Do you exist? David Hume, Carl Jung and Cognitive Neuroscience on the "Self"

David Hume thinks we don't exist. Carl Jung thinks we do. Here are the facts:

Introduction

What are you? Really? Can you introspect for a few hours and find something within you that makes you really you. Is there a self a stable sort of immaterial entity that maybe grows a bit over time? Or are you something else entirely - just a simple collection of experiences and ideas? Well, depending on whether you're a scientist or a philosopher the answers might be completely different. This concept of the “self” has puzzled philosophers and scientists alike for centuries. Let's talk about that.

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Hume: The Self is an illusion

Today we're asking the question: Is there a "self”? David Hume didn't seem think so Hume is known for his irrationalist-empiricist philosophy. He argued that the self doesn't actually exist and what we call the “self” is something of an illusion that we tell ourselves to maybe comfort ourselves or make it easier to talk to other people, or something like that. In his Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Hume writes:

“When I enter most intimately into what I call ‘myself’ I always stumble on some particular perception. I can never catch myself at any time without a perception.” For Hume: The "self is a bundle of perceptions. A sort of “narrative illusion” that we convince ourselves of that's created by memory and learning and association - nothing more than a series of thoughts or sensations.

Jung: The Self as real

Carl Jung, the famous psychologist and psychiatrist saw the self in a very different light. He writes in Aion (1952): “The self is not only the center but also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and unconscious.” For Jung: The self is real. A central archetype that guides us toward wholeness through the process of individuation. The journey is about integrating both the conscious and unconscious part of our mind.

Cognitive Neuroscience

Hume characterizes the self as an illusion, while Jung sees it as real: an ongoing process of growth and integration. But what does modern science tell us today?

Well, today modern cognitive and neuroscience gives us a new perspective: neuroscientists like Antonio Damasio (2010) suggest the brain’s Default Mode Network helps create a “continuous self narrative” much like Hume’s bundle of perceptions. Studies on split-brain patients suggest that the self is actually a modular process built from different parts of the brain that work together, similar to Jung’s idea of integrating opposites.

So what are we, really? Is the self just an illusion as Hume argued? Is it a real and unifying force as Jung believed? Or is the self a dynamic brain generated model as modern neuroscience seems to say? Maybe the truth is that it’s a bit of all three: an illusion, a journey and a construct. All at once.

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References

Hume, D. A Treatise of Human Nature. 1739

Jung, C.G. Aion. 1952

Damasio, A. Self Comes to Mind. 2010