What is the Bundle Theory of Self? (Philosophical Definition)

[@sageseraphim6720]

I'm a Christian and I absolutely love your videos. Your videos have helped me greatly with understanding logic and metaphysics. Thank you!!! Keep up the awesome work!

[@MrJamesdryable]

Still a Christian?

[@johnpoker-y1s]

@@MrJamesdryable unlikely

[@MrJamesdryable]

@@johnpoker-y1s Agreed.

[@TheAgavi]

It's sort of non-essentialist, then? "Self" isn't an actual thing with specific properties, it's just a label we give to the thing we are currently experiencing?

[@adyingdream4585]

According to Hume, it seems so.

[@jooyichen]

I have an RGB theory of the self. Maybe it's not the body. Nor the memory. It's the processes that uniquely identify a person. A clone could produce the same amount of color, but not in identical hues of the same color. Maybe the process itself requires the destruction of both yellow and blue to produce green, so that we may never track the past. Maybe we would get something like oxygen and hydrogen, both elements being flammable when combined creating water with completely unique attributes. That way the present becomes completely disconnected from the past self. That's okay. I still have a color yellow with a unique ID in the database of yellow ( yielded ) output colors.

[@broccolionswag]

i really like this idea thank you

[@MTTR01]

Can anyone provide me with a link or source to the original paper which Hume wrote?

[@revitellect3129]

Great theory. Does solve some problems of the other theories. Essentially, you are the sum of mental and physical properties? Fair enough. But the problem I find with that is thar over time, most of the experiences/properties that make you you may change. If that happens, then how can you say that a particular person is another person from many years ago? So maybe it could be that personhood is just something we use for convenience. In reality, people as persons don't exist. We just have a physical body and a mind tied to it. These can always change. You migjt become deranged or mature as compared to before. You might become taller or have another person's organ in your body, etc. Or maybe it's that there is no stable personhood. It's just flexible and only makes sense loosely.

[@S2Cents]

Carneades, what's Douglas Hofstadter's theory of the self? Is a kind of Bundle Theory that is presented in "I Am a Strange Loop" and if not what other thinker's conceptualizations of selfhood would Hoftstadter's most resemble? Thanks anybody.

[@MBarberfan4life]

I think Daniel Dennett subscribes to something like the bundle theory of self. He talks about how there is no substantial self like most people commonly think (including Descartes)

[@jimmyfaulkner1855]

This sounds similar to the Buddhist view of the Self

[@sethapex9670]

parfit's population ethics, especially the repugnant conclusion, seems very similar to something my ethics instructor taught us while we weres studying utilitarianism.

[@guzalabduraupova220]

Finally I got it. Thanks.

[@t.clarke3410]

The video is a clear and understandable account of the problem. I think a solution must lie in how we see ourselves. The video starts with questioning our identity over time. But it ends with considering our mental and physical states, our parts. If we are entities in time, as the intro suggests, then we are processes, not a conjunction of states and parts. Such a conjunction is mysterious, whereas to see my self as a unique set of ongoing experiences is I think a more promising approach.

[@boocabooc]

this is helping me bunches with my Workings of the Mind course

[@JB-qh3dn]

this is a great video! thanks a lot!!

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

I'm glad you liked it! Thanks for watching!

[@tsewangspaldon2018]

Thank you. Very great video 🙏🙏🙏

[@MarcNash]

I think rather than a fairly reified intellection about the term, the biological approach is perhaps more useful. Given how in evolution single cell entities clumped together over time to form highly specialised organs like the ear, or the eye, bundle theory might offer that all our senses have individual drives but it suits them evolutionary-wise to have some semblance of a unifying being to bring all the sense data together to process on their behalf to maximise their chances of environmental success. But they still drive that self, rather than the self driving them.

[@Cy5208]

I've thought of it as a biologically expressed complex adaptive system with an experiencial self avatar.

[@MarmaladeINFP]

Friedrich Nietzsche also had a bundle theory of mind/self. But his was partly based on late 19th century physiology. There were theories at the time about the body consisting of competing parts. It fit the ethos of an emerging social Darwinism, as applied to the individual. But one could imagine another variant of biological bundling without the competitive aspect.

[@eleftheriosepikuridis9110]

How does the Bundle theory compare to the Deleuzian notion of Assemblage?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

From my understanding of Deleuze, assemblage is "an emergent unity joining together heterogeneous bodies in a 'consistency.'" according to the SEP, i.e a set a processes that brings a system together making it real. Assemblage is an action, something that happens. While the bundle theory of self is a static statement that there is no underlying person under your properties, rather you are nothing but a bundle of properties. One of the problems with bringing continental and analytic philosophy together is that they are often just talking past each other, even on closely connected ideas.

[@eleftheriosepikuridis9110]

@@CarneadesOfCyreneApreciate you a lot for always answering such questions for those of us who are less familiar with Philosophy yet :) I'd guess that an Assemblage is considered a process because according to deleuzian Metaphysics, everything is a process - so maybe a one could say it's sorta like a bundle in constant motion and development?

[@nahidkhajeh5494]

Is this "wreak" or "reek"?

[@thomasslover2340]

Enjoyed the video, but how about making one that goes more deeply into the subject? This one seems just too basic to create interest in the mind of the viewer. We need more "meat and potatoes" videos on philosophy on KZbin and I'll bet you could help. Keep up the good work but please don't be afraid to get in more deeply. Thanks for reading my comment.

[@MarmaladeINFP]

The problem is most KZbinrs are simply looking for views. Short videos get clicks, even if they don't really offer substance. And if a KZbinr is trying to make money from videos or simply get their channel popular, they are forced to feed the algorithm and so become a slave to the lowest common denominator of viewer.

[@aimee2338]

The Good Place brought me here

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Many thanks to Chidi. :) A wonderful series that tackles philosophical questions both implicitly and explicitly.

[@imdadbaloch4830]

great

[@Existentialist946]

Materialists are obliged to subscribe to the bundle theory or something like it, and arguably so too is anyone who thinks the brain creates our consciousness. But I reject the brain produces consciousness thesis and I subscribe to the idea there is an underlying non-material self, aka substantial self or mental substance. Mental substance seems to me to be the commonsensical conception of the self.

[@MarmaladeINFP]

There might a mental substance that isn't unchanging, singular, coherent, isolated, contained, individualized, and propertied (self-determination, self-ownership, self-possession, self-mastery, etc). That mental substance might be like the bundling of water molecules that freely intermix and flow. Is any single current, ripple, or wave a thing unto itself? Is it a different wave if the exact same molecules formed another wave? What if they're frozen into a sheet of ice instead? Or rain? Or broken down into hydrogen and oxygen in producing extra electrons in the electron transport chain? Mental substance could be 5E cognition (embodied, embedded, enacted, extended, ecological). Or it could be animistic, panentheistic. cosmopsychist, etc that expresses through multiple personalities. But in any case, how would we know that a single, absolute mental substance exists at all versus being multiple or maybe entirely an epiphenomenon? What makes your unquestioned personal beliefs to be commonsensical? How do we separate conventional thought and cultural bias from a supposed one true common sense to rule them all? There have been at least thousands of different variations of conflicting claims of common sense, across time periods and cultures. Also, we might be just lost in false perceptions. In Buddhist mindfulness, the goal is to become aware that there is no there there. The egoic self dissipates when one relaxes the clinging tendency and merely observes the monkey mind. It's not anything that could be rationally argued or scientifically proven. Only experienced. But of course, to those who identify with their ego and fear the possibility of it's non-existence, they'd never have the openness and curiosity to do the experiment on themselves to find out if it's true or not. It's too much of a threat.

[@Existentialist946]

@@MarmaladeINFP A substance is usually referred to as that which is fundamental, not that which is composed of parts. Otherwise there would be no purpose to the word substance at all. And no, it doesn't mean cognition either. You can't just change the meanings of words. If you're claiming a mental substance doesn't exist, then you need to argue for it, not play stupid games with the meanings of words. I can't explain why it's commonsensical to subscribe to an enduring self. It's just a recognition we are born with. If there were no self then there is nothing to tie together one's experiences, or even one's thoughts. It's completely nonsensical. "Buddhist mindfulness" is incorrect.

[@MarmaladeINFP]

Physical substances involve numerous parts, aspects, states, forms, processes, and systems (quantum particles, atoms, molecules, solid, liquid, gaseous, fourth phase, etc), along with matter turning into energy and vice versa. Why would we assume that a mental substance would be different than or separate from physical substances and how they function? According to quantum physics, it's not clear that it's meaningful to talk of 'substances' at all. This is why it's important to have scientifically-informed opinions. As for common sense, anyone vaguely familiar with the social sciences would recognize numerous problems, as common sense assumptions vary according to culture, personality, experience, etc. WEIRD folk psychology has proven inaccurate in numerous studies. But we also know that, in looking at non-WEIRD populations, WEIRD mentality is not universal or even representative of most non-WEIRD people (WEIRD = Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic). The anthropological record shows other mentalities, such as variations of non-egoic selves.

[@Existentialist946]

@@MarmaladeINFP Regardless of the various ways that substance is used, mental substance specifically means that consciousness is not composed of parts but rather is fundamental Saying why this substance is fundamental is nonsensical! It's what is meant by a freaking substantial self. The idea that the "self" is composed of parts is what clueless materialists believe. Indeed, it's an oxymoron. Folk psychology is not weird (and why the CAPS?). It's just a fact and commonsensical to boot. I have zero interest in the social sciences, and especially since they (and probably most scientists) subscribe to such palpable falsehoods. Stop wasting my time with your asinine responses.