Question

Given what you know about brain plasticity and neural representation of the body i.e. cortical homunculus, how would you answer the question: “Is there really a continuous self that is the subject of my experiences or is the Self an illusion?” Think of the Rubber Hand Illusion and Body Swap Illusion.

Answer 1

To answer this question we will first need to understand how our brain builds the image or concept of our own self.

• It can be understood with the help of neuro-science. Scientists have described it through cortical homunculus,which is the represantation of how different body parts are controlled by our cortex through a neurological map.For Example one part of cortex is dedicated to sensory organs and one for feet and so on.
• Now we move forward to the process of building self concept by our brain. As our brain builds concept of self(our body parts etc) with the help of cortex(dedicated one area to a part of the body) and can be understood through cortical homanculus.But on the other hand our brain has one more quality and that is brain plasticity. Brain plasticity is the quality of our brain to modify itself according to the situation. Because of this property our brain can develop throughout our life( from infancy till old age). as we have understood that one part of our brain is dedicated to a perticular body part. But what if that part gets damaged? we will not be able to control it at all ! But thanks to brain plasticity our brain rewires itself and get that part to function. For example our left hemisphere controlls right parts, but scientists and psychologists have seen that when it is fully damaged in an accident or any other reason then right hemisphere takes controll of right side also(but this can decrease with age, children's brain plasticity is much more than elder's).

Now comes the main question of continuous Self, yes there is definately a continuous self. We constantly make a self image, with the help of neural representation and modify it according to the situation because of brain plasticity.

Self seems to be an illusion when our brain gets confused because of these two qualities only which it uses to build the concept of 'self'.

For example in an experiment 'Rubber hand illusion' subject thinks that a life like rubber hand,which he or she can see, is his own hand and also can feels the sensations, because he or she could not see his or her own hand as it was made out of sight in the experiment. Now here we can see that our brain's plasticity and neural represantation are working. Eyes can see the hand and sending its signal's to brain on believing it our brain feels the senses and the part controlling our real hand modifies it's action of not feeling the senes.  

In another experiment 'Body Swap illusion' where the whole body is getting exchanged in the image, also explains the same type of our self concept building. We make a concept about our body as we experience our postures, way of doing something etc our whole life. When we are presented to a similar picture or person we start believing in it so what we see believe in it and start behaving likewise.

On the basis of above discussion we can say that our self concept can be easily manipulated.Our brain gets confused and starts behaving as per the situation presented to it.

In conclusion we can say that our experiences definately make a concept of self with the help of neural represantaions and brain plasticity but it can be manipulated also by using these same qualities , i.e. neural represantation and brain plasticity. Self can be an illusion when we have a confused or weak sense of self but strong sense of self will have less vulnerability to it.