What Is the Nature of the Self?
Four schools define the self; the economist-style rationalist's tidy answer horrifies the others.
Content note: Character smoking a cigarette.
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Cartoon by Ben Orlin, Math with Bad Drawings. https://cartoons.mathwithbaddrawings.com/2023-01-01-what-is-the-nature-of-the-self/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)Transcript
[Title] "What Is the Nature of the Self?"
Humanist: "The self is an irreplaceable treasure, endowed with curiosity and compassion." · Modernist: "The self is an illusory jumble, held together by fraying delusions and peeling tape." · Existentialist (smoking): "The self is a burst of desperate light in a dark and pitiless cosmos." · Rationalist: "The self is a bundle of fairly stable and consistent preferences."
[Then] Modernist: "Wow. I thought *mine* was grim." Rationalist: "What? What did I say?"