Self: perception and illusion
Self as another perception
We know that our senses, our brains, already filter reality. This becomes especially clear when we compare our senses to other animals.
- Our eyes can only see light in certain wavelengths.
- Our ears can only hear sound in certain frequencies.
- Our nose can only smell certain odours, and only at high enough concentrations.
- Our tongue can only taste certain flavours, and only at high enough concentrations.
- Our bodies can can only feel touch sensations at high enough levels of pressure and temperature.
Perhaps it makes sense that our mind can only think certain thoughts. There are limitations that apply to the sense of thought. Our minds are constructing something, based on the available, limited, data.
Buddhism suggests that the mind and the mental objects are another sense.
Self as illusion
If we do take mental objects as another sense-like phenomenon, it's easy to see how it might be an illusion. Or, at the least, not quite "true", not quite a representation of reality.
Illusions show how the mind organises and interprets sense data. They show what assumptions the brain is making. Cognitives biases show how we make errors in judgements or decision-making when using mental shortcuts. Considering these two things, it seems plausible that things our brains do can be "a bit off" sometimes. Perhaps the sense of a concrete, fixed, separate, self is a bit off. Perhaps the self, if it's anything, is the context of awareness, and not its contents.
Before thought
- The first instant is before before classification, measuring, labelling.
- The "I am" before adding anything, before looking backwards or forwards.
- Anything that can be named or located can't be you: it's an object in awareness.
- Only the absence of the thinker of thoughts can be found.
- Seen in the first instant, or not at all. Before concepts, not beyond them.
Added 2023-07-29.