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Brie Stark's picture

I was very interested in

I was very interested in the concept of the "self" that we touched upon with Katie's presentation, and when discussing Alzheimer's. 

The first thought that came to mind, before our detailed discussion was, "I act different around different people because I know their emotions, their values, the situation… and I wonder, when am I actually “myself” if “myself” means uninfluenced by others? How does one differentiate between the selves? Why are the selves distinct, and not just impulses of one self?"

While my question wasn't entirely answered, I did receive some particularly interesting insight on the topic.  Something I took out of the discussion was that my own perception of me was actually a very elaborate self-deception.  Many of our actions/behaviors are produced by the unconscious part of our brain (the second level in the bi-partheid brain model).  It seems that the self is actually an overlapping 'entity,' for lack of a better word, that both depends on the unconscious and the conscious levels of our brain.  The self, to me, seems like a culmination of information made into a relationship--as we dubbed, a storyteller.  There is no real 'entity,' but rather a flow of information that is processed according to our own individual means, thus providing a differing sense of "self" from person to person.  

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