“It seems obvious to many of us that the ability to conjure up, construct, or develop a “self” is directly dependent on the complex brain that has evolved in humans, and on the unique human capacity for language. What’s notable about language is the device known as “grammar,” the set of rules or algorithms that allows us to combine and re-combine the thousands of items in our total vocabularies (both lexical — e.g., “apple,” “ball,” “the,” “self,” etc. — and referential — e.g., “World War I,” “Justin Bieber,” “Iran,” “New York Yankees,” etc.) to generate new sentences, thoughts, and ideas. There are no doubt other “vocabularies” of images, sounds, and movement that also come into play. As far as we know, no other animals share this generative capacity (despite a good deal of sentimentality about animals we like) and, in a sense, that’s why we have rocket science and chimpanzees don’t.”
“It’s also the case, or appears to be, that the self is a developmental entity, connected to brain growth after birth, the previously noted language acquisition capacity, and the continuing experience of embodiment, as well as intersubjective experiences with others and the world, sometimes described, perhaps a bit romantically, as being-in-the-world-with-others. The development of a self is, then, a process, and the self is capable, through self-reflection, of making significant changes of belief and behaviour in the course of a lifetime.”
“a self is a mental entity which comprises, refers to, or represents you, and includes your experiences, memories, beliefs, “character,” interests, knowledge, and everything else that goes into making up an identifiable “you.” There is a set of terms, such as “mind,” “consciousness,” “I,” “me,” “identity,” “beliefs,” “personality,” “thoughts,” and many more — some of them synonyms for, or related to, or overlapping with the notion of “self” — in which we carry on this discussion of who and what we are.”
“a self is not a physical object in the ordinary sense, though its existence is directly dependent on a physical object, the brain, and it’s not a spiritual entity in whatever sense we use that term. It, at best, seems to be quasi-autonomous, and has the ability to reflect on itself and possibly the power to change itself.”
“Dainton is a philosophy professor at the University of Liverpool, England, and as the author of three earlier and more technical works, The Phenomenal Self (2008), Stream of Consciousness (2006), and Time and Space (2001; 2010), he has a professional stake — that is, a theory — in the current philosophical debates about consciousness and related topics. Self is part of a new series of “Philosophy in Transit” books published by Penguin and aimed at a general readership. (Other titles in the series include Slavoj Žižek’s Event, Truth by John Caputo, and Susan Neiman on Why Grow Up?)”