We wake up every morning feeling like the same person who went to sleep the night before. We assume there is a single “I” behind our eyes – a pilot steering the body, making choices, and experiencing life. But at a recent debate in London, three leading thinkers argued that this unified self might be a trick of the mind, a biological necessity, or even a quantum mystery.
At the HowTheLightGetsIn festival, philosopher Sam Harris, physicist Roger Penrose, and neuroscientist Sophie Scott met to discuss “The Divided Self.” Their conversation challenged the comfortable idea of one solid identity and asked a disturbing question: if the self can be divided, did it ever really exist in the first place?
Sam Harris argues the self is a construct we can drop
Sam Harris, a neuroscientist and the creator of the Waking Up meditation guide, took the most radical stance: the self is an illusion. He argues that what we call “I” is just a feeling, not a fact.
No center in the brain
Harris points out that neuroscience has never found a seat of the soul. There is no single control room in the brain where all information comes together for “you” to watch on a screen. Instead, the brain is a collection of many parallel processes – vision, language, emotion, motor control – that sync up to create a seamless experience. The feeling that there is a separate “subject” having these experiences is an extra layer of thought, not a biological reality.
The “witness” disappears in meditation
According to Harris, if you look closely enough for the self, it vanishes. In deep meditation or under the influence of psychedelics, people often experience “ego death” or “non-duality.” In this state, experience continues – sights, sounds, and thoughts still happen – but the feeling of being a separate observer is gone. Harris suggests that because this sense of self is so easily interrupted and biologically hidden, we do not actually need it to function. In fact, dropping the illusion can lead to greater clarity and compassion.
Roger Penrose links the self to memory and quantum physics
Nobel Prize winner Roger Penrose took a different view, linking the self to the continuity of consciousness and the mysteries of physics. He is well known for theories suggesting consciousness could be connected with the whole universe through quantum processes in the brain.
The split-brain puzzle: one person or two?
Penrose raised the famous example of split-brain patients. In the past, doctors sometimes cut the corpus callosum – the bridge between the brain’s left and right hemispheres – to stop severe epileptic seizures. This surgery stopped the hemispheres from talking to each other.
The results were baffling. In some tests, the two halves of the brain seemed to act like two separate people. One hand might try to button a shirt while the other hand tried to unbutton it. If the self is a single, unified thing, how can it be split in two with a scalpel? This physical evidence suggests that our sense of unity relies heavily on the brain’s ability to communicate with itself.
Consciousness as a string of beads
For Penrose, the self is tied to the flow of conscious moments. He asks whether consciousness is a continuous line or a series of discrete “beads” of experience strung together by memory. If the self is just the string holding these beads together, it might be more fragile than we think. His view suggests that our identity is not a fixed object, but a process that must be constantly maintained by the brain’s complex physics.
Sophie Scott asks if biology or feeling defines us
Neuroscientist Sophie Scott emphasized that we need to be careful with our words. The debate often stalls because “self” means different things to different people.
Memory as the glue
Scott argued that from a biological perspective, continuity is key. Unlike skin or muscle cells, which die and are replaced, our neurons generally stay with us for life. This biological stability allows for long-term memory, which acts as the glue for our identity.
Whether the self is a “user illusion” as Harris claims, or a biological continuity as Scott suggests, the science is clear: the “I” you feel is not a simple, indivisible ghost in the machine. It is a complex, fragile construction that the brain works hard to build every waking moment.
What you can do about it
Learning that the self is a construct can be liberating rather than scary. If your “self” is built by thoughts and habits, you have some power to change it.
- Practice mindfulness: You can use techniques like the one in the Waking Up app to inspect the feeling of “self.” When you are angry or anxious, look for the “person” who is angry. Often, you will find only the feeling itself, which helps the negative emotion pass faster.
- Use distance self-talk: Psychological research shows that using your own name instead of “I” can help you regulate emotions. Use your name, not I, to quiet your mind describes how this simple shift creates distance from spiraling thoughts.
- Question your narrative: If you feel stuck in a personality trait (“I am just an angry person”), remember that this is a story your brain is telling, not a fixed biological fact.
Sources & related information
IAI News – Penrose vs Harris vs Scott: Are there multiple selves? – 2024
A summary of the debate at the HowTheLightGetsIn festival where Sam Harris, Roger Penrose, and Sophie Scott discussed the nature of the divided self, split-brain cases, and the illusion of the ego.
Brain – Split brain: divided perception but undivided consciousness – 2017
A study by Yair Pinto and colleagues challenging the classic view of split-brain patients suggests that even with the hemispheres severed, a unified conscious agent may persist, contradicting the idea that two separate selves are created.
Sam Harris – The Illusion of the Self – 2012
An essay and subsequent discussions by Sam Harris explain the neurological and experiential arguments for why the sense of a separate “I” is an illusion generated by the brain.
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