I had a recent conversation in a philosophy class in Dublin. The discussion centered on the nature of the Self—whether it exists continuously or is fleeting. My view was that my Self is there, and I’m aware of it sometimes. But other times I’m not. It seems to go. I questioned whether the Self was there all the time, and I asked, “could we be happy with our Self absent”?
The tutor wasn’t convinced. “The Self is obviously always there,” they said.
I didn’t think it was quite so obvious. Is the Self always there, lurking in the background?
I thought more about it, and then I realized—okay, maybe the tutor has a point. The self could always be there. I thought about a radio. I could get up in the morning and turn up the volume. The radio would be on for an hour. I’d listen, then I’d turn the volume down. So the radio would always be on—I’d only hear it for an hour, but it’s always there. The difference between the radio being on and the radio being off is this: if I turned up the volume the following morning and the radio was off, there would be no sound. The radio was off.
So I suppose that’s really what the tutor was saying. The self is like a radio. It’s not absent—it’s just turned down. The awareness is turned down. You’re not aware of it, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone. Even in deep sleep, maybe the self survives. It’s still there.
I thought about that more, and something just didn’t resonate with me. My natural inclination was to think: when it’s not there, it’s gone.
I thought about the radio analogy again. I said to myself, that’s a good analogy. I can buy that, and I can see where the tutor is coming from. Really, I can’t argue that it’s not a valid logical version of reality.
But I’m a physicist, and I thought: what would be a better analogy for me?
I thought of the analogy of a bell. You ring a bell and it rings. But when you stop ringing the bell, it starts to go quiet. At some stage, it stops ringing. The bell is there. The potential to ring is still there. But there’s no ring.
My view of Self is, I suppose, more natural—more like a bell than a radio. The radio has internal power, the ability to be switched on and off, the technology behind it. The bell is just a natural resonance.
So then the question remains: is our Self some sort of contraption that can be switched on and off? Or is our Self just a resonance—a resonance that needs to be struck to ring?
I think I’ll go with the bell. I think I prefer the bell.
So sometimes my Self is there, and sometimes my Self is not.
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