TEDxYouth@Manchester 2011 - Julian Baggini - Is There A Real You?

[SlipAllCityToy]

Just because it's not a brand new idea, he shouldn't be talking about it?

I think - he was given a chance to reach a major audience with a topic, and he chose an important one.

Stop crying.

Stop crying now.

[AmagukBela]

nothnig new, but I like it. He put ti in a very nice way :-)

[Nazareadain]

this is part of why i break out in what is perceived as unexplainable anger whenever I hear people say "just be yourself". if i finally gain the presence of mind to wipe the foam from my chin and form coherent sentences i respond with "which one?"

I don't know about you, but I don't treat my friends the same way i do my grandmother, and i don't go up to her and say "yo momma's so fat" for shits and giggles. We all play several roles, or selves - and none of them are less real than the others.

[ukulelelucy]

This is so fascinating!!!

[BullshiterBader]

Bitch please. I figured this out when I was 13.

[DamionCrane]

Except that people are born with different I.Q. scorses. So they do different things with the same experiances.

[SuntzuMocro]

@whitemoiddes,

Partly true, if you are somehow born without a tongue you will never be able to talk like someone born with a tongue. It doesn't care how much you want or try.

We fancy the believe of being able to overcome our limitations, cause the opposite leaves us vulnerable. But the fact is we are vulnerable.

[WhiteMoiddes]

limits are something you put on yourself

[alexandercle]

"Is" there a you, who ask the question? and to hear and aware of the answer to your question?

[MisterAriLeon]

This is embarassing.

This guy has no clue about philosophy, and a misunderstanding of Buddhism.

I don't have time to correct any wrong assumption he is making. But to begin with: The self consciousness is the basis of science and philosophy (Descartes), everything can be doubted, but not the process of doubting itself (cogito, sum). Therefore there is no sense in using neuroscience as an argument in philosophy.

This is a very bad way to teach young people, cause they get a wrong impression.

[alexandercle]

@MisterAriLeon .. it is obvious, the man is ignorant of his own ignorant.

[MrFumbDuck]

People complaining that this isn't new; he's talking to youths who probably haven't come across this idea before. I think He did a good job, but could be more scientific in his approach.

[ksceriath]

@dumbo800 how do u make formaldehyde like that?? don't u need a fourth atom...? :-|

[zweiosterei]

A very old subject but a goodie. This guy is simply right.

[Foryeva]

This guy needs to read some Alan Watts ..........

[linkdude64]

@Foryeva Yeah...or watch it. "A Conversation with Myself" is viewable here.

[AndyTiran]

I think that what YOU are is:

1) Your parents (their habits, actions, reactions, work, how they treat you etc.)

2) Your friends/community (you have to adapt in order to be accepted)

3) Corporations/media (what they want you to be and what they want you to want or even crave). If you really want a second generation iPhone - you are a victim of corporations/media.

4) Criticism - that's what defines you. That's what makes you different and what makes you perceive reality in your own way.

[siddhaarthroy]

I hope Hinduism has answers to the issue he is addressing...

[groovebot5001]

"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."

George Bernard Shaw



[ulyben]

I guess people need to delude themselves they are looking for something that already exists in order to create something so fundamental "out of nothing".

[TheHpnfreak]

this guy`s a wanker

[Blopblipblap]

Sceptical at first, but nonetheless there is a case to be made for the idea that there is not a significant innate 'self'. Rather, as he concludes, the idea that our 'self' is a combination of experiences, beliefs and memories also prompts the realization that one can shape his own form of 'self'. Instead of having to discover who he really is deep inside, he can influence who he is. This is both liberating and empowering.

[baracktimusprime]

at 6:20 he asks why we don't simply think of ourselves as a collection of parts like a watch or a molecule or everything else in the universe. But there's a huge difference; living beings are different from everything else in that they have consciousness. The fact that a person can be self-aware is what sets them apart from a watch or a molecule. A person's self-awareness is the single thing that they carry with them through their lives. To me, that's the essence of the "self".

[imalwayswatchingu00]

someone give this guy a blotter.

[mrdotbryce]

this guy is so wrong... about personality being an assembly of things. about limits... very mediocre thinking. why did he get to speak ? very annoying

[mymemoryhouse]

This all sounds suspiciously close to the Buddhist concepts of anatta (non-selfhood) and aniccia (impermanence), two of the three "characteristics of existence".

[SuperAnimalDrummer]

we are the awareness behind our thoughts - Eckhart Tolle

[nykeiss]

look up Liberation Unleashed guys

[skillfulx]

Very basic and important Buddhist concepts - also the method of explanation - however, he got it wrong: when the Buddha said "shape yourself" - the self he was talking about was not the "true self". It is a common mistake to confuse different levels of teachings in the buddha-dharma.

[1PHILLWHITE]

I can see where he is coming from, however, I know that my body is a collection of parts as my memory is a collection of experiences . In my opinion I am the glue that binds them together.I am not my body, I see my body as a vehicle it gets my self around in this reality to experience and learn.

He clearly doesn't know the difference between a Buddha and a Buddai ! Buddha is skinny.  Sorry to be pedantic but his argument is a bit wishy washy in my opinion.

[jrn913]

@1PHILLWHITE

That seems fairly nonsensical. If you aren't your body and your brain, then please explain what you are. Assuming you are not actually "glue," then what are you?

[muzzblack]

BODY: Food molecules and processed to build our bodies & at least every 7 years all of our cells have died and are replaced with fresh materials. physically there is no core. SELF: we are a product of stimulations and thoughts, each new one changing who we are, Take them away and we are nothing. There is no ego core. At most we can say that we are a pattern! To discover this truth is to experience an ego death, one of the most painful realisations a human can have.

[tabithatwitchetty]

@muzzblack Ego death can be liberating. It supports the realisation that life and consciousness is a gift, perhaps nothing more than a random pattern, but amazing nevertheless. It can support empathy and the connections we have with each other.. Or you can just become a nihilist of course...

[HefecTikva]

nothing new..

"I suppose everyone continues to be interested in the quest for the self, but what you feel when you’re older, I think, is that — how to express this — you really must make the self. It's absolutely useless to look for it, you won’t find it, but it’s possible in some sense to make it."

Mary McCarthy 1961

In other words: life isn't about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself :)

[MisterAriLeon]

@HefecTikva

Why not find your self first and then create it?

Or in other words: If we are creating our selves, then our self is this entity being eable to create itself (subject in scientific philosophy).

[livefast86]

@HefecTikva

we are constantly experiencing contradictions with our desires,we want something and at the same time we are embarrassed of wanting it because of psychological issues, social conditioning etc..apart from 'creating ourselves' we also have to 'live as ourselves', and to do that we have to (not find, but rather) *listen* to ourselves.. listen to what we have previously created..a deep inner procedure where you give voice to who you are,transcending all the social filters etc

[OxiC1eanGuy]

@livefast86 I feel it is more as if we have these collection of experiences, but we are more than just that collection of experiences we also have opinions about those events some of which can drastically change the type of person you are. We must do what we feel to be right and its those decisions during your life, effected by our opinions, which define you.

*idk if that made any sense. [4]

[marz80801980]

@HefecTikva This is true. This is Soul - Creation at the heart of Being.

[Fooleth]

Where did that Carbon appear when he talks about water !?!?!?!?

Thumbs up if you know about organic chemistry. :)

[dumbo800]

Definitely a very poor choice in graphing a molecule of water. Using that structure, it is formaldehyde (except the double bond to the oxygen is omitted).

[Fooleth]

@dumbo800 I felt uneasy, being a chemist.

[mremgee]

@dumbo800 I don't see a C anywhere there.

[dumbo800]

@mremgee Organic chemistry implies a Carbon where a backbone either meets/branches, or angles away. It keeps it from getting too crowded with letters, since O-chem always has Carbon involved (typically Hydrogen are also implied, but sometimes not).

[GlorifiedTruth]

@dumbo800 - Exactly! However, without the double bond, it is actually a condensed representation of plutonium tetraflouride.

[dumbo800]

@GlorifiedTruth I'm not an expert in chem, but I really do not see anyway that this could represent Plutonium Pentafluoride.

[JustMereArt]

This view seems somewhat damaged by (what I think might be) one of Baggini's own thought experiments. If you had your memory destroyed and replaced by new, artificial memories, your personality altered, various genes changed, you wouldn't be the 'you' you know now. However, if you had to choose between having this new 'you' tortured and having someone else tortured, it'd still make sense to opt for the latter. You'd still be the experiencer, even if all your predicates are changed.

[24thandenero]

@JustMereArt Good. Point.

[xPEACHxEATERx]

From my earliest coherent memories (3-4 yrs), I've always been 'Me'. My views have shifted RADICALLY over the years, and despite the information and experiences that caused this, I'm still the same 'Me'. I believe that's completely compatible with physically being a collection of synergistic parts that produces our being and consciousness and not some timeless entity that exists seperately somehow. No 'centre in the brain'? So what?

[1Delu]

@xPEACHxEATERx

I think I agree with your idea. Our knowledge or belief might shift trough time, but, the entity, the experiencer doesn't change. After 32 year, I still remember my pains I experienced during childhood...they still shock me as they did 32 years ago.