet's "free won't" experimental observation, that the chaotic memories, thoughts etc. coming from seemingly nowhere, and emotions like fear, which are typically part of normal waking consciousness, are all coming from the activity of the material brain neuronal structure while in body. Where the spirit is very intimately intertwined with the microstructure of the physical brain so as to facilitate the mind-brain interaction essential for physical embodiment. 

Your observation that there seems to be no freedom in this phenomenon, in that it is independent of the conscious will, would be a true observation of the inevitable result of the interactive dualism mind-brain interface while in body, where the conscious will is both an aspect of the immaterial self or spirit inhabiting the physical body, and the sometimes apparently chaotic but ultimately deterministic and non-free data processing of the neuronal structures. 

The self while in body is therefore a complex entity, partly physical and determined by the activity of brain neuronal structures and therefore not free, and part immaterial spirit and truly free.

Thank you very much for that answer, nb. That's probably the key question that motivated me to start this thread and I was hoping you'd give me your answer.

What you're saying makes tremendous sense to me. Of course it assumes dualism, and you may be right about that as well. I'll possibly reflect and add to your answer later*.

One quick thought is that this duality between a calm, observing presence within us, and the deterministic or non-free processing as you put it, is something I observe across the board when it comes to spiritual understandings, whether it's buddhism, non-dual spiritual teachers (where the real "you", identified with the universal mind, is your fundamental, non-conceptual awareness, rather than the "false sense of separate self" one builds around one's changing thoughts, emotions, sensations, etc.), or NDEr Nanci Danison who says that what she learned in the afterlife was that the observing presence is the soul and the "non-free data processing" (in your words) the human animal we incarnate!

In terms of spiritual practice, then, which ultimately is what interests me most here, it seems to me that something like developing mindfulness, or practicing being the watcher of our deterministic phenomenal experience, or at least dis-identifying our sense of self from that non-free processing (knowing that it isn't the realer "me", whether that Me is a separate Subject from universal mind or merges with it) is fundamental. Whether we couch that in dualist philosophy, or a dualism within a larger monism, or somehow idealistic monism, is to me (at this point) secondary (I could be wrong of course). All of these distinct spiritual understandings nevertheless seem to me to point (and all we can have is pointers when it comes to a Reality that escapes language and our limited perspectives) to a profoundly similar notion.

*I may have ended up giving you my deeper thought (and I'll have to add) right there!

My personal perspective is that I brought too many barnacles with me into the present from some past existence.

I believe you, Typoz. I know of one that I definitely had still stuck to me when I turned up here but it didn't trouble me much, I thought I could do it this time. I'm referring to fear. I did manage to do some things slightly better I believe, but I still consider I've failed overall. Whether or nor I actually have, I'll find out I suppose.

I believe you, Typoz. I know of one that I definitely had still stuck to me when I turned up here but it didn't trouble me much, I thought I could do it this time. I'm referring to fear. I did manage to do some things slightly better I believe, but I still consider I've failed overall. Whether or nor I actually have, I'll find out I suppose.

Definitely I'd say look at it optimistically. One of the things reported in at least some NDEs is that we tend to be hard on ourselves here when often things need to be taken less seriously. At least - maybe - depending on individual circumstances.

A few quick thoughts:

- Who is watching the interplay of chaotic thoughts you see? Who is reflecting on this supposed disunity?

- While there is a strain of Buddhism that says there is no self, it's not clear what the Buddha really thought about this subject. The ancient Buddhists apparently argued with the ancient Hindus about the nature of the Self, yet they also joined with the ancient Hindus in arguing with the ancient atheist-materialists who believed there was nothing but Oblivion after death. As mentioned before, Buddha even calls for people to seek Liberation by noting the exhaustion of reincarnating [so] many times one has been "swelling the cemeteries" with some aspect of identity going from body to body.

- I think the idea that there is some yes/no answer to the question of an individual Self divorced from some Unity may be a mistaken way of thinking about things. It's not clear every indigenous culture, for example, shares our ideas of Subject & Object, Mind & Matter, that make us argue about Materialism, Idealism, Panpsychism and the rest of it. The reality may simply be indescribable as per Plotinus (which I've mentioned before):

'For how can one describe, as other than oneself, that which, when one saw it, seemed to be one with oneself?'
  -Plotinus

[Ninshub]

A few quick thoughts:

- Who is watching the interplay of chaotic thoughts you see? Who is reflecting on this supposed disunity?

- While there is a strain of Buddhism that says there is no self,

In relation to the first thought, the answer that comes through the non-dual teachings is: awareness. That's the real you. (Or presence, or pure consciousness, however one wishes to label it.) That's the whole point and goal of the method of self-inquiry: Who am I?

In relation to the second point, in original buddhism the Buddha simply teaches that it's not useful to take an ontological position towards the self or the world, so he simply didn't answer such questions. One should attend to addressing the cognitive faculties, not aim towards a metaphysical understanding. The doctrine of anatta, "not-self", was interpreted by some later Buddhists as well as scholars as meaning that no self exists, but more recent scholarship reveals that the Buddha was not denying that people have selves, but denying that anything attributed to "the self" exists independently. There's nothing permanent or independent about selfhood, but it does not follow that it doesn't exist. This is closely related to the theory of dependent origination, which doesn't say that nothing exists but that nothing exists independently. (I'm relying here on the short book by Sue Hamilton, Indian Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction, pages 50-51 especially, that I've reread in the past weeks, and that's also what comes across in Peter Harvey's textbook on Buddhism.)

In relation to the first thought, the answer that comes through the non-dual teachings is: awareness. That's the real you. (Or presence, or pure consciousness, however one wishes to label it.) That's the whole point and goal of the method of self-inquiry: Who am I?

I guess, IMO, I am unconvinced this "awareness" divorced from the first-person even exists?

I think there is...something...to the non-dual teachings but I can't help but wonder if certain aspects were rationalizations for the society it was born from. After all, why fight the injustices of the caste system if the suffering is illusion?

What did the lower castes think about non-duality? How did they see the nature of the soul?

[Ninshub]

Your question about the the socio-political angle is a whole other thing! One that I can't pretend to answer. All that I think I know is that there is an incredible array of philosophies and movements within the Indian and Hindu traditions, and it's only in the 19th century that Vedantism was made to "represent" so-called "Hinduism", in ideals of nationalism and as presented to the West. My understanding is a lot of the traditions throughout the last two millenniums were bhakti/devotional to deities (Vishnu, Shiva, Devi). "Non-duality" characterized only some philosophical schools, and surely the overwhelming majority of the population did not invest in much or any of those philosophical teachings.

(If we turn to Buddhism, also, it developed as a rejection of Brahmanism, including its patriarchal caste system, and was devoted to the "illusion" of suffering if we want to call it that, so I don't think the argument holds when it comes to Buddhism.)

Just a few hours ago, I was listening to this interview with Rupert Spira that was just published today on his channel, and in an early section (between 5 and 11 minutes roughly), he speaks about how, many years later after his initial rejection of the Western spiritual traditions, he's come back to them and now sees that their mystical side is full of non-duality, which he didn't recognize as a youth. But he then  also goes on to say that in India as well non-duality was very much an "underground" phenomenon, and pointing out that the Indian sages (like Ramana Maharshi who popularized self-enquiry) who taught non-duality in the 20th century had followings that were very small in their lifetimes, and consisted mainly of Westerners! (Maharshi used to prefer to just sit in silence, and an interesting fact is that he allegedly had a near-death experience at age 16 which was the cause of his "awakening".)

[Ninshub]

I guess, IMO, I am unconvinced this "awareness" divorced from the first-person even exists?

Coming back to this, yes, that's a legitimate question. Don't quote me on this but I think the spiritual teacher A H Almaas, in his own "Diamond Approach", holds to a subtle pre-reflexive self (consciousness) as opposed to pure impersonal awareness. He backs it up with reference to contemporary phenomenologist philosophers like Dan Zahavi*. I think the Almaas camp and the non-dualists camp quarrel over this issue.

(Almaas and Spiva had a conversation/debate years ago which is on youtube. Just read the comments below the video to see how each side has no problem determining who is the clear "winner" over the "unawakened" other. )

If there is this "first-person" pre-reflexive self consciousness, I don't immediately see a problem, personally, with identifying it simultaneously with a universal awareness, or having the latter "underneath" the former. But then I can easily see a limitless debate here! 

*I've ordered an interesting-sounding book Zavahi co-edited called Self, No Self? Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological and Indian Traditions., as well as his own earlier Subjectivity and Selfhood: Investigating the first-person perspective. Sounds right up the alley of this thread and your question!