This is the 4th Season of our Reading & Discussion column. I will post an article and raise some questions. You can answer these questions and discuss tightly focused on this article! Welcome to join our discussion!

The article is here:

Title: The Neuroscience of the Self

What makes up our sense of self has been an important focus of discussion for centuries.It has vexed philosophers and thinkers who have debated what the self is.A few years ago, neuroscientists also entered the fray.Some, such as the neuroscientist and philosopher Georg Nothoff, even attempted to locate the self within the brain.Early efforts were motivated by an intuitive question: if we can localize vision, language, and motor control, why not the self?

With the rise of functional brain imaging in the 1990s, neuroscientists began designing experiments that contrasted self-referential mental states with non-self states.In the scanner, people might be asked to judge whether adjectives applied well to themselves or others.These studies repeatedly identified activity along the cortical midline from front to back.Because these regions were more active when people thought about themselves, some researchers proposed that they formed a neural core of the self.

This idea gained further traction with the discovery of the so-called "default mode network" of brain regions — a set of interconnected brain areas that become active when the mind is at rest, engaged in introspection, retrieving memories, or imagining one's future.Because these mental activities feel tied to selfhood, this collection of brain areas was sometimes described loosely as the brain's "self network."However, problems with this interpretation soon became apparent.

First, the same regions are active during many cognitive tasks that are not necessarily about the self.Second, different kinds of "self" tasks activated overlapping but not identical patterns of brain regions within the network.These findings led many researchers to conclude that what was being localized was not the self, but processes related to self-reference: self-evaluation, autobiographical recall, perspective-taking, and narrative construction.The consensus is that the self has not been localized by these sorts of brain scanning studies.

This comes as no surprise to many people.Daniel Dennett, the philosopher, famously argued that searching for the self in the brain was a category mistake, akin to searching for the center of gravity of an object.The self has no physical properties.It is not a real thing but a theorist's fiction."No one has ever seen or ever will see a center of gravity.As David Hume noted, no one has ever seen a self, either," Dennett proclaimed.The self, according to Dennett, is a useful abstraction: a narrative construct that we create to explain who we are, not a biological object waiting to be found.It emerges from the stories we tell about our actions, beliefs, intentions, and experiences.It is illusory.

Dennett was comfortable to consider the self to be useful fiction."We are all virtuoso novelists," he quipped."We try to make all of our material cohere into a single good story.And that story is our autobiography.The chief fictional character at the center of that autobiography is one's self."His theory rejected the idea of a single, unified "theatre" in the brain where experiences are presented to an inner observer.Instead, Dennett proposed that what we call conscious experience of the self is actually the outcome of many parallel, distributed, and competing neural processes — multiple drafts — none of which is intrinsically privileged as the final version.

Dennett's views align closely with those of the MIT AI pioneer Marvin Minsky, who argued that the self is simply the emergent result of many interacting brain processes.For Minsky, this "Society of Mind" is a collection of semi-independent agents — simple mechanisms that each do one small thing well, such as an aspect of perception, memory, or language.These agents are not intelligent in themselves.Nor is there any form of central controller.Control is distributed.Intelligent behavior arises from their coordination.Minsky was deliberately opposing the intuitive idea that somewhere in the brain there must be a unitary thinker.There is no such master agent, according to him.

These ideas have had great influence but also attracted fire.One important criticism of the view of the self as a fictional narrative and an emergent property is that this does not explain why the self feels singular, not fragmented.As the NYU philosopher David Chalmers has argued, these models don't explain the experience of being a unified self – the first-person subjective experience of being who we are.They deal with the "easy problem" of how cognitive functions operate, but not the "hard problem" of conscious experience.Why and how is any of this brain processing accompanied by subjective experience, such as what it feels like to see red, feel pain, or even be "oneself"?No amount of reductionist explanation, Chalmers argues, logically entails the existence of experience.

One important perspective on these issues comes from another side of neuroscience: the study of people who develop brain disorders.What happens if one part of the "Society of Mind" that normally underpins the self becomes dysfunctional?Researchers have been observing what happens to people who have suffered a stroke or developed a neurodegenerative condition such as Alzheimer's disease.Some of these individuals can have highly focal impairment, limited to one cognitive process or module.They may, for example, have difficulty with visual perception, paying attention, retrieving information from memory, comprehending language, understanding concepts, and being motivated.

Michael, for example, is a patient who came to see me in my clinic because he was worried about his increasing difficulty in finding the right word in conversation.To begin with, he seemed to be highly articulate.As we talked more though, it began to be evident that he didn't understand the meaning of some words that he really should know.When we got onto the topic of sports, for example, he told me he used to play rugby, but he couldn't understand what I meant when I asked him which position he used to play in the team.

Through careful assessment, it became clear that Michael was suffering from a highly limited impairment in semantics — understanding the meaning of words and the concepts that are attached to them.His diagnosis was semantic dementia.Slowly over time, Michael's difficulty with semantics began to have a greater impact.He didn't understand jokes and became less inclined to talk.His friends thought that he'd lost his sense of humor and came to visit him less.He became more isolated.

What do stories such as Michael's reveal about our selves?At one level, they demonstrate that the self can be altered.People behave differently if their semantics and understanding of concepts are eroded.Similarly, for individuals whose perception might be impaired, start to experience visual hallucinations, have difficulty recalling information, or become disinhibited in their behavior.All these types of dysfunction in a limited cognitive module can lead to profound changes in a person's identity.They can also alter how they appear to others and have a huge impact on their social identity.Crucially, though, none of these people lose their entire sense of self through the loss of any one cognitive module.They still have a first-person perspective on the fact that they are a person with a sense of self.

In this way, these neurological observations support the view that the self is not housed in one particular brain region, but rather emerges from the activities of a distributed constellation of cognitive modules.Focal brain disruption to one of these does not eliminate the self.It selectively alters it.Very basic brain functions clearly play a key role in determining who we are — our personal identity.They are integral parts of the "Society of the Mind" that creates our self.But they are also crucial to keeping us within society through our social identity.First-person experiences can continue after brain damage, although those experiences are different.However, although we can explain what is lost or disrupted, we don't have a definitive answer to what makes up the self.

And we don't know whether philosophy, neuroscience, or both will be the discipline that helps us answer this question once and for all.

# Discussion Questions for "The Neuroscience of the Self"

Here are the discussion questions tightly focused on the article for your English Club members:

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## Comprehension & Understanding

1. According to the article, what early question motivated neuroscientists to try to locate the self in the brain?

2. What did functional brain imaging studies in the 1990s reveal about brain activity when people thought about themselves?

3. What is the "default mode network," and why was it initially described as the brain's "self network"?

4. What two main problems led researchers to conclude that they had not actually localized the self?

5. What did researchers discover was actually being localized in those brain scanning studies, rather than the self itself?

6. According to Daniel Dennett, why is searching for the self in the brain a "category mistake"?

7. What famous example does Dennett use to explain his argument about the self? (Hint: "center of gravity")

8. How does Dennett describe human beings in terms of storytelling?

9. What does Dennett mean when he says the self is a "useful fiction"?

10. What does Marvin Minsky's "Society of Mind" theory propose about the self?

11. According to Minsky, is there a "master agent" or central controller in the brain?

12. What is David Chalmers' main criticism of the view that the self is a fictional narrative or emergent property?

13. What does Chalmers mean by the "hard problem" of conscious experience?

14. What kind of brain disorder did the patient Michael have?

15. What specific cognitive function was impaired in Michael's case?

16. How did Michael's friends react to his changing behavior?

17. According to the article, what happens to a person's sense of self when they lose a single cognitive module?

18. What do neurological observations of brain-damaged patients suggest about where the self is "housed"?

19. Does the article provide a definitive answer to what makes up the self?

20. According to the final paragraph, which disciplines might help answer the question of the self?

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## Critical Thinking & Analysis

21. Do you agree with Dennett that the self is "a theorist's fiction" rather than a real thing? Why or why not?

22. If the self is just a "useful fiction," does that make it any less real or important in our daily lives?

23. The article mentions that the same brain regions active during self-thinking are also active during non-self tasks. What does this suggest about how we should interpret brain imaging data?

24. Do you think it's possible to ever "locate" the self in the brain? Why might this be impossible?

25. Chalmers argues that reductionist explanations don't explain why we have subjective experience. Do you find this criticism convincing? Why or why not?

26. The patient Michael lost his understanding of word meanings. Do you think losing semantic memory changes who a person *is*, or only changes how they *function*?

27. If none of these patients lost their entire sense of self despite losing specific cognitive modules, what does this tell us about the nature of the self?

28. The article says brain damage "selectively alters" rather than eliminates the self. What might be the difference between altering and eliminating the self?

29. Do you think Dennett and Minsky's views align more with each other or with Chalmers? Explain your reasoning.

30. If the self emerges from "many parallel, distributed, and competing neural processes," does that mean we have multiple selves?

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## Vocabulary & Language Focus

31. What does the word "vexed" mean in the sentence "It has vexed philosophers and thinkers"?

32. The article uses the phrase "entered the fray." What does this expression mean?

33. What is a "category mistake"? Can you give an example other than the one in the article?

34. The word "illusory" is used to describe the self. What does this word mean? Can you think of other things that are illusory?

35. Dennett says we are "virtuoso novelists." What does "virtuoso" imply here?

36. The term "emergent property" appears in the article. What does this phrase mean in the context of the self?

37. What does "disinhibited" mean when describing behavior changes in brain patients?

38. The article mentions a "distributed constellation" of cognitive modules. What does "constellation" suggest metaphorically?

39. What is an "autobiography"? How is it different from a biography?

40. The word "focal" appears in "highly focal impairment." What does this mean in a medical context?

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## Personal Reflection & Application

41. Before reading this article, how would you have defined your "self"? Has your view changed?

42. Do you feel that your sense of self is singular and unified, or do you sometimes feel like "multiple drafts" competing?

43. If someone lost their memory completely, would they still be the "same person"? Why or why not?

44. The article mentions "social identity" and "personal identity." How are these different in your own life?

45. Do you think animals have a sense of self? Why or why not, based on the ideas in this article?

46. If the self is a narrative we construct, can we deliberately change our self by changing our story?

47. Have you ever known someone whose personality seemed to change due to illness or injury? How did that affect your relationship with them?

48. Do you find Dennett's view comforting (the self as a useful fiction) or troubling? Why?

49. The article ends without a definitive answer. Are you comfortable with this uncertainty, or do you think science will eventually solve the question?

50. Which perspective presented in the article do you personally find most convincing, and why?

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## Connection & Extension

51. How does the idea of the "default mode network" relate to why we daydream or think about the future?

52. If the self is an emergent property of many brain processes, does that mean artificial intelligence could potentially develop a self?

53. The article contrasts the "easy problem" and the "hard problem" of consciousness. Can you think of other scientific questions that have an "easy" part and a "hard" part?

54. Michael lost his sense of humor according to his friends. Do you think his friends treated him fairly? What does this suggest about how society treats people with cognitive changes?

55. How might the views in this article affect how we think about end-of-life decisions or care for dementia patients?

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Vocabulary List: 

1. vexed: caused difficulty or worry for someone

Original sentence: "It has vexed philosophers and thinkers who have debated what the self is."

2. fray: a competitive or challenging situation

Original sentence: "A few years ago, neuroscientists also entered the fray."

3. intuitive: based on feelings rather than facts or reasoning

Original sentence: "Early efforts were motivated by an intuitive question: if we can localize vision, language, and motor control, why not the self?"

4. localize: to find or identify the exact position of something

Original sentence: "if we can localize vision, language, and motor control, why not the self?"

5. functional brain imaging: a technology that shows which parts of the brain are active during tasks

Original sentence: "With the rise of functional brain imaging in the 1990s, neuroscientists began designing experiments that contrasted self-referential mental states with non-self states."

6. self-referential: relating to or referring to oneself

Original sentence: "neuroscientists began designing experiments that contrasted self-referential mental states with non-self states."

7. adjectives: words that describe nouns

Original sentence: "In the scanner, people might be asked to judge whether adjectives applied well to themselves or others."

8. cortical midline: the central strip of the brain's outer layer

Original sentence: "These studies repeatedly identified activity along the cortical midline from front to back."

9. traction: support or acceptance that makes something progress

Original sentence: "This idea gained further traction with the discovery of the so-called 'default mode network' of brain regions"

10. default mode network: a set of brain areas active when the mind is resting or daydreaming

Original sentence: "This idea gained further traction with the discovery of the so-called 'default mode network' of brain regions"

11. interconnected: connected to each other

Original sentence: "a set of interconnected brain areas that become active when the mind is at rest"

12. introspection: the process of examining your own thoughts and feelings

Original sentence: "engaged in introspection, retrieving memories, or imagining one's future."

13. selfhood: the quality or state of being a particular person

Original sentence: "Because these mental activities feel tied to selfhood, this collection of brain areas was sometimes described loosely as the brain's 'self network.'"

14. overlapping: partly covering or sharing the same area

Original sentence: "Second, different kinds of 'self' tasks activated overlapping but not identical patterns of brain regions within the network."

15. self-evaluation: judging your own abilities or character

Original sentence: "what was being localized was not the self, but processes related to self-reference: self-evaluation, autobiographical recall, perspective-taking, and narrative construction."

16. autobiographical recall: remembering events from your own life

Original sentence: "self-evaluation, autobiographical recall, perspective-taking, and narrative construction."

17. perspective-taking: imagining or understanding another person's point of view

Original sentence: "self-evaluation, autobiographical recall, perspective-taking, and narrative construction."

18. narrative construction: creating a story or explanation

Original sentence: "self-evaluation, autobiographical recall, perspective-taking, and narrative construction."

19. consensus: general agreement among a group of people

Original sentence: "The consensus is that the self has not been localized by these sorts of brain scanning studies."

20. category mistake: an error of putting something into the wrong type of category

Original sentence: "Daniel Dennett, the philosopher, famously argued that searching for the self in the brain was a category mistake, akin to searching for the center of gravity of an object."

21. akin: similar to

Original sentence: "searching for the self in the brain was a category mistake, akin to searching for the center of gravity of an object."

22. physical properties: characteristics that can be measured or seen, such as weight or size

Original sentence: "The self has no physical properties."

23. theorist's fiction: an idea invented by thinkers rather than something real

Original sentence: "It is not a real thing but a theorist's fiction."

24. proclaimed: announced or stated publicly and firmly

Original sentence: "No one has ever seen or ever will see a center of gravity. As David Hume noted, no one has ever seen a self, either," Dennett proclaimed.

25. useful abstraction: a general idea that helps understanding even if not physically real

Original sentence: "The self, according to Dennett, is a useful abstraction: a narrative construct that we create to explain who we are"

26. narrative construct: a story or explanation built by the mind

Original sentence: "a narrative construct that we create to explain who we are, not a biological object waiting to be found."

27. biological object: a physical thing that is alive or part of a living being

Original sentence: "not a biological object waiting to be found."

28. illusory: not real, based on an illusion

Original sentence: "It is illusory."

29. virtuoso novelists: extremely skilled storytellers

Original sentence: "We are all virtuoso novelists," he quipped.

30. quipped: said something clever or funny

Original sentence: "We are all virtuoso novelists," he quipped.

31. cohere: to fit together logically or consistently

Original sentence: "We try to make all of our material cohere into a single good story."

32. autobiography: a story of a person's life written by that person

Original sentence: "And that story is our autobiography."

33. chief: most important or main

Original sentence: "The chief fictional character at the center of that autobiography is one's self."

34. theatre: a place where performances happen; used metaphorically for a central stage

Original sentence: "His theory rejected the idea of a single, unified 'theatre' in the brain where experiences are presented to an inner observer."

35. inner observer: an imaginary person inside your mind watching your experiences

Original sentence: "where experiences are presented to an inner observer."

36. parallel: happening at the same time but separately

Original sentence: "what we call conscious experience of the self is actually the outcome of many parallel, distributed, and competing neural processes"

37. distributed: spread across different areas rather than concentrated in one place

Original sentence: "the outcome of many parallel, distributed, and competing neural processes"

38. competing: working against each other for priority

Original sentence: "many parallel, distributed, and competing neural processes"

39. multiple drafts: many different versions or attempts

Original sentence: "multiple drafts — none of which is intrinsically privileged as the final version."

40. intrinsically privileged: naturally having special advantage or authority

Original sentence: "none of which is intrinsically privileged as the final version."

41. emergent property: a quality that appears from the interaction of simpler parts

Original sentence: "Marvin Minsky, who argued that the self is simply the emergent result of many interacting brain processes."

42. society of mind: Minsky's theory that mind is made of many small agents working together

Original sentence: "For Minsky, this 'Society of Mind' is a collection of semi-independent agents"

43. semi-independent agents: partly separate small units that can act on their own

Original sentence: "a collection of semi-independent agents — simple mechanisms that each do one small thing well"

44. coordination: organizing different parts to work together smoothly

Original sentence: "Intelligent behavior arises from their coordination."

45. unitary thinker: a single, central thinking entity

Original sentence: "Minsky was deliberately opposing the intuitive idea that somewhere in the brain there must be a unitary thinker."

46. master agent: a central controller that gives orders

Original sentence: "There is no such master agent, according to him."

47. attracted fire: received strong criticism or opposition

Original sentence: "These ideas have had great influence but also attracted fire."

48. fragmented: broken into separate, disconnected pieces

Original sentence: "this does not explain why the self feels singular, not fragmented."

49. first-person subjective experience: personal feeling of being yourself from your own perspective

Original sentence: "They don't explain the experience of being a unified self – the first-person subjective experience of being who we are."

50. easy problem: in consciousness studies, problems about how the brain functions

Original sentence: "They deal with the 'easy problem' of how cognitive functions operate"

51. hard problem: the mystery of why and how brain activity creates subjective experience

Original sentence: "but not the 'hard problem' of conscious experience."

52. reductionist explanation: an explanation that breaks things down into simpler parts

Original sentence: "No amount of reductionist explanation, Chalmers argues, logically entails the existence of experience."

53. entails: makes necessary or implies

Original sentence: "No amount of reductionist explanation, Chalmers argues, logically entails the existence of experience."

54. neurodegenerative condition: a disease that progressively damages nerve cells

Original sentence: "Researchers have been observing what happens to people who have suffered a stroke or developed a neurodegenerative condition such as Alzheimer's disease."

55. focal impairment: damage limited to a very specific area or function

Original sentence: "Some of these individuals can have highly focal impairment, limited to one cognitive process or module."

56. module: a specialized part or unit of the mind or brain

Original sentence: "limited to one cognitive process or module."

57. visual perception: the ability to see and understand what you see

Original sentence: "They may, for example, have difficulty with visual perception, paying attention, retrieving information from memory, comprehending language, understanding concepts, and being motivated."

58. comprehending language: understanding spoken or written words

Original sentence: "comprehending language, understanding concepts, and being motivated."

59. articulate: able to express thoughts and feelings clearly

Original sentence: "To begin with, he seemed to be highly articulate."

60. evident: clear or obvious

Original sentence: "As we talked more though, it began to be evident that he didn't understand the meaning of some words that he really should know."

61. semantics: the study or area of meaning in language

Original sentence: "it became clear that Michael was suffering from a highly limited impairment in semantics — understanding the meaning of words and the concepts that are attached to them."

62. semantic dementia: a brain disease that slowly destroys knowledge of word meanings

Original sentence: "His diagnosis was semantic dementia."

63. inclined: tending or willing to do something

Original sentence: "He didn't understand jokes and became less inclined to talk."

64. sense of humor: the ability to find things funny

Original sentence: "His friends thought that he'd lost his sense of humor and came to visit him less."

65. isolated: separated from others, alone

Original sentence: "He became more isolated."

66. demonstrate: to show or prove clearly

Original sentence: "What do stories such as Michael's reveal about our selves? At one level, they demonstrate that the self can be altered."

67. eroded: gradually destroyed or worn away

Original sentence: "People behave differently if their semantics and understanding of concepts are eroded."

68. visual hallucinations: seeing things that are not really there

Original sentence: "Similarly, for individuals whose perception might be impaired, start to experience visual hallucinations"

69. disinhibited: behaving without normal restraint or control

Original sentence: "or become disinhibited in their behavior."

70. dysfunction: abnormal or unhealthy functioning

Original sentence: "All these types of dysfunction in a limited cognitive module can lead to profound changes in a person's identity."

71. identity: who a person is, their character and sense of self

Original sentence: "profound changes in a person's identity."

72. social identity: how others see and define you in society

Original sentence: "They can also alter how they appear to others and have a huge impact on their social identity."

73. first-person perspective: the viewpoint of being yourself

Original sentence: "They still have a first-person perspective on the fact that they are a person with a sense of self."

74. neurological observations: findings from studying the nervous system and brain disorders

Original sentence: "In this way, these neurological observations support the view that the self is not housed in one particular brain region"

75. distributed constellation: a scattered group of connected elements (like stars in a pattern)

Original sentence: "but rather emerges from the activities of a distributed constellation of cognitive modules."

76. focal brain disruption: damage to a specific small area of the brain

Original sentence: "Focal brain disruption to one of these does not eliminate the self."

77. selectively alters: changes only some aspects while leaving others unchanged

Original sentence: "It selectively alters it."

78. integral parts: essential or necessary pieces

Original sentence: "They are integral parts of the 'Society of the Mind' that creates our self."

79. personal identity: your own sense of who you are as an individual

Original sentence: "Very basic brain functions clearly play a key role in determining who we are — our personal identity."

80. definitive answer: final, certain, and complete solution

Original sentence: "we don't have a definitive answer to what makes up the self."

81. discipline: a branch of knowledge or academic study

Original sentence: "And we don't know whether philosophy, neuroscience, or both will be the discipline that helps us answer this question once and for all."

1. According to the article, what early question motivated neuroscientists to try to locate the self in the brain?

They are curious about what creates the sense of "ourselves"

2. What did functional brain imaging studies in the 1990s reveal about brain activity when people thought about themselves?

They found the sense of self is not a "core" in brain, the functions of "myself" are distrubuted in many parts of the brain. So they concluded the sense of self is purely fictional

3. What is the "default mode network," and why was it initially described as the brain's "self network"?

"Default mode network" is indicated some brain areas, which are responsible for some brains functions. And they will become active when the mind is at rest, engaged in introspection, retrieving memories, or imagining one's future. 

It is described as the brain's "self network" because in traditional opinions these functions are tightly tied to selfhood