Single Idea 7382

[catalogued under 16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 3. Narrative Self]

Full Idea

The effect of our string of personal narratives is to encourage the audience to (try to) posit a unified agent whose words they are, about whom they are: in short, to posit a centre of narrative gravity.

Gist of Idea

We spin narratives about ourselves, and the audience posits a centre of gravity for them

Source

Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 13.1)

Book Reference

Dennett,Daniel C.: 'Consciousness Explained' [Penguin 1993], p.418


A Reaction

What would be the evolutionary advantage of getting the audience to posit a non-existent self, instead of a complex brain? It might be simpler than that, since we say of a bird "it wants to do x". What is "it"? Some simple thing, like a will.