Lesson video

Hello there.

My name is Mr. Robertson.

It's fantastic to be learning with you today.

We are at the beginning of a new unit of work, which is called "Personhood: What Does It Mean To Be Alive?

" And we're going to be looking at the really big question of what makes us who we are and whether that idea can apply to other forms of life as well.

Today's lesson starts this off, and it's called "Self: What Makes Us Who We Are.

" By the end of this lesson, you will be able to explain how the idea of self is interpreted differently in culture and philosophy.

We have three key words in our lesson today.

Our first words are "bundle theory," and that is the view from Hume and Baggini, that the self is a collection of changing experiences, not a fixed core.

Our second words are Julian Baggini, who is a British philosopher who argues that the self is a bundle of experiences and a narrative that we construct, not a fixed essence.

And finally, we have the word "self," the concept of a person's identity, psychological, physical, or spiritual, that makes them who they are.

This lesson is in two parts, and in the first part of the lesson, we're going to be thinking about Western versus Southeast Asian ideas of self.

So Sam and Sofia are discussing what we mean by this big idea of "self.

" Sam says, "I think 'self' means who I am, my thoughts, memories, personality, and feelings.

These are the things that make me me.

" Sofia says, "Sometimes I find it difficult to pin down what makes me me.

I feel like my 'self' is always changing.

My thoughts and feelings come and go.

" So we've got two pupils here talking about this idea of self, but they have slightly different ways of looking at it.

I wonder whose idea you relate to more.

Do you feel more like Sam or more like Sofia?

What do you think of this idea of self?

And where do your ideas come from?

Well, let's think about what this idea self might mean and think about the fact that it might have different meanings for different people.

So when we think about this idea of self, we're talking about this concept of a person's identity that might be their physical body, their psychological state, or, for some people, a spiritual sense of what it is that makes them who they are.

So it could include your body, your thoughts, memories and emotions, and your soul or inner purpose.

All of these ideas can have influence on this idea of the self.

So let's just check what we've learned so far.

There's a missing word here I'd like you to think about.

Self can be understood as the concept of a person's "something," physical, psychological, or spiritual, that makes them who they are.

What's the missing word here?

Pause the video and have a think.

Excellent.

It's identity, isn't it?

Their identity.

Brilliant if you got that right.

Now, as we've said, every culture has ways of answering this idea of "Who am I?

" But they don't all agree on what the self actually is or how stable it is.

Let's look again at what Sam was saying.

She said, "I think 'self' means who I am, my thoughts, memories, personality, and feelings.

These are the things that make me me.

" So Sam was saying some interesting things about what they thought the self meant.

And what Sam here is doing is expressing what we might say is a typical Western view of the self.

And this idea has been deeply influenced by the ancient Greeks and Christian thought.

In this Western model, the self is usually seen as something fixed, something continuous, and something individual.

This idea that there are certain things that make me me, my self is this core of me, and it's something that's pretty fixed.

It's gonna stay the same way through time as I grow in my body.

And I might have different ideas, I might have different tastes, but fundamentally, the core of the self that makes me me will stay the same throughout my life.

And that's a kind of typical Western way of seeing the self.

So a Western view of self would say that I am the same person now as I was when I was a baby, and I will be when I'm older.

If we look here at Aisha, we can see her growing from a baby into a little girl, to a woman, and then an older woman, and herself will remain the same throughout her life.

Now, someone who had a really big influence on this idea of self was the French philosopher Descartes.

He very famously said, "I think, therefore I am.

" I'm sure you may well have heard that quotation before, but what does Descartes actually mean when he said that?

So Descartes believed that we should be skeptics.

We should doubt things around us, and we should doubt as much as we can.

But the one thing we can't doubt is that we are thinking.

So even if the way things around us may not be what they think they are, the very fact that I can sit in this chair and think about me and my self means that there is something about me, which is a fixed self.

Descartes said that the true self is the mind or the soul and not the body because our body can change.

It can grow older, we can suffer from an injury, it will change over time, but our ability to think and be aware of ourselves remains, and that remains a constant throughout our lives.

Sam is expressing what a Western view of self really means.

Sam says, "I know I'll grow up, and my hobbies and interests might change.

I could enjoy football now, and music later, or swap video games for reading.

But even with those changes, there is still a core self that makes me who I am.

No matter what shifts on the surface, that deeper part of me is still me.

" So let's just think a little bit about what Sam is saying there.

They're saying that although they might change certain things like their hobbies and interests, there is a core of them which is gonna stay the same throughout their lives.

I wonder what someone might identify with Sam's view of self.

You might want to pause the video here and talk to the person next to you.

What do you think about this idea that Sam is expressing?

What do you think about this Western idea of a core self that stays the same throughout your life?

Let's just check our understanding so far.

According to Descartes, what is the true self?

Is it A, the physical body.

Because it shows who we are?

B, the mind or soul?

Because thinking cannot be doubted.

C, a person's relationship with others?

D, the memories of childhood experiences?

Which one of those is closest to what we were saying about what Descartes thought about the true self?

Pause the video and have a think.

Excellent.

It's B, isn't it?

Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am.

" And he said that although you could doubt many things, you can't doubt the mind or soul because it's thinking and it's aware.

Brilliant if you got that right.

Now, we've thought about Sam's view, which is a kind of traditional Western view of the self.

Sofia said, if you remember, she said, "Sometimes I find it difficult to pin down what makes me me.

I feel like my 'self' is always changing.

My thoughts and feelings come and go.

" Now, interestingly, Sofia's ideas here are very influenced by Southeast Asian ideas.

And these ideas are drawn from a different philosophical tradition.

So rather than kind of Greek and Christian thought, this idea are influenced by the great worldviews of Hindu Dharma and Buddhism.

And instead of a fixed self, self is seen as something which is changing.

She says, "My thoughts and feelings come and go.

" So the self isn't just a single thing, which is always the same.

It's what we might call impermanent.

It changes over time.

And importantly, it's interconnected with everything else.

So it's not just a single self isolated from the rest of the world, but Sofia's sense of self is one that's connected to other people and the world around it.

And this is a very different way of looking at the world.

Let's find out a little bit more about what this view looks like in practice.

Sofia's talking to Mel, and Mel is a Tibetan Buddhist, and she's gonna ask her about this idea of self.

Sofia says, "I find it difficult to pin down what makes me me.

What do you think, Mel?

" Mel says, "I definitely agree.

In Buddhism, we believe there is no fixed self.

This is expressed in the idea of anatta.

What we might call self is a collection of changing parts, all of which depend on something else.

" So Mel's saying that rather than there being a fixed Sofia or fixed her, which stays the same throughout her life, she's saying, actually, the self is something which is in constant flux and constant change, and it's connected and depends on other things.

It's not its own little fixed thing.

She goes on to explain a little bit more about this, and she's going to use an analogy here, which is gonna help us understand in a bit more detail.

She says, "The Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh used a beautiful analogy to explain the idea of self.

He said it's like a cloud drifting across the sky.

At one moment, it's a cloud.

Later, it becomes rain, which falls to the ground into a river, which flows to an ocean, and then, of course, it's taken up into a cycle again.

In the same way my body grows, my interests shift, and my thoughts and feelings evolve.

The self is always transforming, but always connected to what came before and what will come next.

" So what this analogy is saying is that as human beings, we're a bit like clouds.

At some point, we look like a cloud, but then we might fall as rain, which comes into the ocean.

So we might look and feel quite different ourselves over our lives, but they're all connected together.

So they may not be exactly the same, but they're all in a connection together.

I wonder why someone might identify with this view of self.

How might this be quite helpful to understand what life might be like or what you might be like as a human being?

You might feel more connected with who you were before.

So, as a person, you might change quite radically in your life.

You might have very different interests, you might look different, you might change your appearance, you might have different relationships.

But actually, that's fine because you are a person who is going to change through your life.

And so this idea of changing is part of being a self according to this Buddhist idea.

Let's just think about our understanding there.

I've got a true or false question for you.

Buddhism challenges the idea of a true self.

Is that true or false?

Pause the video and have a think.

Excellent.

It's true, isn't it?

Buddhism says there isn't one fixed self which stays the same throughout our lives, but actually we are a collection of changing emotions and ideas that change through time, and there isn't one us.

Okay, let's think a little bit about what we've learned so far.

We've got Sam and Sofia's ideas of self.

Let's remind about what they said.

Sam said, "I think 'self' means who I am, my thoughts, memories, personality, and feelings.

These are the things that make me me.

" And Sofia said, "Sometimes I find it difficult to pin down what makes me me.

I feel like my 'self' is always changing.

My thoughts and feelings come and go.

" So we have Sam, where our kind of Western fixed idea of a self, and Sofia's much more Buddhist, dharmic idea of self, which changes.

What I'd like you to do is create a diagram to compare these ideas of self.

How might you draw them in a way that represents their ideas?

In this, you might include a definition of self, the Western view that I'm the same person now as I was when I was a baby.

You might mention Descartes' ideas of "I think, therefore I am.

" And knowing that because you think you could definitely be that person.

And you might include some Buddhist ideas about the self as changing.

Try and be creative and think about how you could represent those ideas in the best way possible.

Look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Wow, some brilliant ideas.

I've had a go; see what you think.

So the idea of a fixed self.

You might have the idea of a stable, unchanging whole.

You could draw that like a circle or a line to represent the idea that the self is a whole.

It doesn't change; it stays the same through life.

You might have thought about some Asian ideas that there's no fixed self and the self changes like a cloud drifting across the sky.

You might have used Thich Nhat Hanh's ideas of clouds to help draw that.

I'd be really interested to see what you've done.

But have you got this idea of something that is fixed and stable versus something which is changing?

Brilliant, if you've managed to think about these two different models of the self.

In the second part of the lesson, we're gonna be looking at the idea of the bundle theory of self.

So this is Julian Baggini, and he is a modern British philosopher.

He's done a lot of thinking about this idea of self, and he wrote a book which explored this called "The Ego Trick.

" Let's go back to what Sam said about self.

Sam said, "I think self means who I am, my thoughts, memories, personality, and feelings.

These are the things that make me me.

" Now, Baggini rejects this typical Western view that there is a permanent, unchanging self that stays the same through life.

Instead, he describes this idea as a "pearl" view.

A pearl is something which is found in an oyster shell.

It's solid, smooth, and it's formed over time, but once it exists, it stays the same.

The oyster makes the pearl over many years.

It stays in the middle of its shell.

It makes something beautiful, which is solid, and it stays the same.

He uses this idea of the pearl to describe the self as something deep inside, permanent, and untouched by change.

So, rather like the oyster makes the pearl in the shell and protects it and keeps it the same throughout the life of the oyster, he says the Western idea of the self is like something hidden deep inside us.

It's formed, but once it's there, it exists.

It stays.

It's permanent.

It suggests that beneath all our experiences, emotions, and thoughts, there is a core me that remains stable.

Let's just check our understanding of the pearl view.

What does it suggest?

A, the self is a bundle of changing thoughts and feelings?

B, the self is a deep, unchanging core that stays the same over time?

C, the self is made of five skandhas that arise and pass away?

D, the self is a story we create to make sense of our experiences?

Which of those reflects what Baggini describes as the pearl view of self?

Pause the video and have a think.

Excellent.

It's B, isn't it?

This idea that, like a pearl, the self is a deep, unchanging core that stays the same over time.

Now, Baggini thinks differently about the self, and his ideas chime with some of the Buddhist teachings that we've been looking at because he rejects this idea of a fixed, permanent self.

Instead, he builds on some of the work of the philosopher David Hume, who was an atheist who lived from 1711 to 1776.

Now, Hume argued that when you look for the self, you find a bundle of perceptions, memories, thoughts, and feelings that are always changing.

And this is known as the bundle theory.

So rather than a pearl, which is fixed and stays the same through all time, this is the idea that our self is just a group, a bundle of different things, memories, thoughts, and feelings that change over time.

Julian Baggini shares this bundle view of self.

He describes the self as a movie.

He says in his book "The Ego Trick" that we are less like a single still image and more like a film.

When you watch a film, you are seeing a sequence of moments that are shot but put together that look continuous.

A film is made up of lots of different takes, isn't it?

And then they're all pulled together to make a film.

When we watch the film, it looks like one continuous thing.

We don't see lots individual shots, and he says that's what our self is like.

It's like a film.

It's something which is changing over time, but it feels continuous to us.

He contrasts this idea with the pearl view of the self.

So on one side, we have the Western view of a single core self like a pearl that doesn't change over time.

On the other side, we have Baggini and Hume's view that the self is a bundle of different experiences that does change over time.

Baggini's bundle theory can help explain what Sofia says.

Sofia says, "Sometimes I find it difficult to pin down what makes me me.

I feel like my 'self' is always changing.

My thoughts and feelings come and go.

" Well, Baggini would say that what we call the "I" or "self" is a story our mind makes up to tell us to make sense of what we experience.

Sofia explains what she likes about this bundle theory.

She says, "I like the bundle theory because it doesn't pretend there's a fixed self hiding under everything.

It feels real to me.

When I think about who I am, I see shifting thoughts, feelings, and memories, not some hidden core.

The idea that the self is just this flowing collection of experiences makes sense.

It matches how I actually feel from moment to moment.

" I wonder what similarities you notice between Buddhist views of the self and the bundle theory.

What connections can you make?

Think about that idea of the clouds, which Thich Nhat Hanh talked about, and what Julian Baggini talks about as the self as a movie.

You might have noticed that both say there is no single self.

It's something that changes over time.

So you're not some fixed person forever, but actually, you could be quite a different person from moment to moment.

Let's just check our understanding here.

Julian Baggini thinks the self is A, a pearl that stays the same over time.

B, a snapshot that reflects our true essence.

C, a movie made of changing frames.

D, a puzzle with missing pieces.

Can we think back to what he said?

Excellent.

It was a movie of changing frames.

Rather like a movie is made up of lots of different shots put together, so it feels continuous to us, Julian Baggini says the self is like a movie.

It appears to us continuous because that's what our mind is telling us, but actually it's something that changes all the time.

Okay, let's think about what we've learned then.

I'd like you to think about this statement.

"The self is like a movie.

" I'd like you to think about why some people might agree with this idea.

Once you've had some ideas, I'd like you to turn and talk to another person about them and write at least two arguments in the agree table.

We've got our table saying, "People might agree because," and "People might disagree because.

" So let's make a start.

Think about why people might agree that the self is like a movie.

Can you think of at least two arguments that might support that argument?

Pause the video and have a think.

So you might have said something like, Julian Baggini argues that our thoughts, feelings, and experiences constantly change like the scenes in a movie.

You might have said that Hume argued that the self is a bundle of perceptions, not a single thing.

And you might have said also that Buddhist teachings say that the self is not permanent or unchanging.

Well done if you came up with some ideas like that.

You might also have talked about how individual people like Sofia or yourselves see the world as constantly changing and not thinking that the self is a fixed thing.

Next, I want you to think about why people might disagree with this idea.

Think about what we've been learning in this lesson.

What might be an opposite view to the bundle theory of self?

Why might people think that that idea isn't a great idea?

Then I'd like you to talk to the person next to you, and can you together think of two arguments against those arguments for it, and think about why people might disagree with the idea of the self as a movie or a bundle theory.

Let's see what you come up with.

Good luck.

So you might have said things like, we feel the same person over time.

People recognize us as the same person.

You might have talked about the idea of Descartes, saying that the Western view that the self is a single substance, which, because we can think and be aware, we can recognize that as us, what Julian Baggini calls the pearl idea.

You might have talked about the idea that as we grow over time, we assume that there is a single me, not lots of different needs me's, that I might try and improve everything I do and get better at something.

So well done for thinking about some of these really big ideas of the self.

Let's summarize what we've learned today.

So we've learned that Western thinkers often see the self as something fixed and continuous that stays the same over time.

We've learned that Southeast Asian traditions like Buddhism see the self as changing and made up of different parts that come and go.

We talked about the idea of David Hume, who said the self is a bundle of perceptions that appear and disappear like a show on a stage.

Julian Baggini agrees and says the self is more like a story or movie than a solid thing.

He rejects the pearl view, which sees the self as a deep, unchanging core inside us.

I hope that you've enjoyed today's lesson.

I hope that's made you reflect a little bit about these ideas.

Is the self an unchanging pearl which stays the same over time, or is it like a movie, a bundle of perceptions that changes, but to us looks continuous?

I hope that you continue to go away and think about these ideas, and I look forward to seeing you in another lesson soon.

Thank you.