[Xmca-l] Re: Identity through "experiential texts"

[Rein Raud]

Hello,

Several suggestions: one is a classic Japanese anime by Oshii Mamoru entitled “Ghost in the Shell” <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113568/>  with a story no longer merely science fiction, as there are teams of serious scientists around, trying to create a way how the brain could be uploaded to the internet so that the mind of an individual could continue to function independently as a piece of software.

The second suggestion is the book “The Semiotic Self” <https://books.google.ee/books?id=uQdSudyH5HoC&redir_esc=y> (Polity 1994) by Norbert Wiley - I saw a reference to Colapietro’s treatment of Peirce’s views of selfhood, in this one they are perhaps more accessibly treated in comparison to those of Herbert Mead.

The third is a book by Zygmunt Bauman and myself entitled "Practices of Selfhood" <https://books.google.ee/books/about/Practices_of_Selfhood.html?id=T2O_oQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y> (Polity 2015), a dialogue covering aspects such as selfhood and language, selfhood as performance, selfhood and technology (see above), technologies of self-production etc. 

Then I’d consider something by Daniel Dennett, whose popular and accessible version of neurophilosophy provides a useful link to the current state of science.

As to the idea of Buddhist self, I would strongly advise against a “mindfulness” exercise as a way to getting to know it, because even though this form of therapy is parasitic on Buddhist thought, it distorts it considerably. There are many good summaries of Buddhist ideas on the topic, so if you would like to include it in your course, I would be glad to point some out for you. (But it is a topic that merits a full-length course of its own.)

With best wishes,

Rein Raud