Defining a Sense of Self With Diane Ackerman

Diane Ackerman, MA, MFA, PhD, Bestselling Author, Poet, and Naturalist; PEN Henry David Thoreau Prize Winner, Northampton, Massachusetts, explored the sense of “self” during a keynote presentation at The Evolution of Psychotherapy performed virtually from her home in upstate New York, presented on Sunday.

Ackerman asked attendees to imagine the brain, to empty the space referred to as “the mind’s eye.”

“The brain has ridges, valleys, and folds, because it kept remodeling itself even though space was tight. We take for granted now the crazy-sounding yet undeniable fact, that we all carry around atop our shoulders a complete universe in which trillions of sensations, thoughts, motives, plans are all streaming,” Ackerman said.

But the physical brain is silent and dark, she added. The part of us that can visualize the fictional worlds written by authors in books, conjure up memories from certain scents, and charter new territory with imagination, is through the mind.

“The mind inhabits the brain, like a ghost in the machine, some say,” Ackerman said. “Personally, I think of the mind as the comforting mirage of the physical brain, an experience, not an entity.”

The mind exists outside the brain, as well, reflecting the body’s senses and emotions, influenced by hormones and enzymes. Ackerman referred to the mind as inhabiting a private universe within each person, which is everchanging from joys, books, medications, emotions, and more.

There is no singular self inside of the brain, she said.

“To think of myself as singular, a choir of neurons and different hills and hollows of the brain must sing in concert. Word travels fast in the back heels of the mind, through the hippocampus—that campus where memories are schooled. The hobgoblin amygdala, the seat of the emotions, which is always spoiling for trouble, until a chorus of neurons becomes a single thought,” Ackerman said.

The conscious, preconscious, and unconscious work together to form a notion of self. But every self shuffles, experiences sensations, impulses, moods, and is constantly changing.

Ackerman referred to PET scans of the brain, which show that few of our thoughts are dedicated to our 7 senses, and few are about the outside world.

“Most of its hubbub originates inside in mind theaters, fantasies, mental scratch pads, inner monologues, memories, emotions, and the baroque architecture of what we call the self,” she said, adding that our self-states mutate each moment, which could possibly explain the phenomenon of changing one’s mind.

Further evidence showing that we consist of multiple selves is shown in the way that we are not the same self with everyone we interact with.

“We adjust ourselves to each person we meet, and every situation we're in. That's been a real boon to us as a species, not having to be exactly the same self with everyone we know, makes us much more successful socially,” Ackerman said.

“Self” is a plural noun. Ackerman suggested viewing oneself as a repertoire, rather than a statue, and accepting that automatic changes and flows in our sense of self is acceptable and not dishonest when adjusting that self between interactions friends, loved ones, or colleagues. This can help to explain why all our friends from various facets of life would not necessarily get along, despite getting along with them each ourselves.

Ackerman explained that the self exists to aid the wiring of our brains, and our interactions and complex socializations help to teach us survival skills and wisdom.

“We arrive in this world, clothed in a loose fabric of self, which then tailors itself to the world that it finds,” she said.

The brain creates feelings in response to experiences, which then alters the brain chemistry, producing mental states. This continues over and over, revising the sense of self for each person.

“Even in old age, the brain can rewire itself at the drop of a hat, hint of a new love, or shock of a disappointment. All learning leaves traces. The brain has a vested interest in pretending that it doesn't, so that life will feel solid, safe, predictable, not a careening carousel that you cling to for dear life,” she said, referring to this as one of the brains “tricks.”

Another “trick” being a streaming of consciousness that causes people to experience life as if it were a film or constant stream of snapshots.

But the self that we are most aware of, she said, is really the possibility of self. This can include body image, perceived reputation, the family one belongs to, the place one lives. Contributing to our sense of self are memories that tell who we are, show who we have been, and craft what we hope to be.

“We are the sum of our memories. They help provide a continuous secret self,” she said.

Memories are multifaceted and include various sensory details, which are revised overtime and contribute to self. Ackerman referred to memories as a moment of recall, which overtime include feelings and events that have occurred since. The same memory pool is not experienced more than once.

Because of our memories, other people are very important to our sense of self, which can explain why grief is so powerful.

“We each have a secret society of selves and the missing person also hosted his or her own selves. When that person dies, one loses those parts of oneself that over time became inextricably wedded to parts of a loved one's selves linked through memories, sensations, and all the endless elaborations of so-called normal life,” she said.

Ackerman referred to humans as the animal who elaborates. We have invented items, experiences, ways to enhance the senses, and resources. While the body can be often satisfied, the mind is never satisfied.

“A mind that is a multitiered operatic bazaar where many parts collude. Including, they form the sense of the coherence self that we know and love and can take for granted when we wake up each morning,” she said.

Luckily, she added, a self is not something that needs to be recreated daily. Because the brain does not shed and replace all its cells, self is something that ripens with time, allowing memories, habits, values, and moments to define us overtime.

What defines a person, body, or brain?

Ackerman posed this question. If someone’s face or gender were changed, would they have the same elf? If so, should people be held responsible for things they did within a previous self?

Sensations and memories help shape us, adding to identity. Self is not only a part of the brain, but the immune system too. Despite us constantly changing, we feel continuous, the same person and self.

A self is more than just DNA.

“Most of the genes responsible for being human, don't descend from the lucky fumblings of sperm and egg, don't come from human cells at all. They belong to our fellow travelers, the invisible bacteria, viruses, protozoans, fungi, and other low life that dine, scheme, swarm, procreate, and war all over us, inside and out, vastly more bacteria than anything else,” she said.

A person is made of 10 trillion microbes and 1 trillion human cells, which move and switch places, contributing to a much larger picture of 8 billion people. While existing, we take on new microbes. These come from other people, the environment around us, and more. So, while the mind is constantly absorbing new information, so is the body.

The self is a combination of all these things, in addition to DNA.

“Experience is translated into neuro wiring and impeccably swayed by breezes arriving from the round corners of one's life, one meets equally breeze-swayed others. Soon you all begin moving in a dynamic dance of infinite realignments, reforming yourselves, just as a breeze can reform the geometry of snow on tree limbs. Everything affects everything else all at once,” she said.

People pick things up from their loved ones in multiple ways; when we spend time with people, we may pick up on their mannerisms, and if they pass us a virus, part of them can become stores within us. People are constantly swapping gene fragments in multiple ways, collecting other people’s DNA through intimacy or infection.

“One day what remains is truly and thoroughly a mosaic, part man, part woman, part someone else, part something else,” she said. “Little by little as bits of DNA make it into our chromosomes, intimate relationships help to shape the immune systems cameo of us and modify the brain, altering the self whose continuity we so cherish. We don't just get under each other's skin; we actually absorb each other.”

People are invisibly changed by the people they love, who remain a part of them, even if they are gone.

While it was once believed that the beginnings of love, as a baby, shaped patterns for the rest of one’s lifetime as the brain engraved its mental map during childhood. It is now known that neural alchemy is a lifelong process.

It is aided by one’s desire to search for the attunement experienced as an infant, and shaped as we meet others and take on habits, rituals, food, ideas, and seeing the world through the eyes of another self.

“So, all and all, a self isn't one of anything. We only exist in relation to other people in the world which we're constantly flowing into and out of,” Ackerman said. “A self is a jigsaw puzzle, the brain keeps refining in response to caregivers, genes, friends, nature, loved ones, immune system, experience, hand-me-down beliefs, culture, and so much more.”

Reference

Ackerman D. What is a Self? Presented at: Evolution of Psychotherapy; December 1-5, 2021; virtual.