The Illusion of Self

We aren't drawn to people because they are especially rational, or logical. The rational and logical serve as a framework of sorts, and have to be (or at least must appear to be) consistent. But what really draws us to people is the unique flavour of a personality, the character of a person.

Distinctive emotional colour filling a framework of rational process, like flesh on a skeleton.

This is the fundamental nature of the human self, and the projection of that self is the fundamental function of the human brain. An evolved courtship display that is created by the two hemispheres working in sync with each other. The left provides the framework, the right fills it in.

This is a very powerful perspective from which to look at many kinds of seemingly incoherent human behaviour. The common, consensus view of people in is that they are, essentially, thinking and feeling machines. Machines of logic and feeling, that these are the two 'sides' to people, the two poles of human mental activity.

Except — what if both of them are fictional? And that the brain itself is not there primarily to process, but instead, primarily, to project?

And in fact, I think it's fair to say that the human mind does not behave like a mind. It behaves like the display of one. And invested with colour, vibrance and distinctive flavour, the illusion is not just one of dry rational process, but of a vivid, fascinating, fully formed character. The human self — which is utterly illusory.

This is bad news for all those seeking some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card in the workings of the right hemisphere. It is up to its neck in all this. The right hemisphere does indeed have a more immediate relationship to reality, but it is totally in the thrall of the left hemisphere, and is more than happy to remain so.

Because while all this might well be very interesting (or not) from an academic point of view, the results of it are not quite so academic.

Because there's one more piece to this puzzle. Pain.