I, me, self, impermanence

Searching for New Contrasts: Whiteheadian Contributions to Contemporary Challenges in Psychology, Neurophysiology and the Philosophy of Mind

The chapter ‘The Universality of Impermanence‘ in this book focuses on what the self, ‘I’, me, actually is and how I, like everything else, am impermanent.

The Universality of Impermanence †

Clive Sherlock^*

Process philosophy

Process philosophy can have far-reaching implications for psychology especially when applied to the ‘self’. According to process philosophy everything depends for its existence on the conditions that give rise to it.^{1, 2} I take ‘everything’ here to include us: our selves, and the concepts of a self, or self-nature, of everyone and everything else. Realisation of this leads to a psychology that is radically different from contemporary western psychology because the way we conceive the causation and nature of self is strongly influenced by and strongly influences how we live our lives and how we deal with our own and other people’s psychological problems.³

Insight into life depends on familiarising ourselves with life at first hand – not by thinking about it. The taste of salt can only be known by tasting it in the mouth, it can never be known by speculating or theorising. Neither sensations nor concepts can be conveyed directly from one person to another, but they can be pointed at – by words, for example. This discussion is therefore an attempt to point the reader to the actual rather than the conceptual.

Whitehead was aware of similarities between [what he called] philosophy of organism and Far Eastern thought: ‘The philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of Indian, or Chinese, thought, than to western Asiatic, or European, thought.’^{4, 5} Presumably Whitehead was referring here to Buddhism, which in effect gives a clear exposition of philosophy of organism and process philosophy.^{6, 7} I shall refer to these similarities and compare them with contemporary western psychology in order to suggest how philosophy influences psychology.

Self

Both process philosophy and Far Eastern religions are diametrically opposed to contemporary western psychology with regard to certain basic assumptions about self. In practice, if not in theory, most western philosophy and psychology assumes the existence of real, enduring selves and first causes that are not subject to the laws of cause and effect.⁸ That is, they are not seen as mere concepts due to causal conditions but as somehow self-sufficient and self-determining. It is not usual to question the very existence, or nature, of the one who is assumed to possess a mind, to do the thinking, the seeing, the hearing (and so on for all the senses) or the one who is assumed to suffer from depression, anxiety or stress but this is precisely what is done in Buddhism and is what I shall do here.^{9, 10}

The common assumption that each individual human being has a self which is an independent, enduring entity and which is the agent of voluntary functions leads (as efficient cause, in Whitehead’s terminology) to a psychology whose aim is to maintain, support and augment that self. Process philosophy would argue against this view and maintain that self, like everything else, is not independent or enduring, and that there is no agent giving rise to voluntary functions – there is no actual ‘I’, there is no actual ‘me’.^{11, 12} The Buddha made an analogy saying that self is only a name for a particular assemblage of various parts just as a chariot is. There is nothing that can be called a chariot other than that assemblage. Self is seen as a series of events arising and ceasing due to (efficient and final) causal conditions. The urge to maintain, support and augment self is a manifestation of self-preservation which is inherent in all forms of life. In human beings, however, when this same self-preservation of life is associated with self it causes dissatisfaction, suffering and sorrow because, as well as feeling, we also think, speculate, imagine, anticipate and try to determine and control the quality of our lives. A psychology based on process philosophy sees this urge to preservation of our personal selves as misguided and, in the long-term, as counterproductive.

Life is impermanent

Understanding impermanence is the key to this problem. Whitehead said: ‘The elucidation of meaning involved in the phrase ‘all things flow’ is one chief task of metaphysics. But there is a rival notion, antithetical to the former … This other notion dwells on permanences of things – the solid earth, the mountains, the stones, the Egyptian Pyramids, the spirit of man, God.’¹⁴ While we may accept that Whitehead’s physical examples are finite and impermanent, we do not so readily accept this of the spirit of man or God because to do so would threaten us personally in our very existence.^{14, 15}

The popular view is that most, if not all, things and events have at least a degree of permanence but it is not generally recognised that this view is due to how we conceive and conceptualise things and events. The individual frames of a movie film giving rise to a steady picture and the apparent flow of waves in water are well-known, but often ignored, examples. Series of events can, and do, give the impression of things flowing and if the differences between successive events (that is, between successive moments of consciousness) are small, the impression is one of entities having continuous existence.¹⁶

A candle flame

Believing in enduring selves we behave like children viewing the flame of a candle. The flame seems to last as an unchanging entity for some time. And then, when the flame is blown out, the children might look to see where it has gone. But of course it cannot be found. When the candle is relit, the new flame looks just like the earlier one – it is the same size, the same colour, the same temperature – and the children, being naïve, may be forgiven for assuming that it is the same flame that existed before and that has now come back. That is, the children believe that the flame they see is an enduring entity and that it continues to exist in some way as it burns, when it changes shape and even when they know it has been blown out. As adults we know that the flame is not an enduring entity but a process, a chemical reaction, which is dependent on prevailing conditions (wax, heat and oxygen) and we know that each moment of flame is an efficient cause of the next moment of flame. We know that when blown out there is no longer any flame.¹⁷ We also know that the new flame is not the same flame as the one before. Similarly, we ourselves, our thoughts, memories, fantasies, opinions, concepts, sensations and emotions are not continuing entities. Like the flame each moment of thought is an efficient cause of the next moment of thought. Importantly, it is also an efficient cause of the next moment of emotion and the emotion is an efficient cause of the next moment of thought as well as of the next moment of emotion. And yet, as children regard the candle flame, so we believe our thoughts (and so our selves), our sensations and emotions to be real enduring entities.

An eddy

Self can also be likened to an eddy in a river. The essence of an eddy being a circular movement turning against the flow of the main stream. The circular flow attracts more water, and whatever is in it, into itself. The existence of an eddy depends on the momentum (energy) of the main stream and on a disturbance, for example, a stone that partially blocks the flow, in that stream. These are analogous to the life energy (three drives – see below) and our clinging to attachments (whatever we hold on to in order to maintain our status quo, our security or comfort). Just as an eddy is nothing other than the energy and water of the main stream, so a self is nothing other than the energy and flowing consciousness of life. But self sees itself as separate from and other than all else.

I the doer

Another common assumption is that self is the subject of sense-perception and thinking, the passive recipient of external events, unwanted thoughts and emotions, the owner of consciousness, a mind and a body, and the instigator of thoughts and voluntary actions.¹⁸ And yet, when we examine the foundations of our basic assumptions about self we cannot find anything that could be called a self.^{19, 20} At best, all we can find is memories that give rise to a sense of prior existence and thoughts that say ‘I think’, ‘I remember, ‘I see’, ‘I hear’, ‘I smell’, ‘I taste’, ‘I feel’, ‘I do’, ‘I want this’, ‘I do not want that’, ‘I am depressed’, ‘I am anxious’ or ‘I am angry’, and, ‘therefore I must exist’. The assumption that these verbs must have a subject results in belief in our selves; and the sense that things existed before results in there appearing to be continuing entities.^{21, 22}

Further, self is then regarded as the originator of thoughts, speech and actions, and is assumed to have power to control certain aspects of life. Most of us, at least in western societies, believe that we should be able to exercise the power of self-will to get what we like and to get rid of, or to get away from, what we do not like: unwanted sensations, emotions and thoughts (in other words, what we perceive, feel and think). Although our assumptions and beliefs exist only as concepts in the mind, nevertheless we tend to hold on to them and insist on having our way according to them. Ridding ourselves of disappointment, for example, becomes a lasting problem only because we hold on to the frustrated expectation and then do not like the inevitable emotion. To deal with this we try to get rid of the emotion, usually by suppressing it and thinking about it. And we believe we are thereby dealing with it.

I the sovereign

Whenever life is not how we would like it to be most of us aim to augment and develop the sense of self, which, by definition, means to make ourselves feel better on our own terms – that is, to get what we want. And so far as psychologists and doctors are concerned, if what we want is considered to be unsuitable, at least for our own good, then this has to be changed first. Our aim, like that of the psychologist, is to relieve the suffering individual of unwanted sensations, emotions and thoughts. We attempt this by trying to get rid of them or by trying to get away from them. In this we do not question, let alone try to change, the individual self because the sanctity and sovereignty of self is taken for granted. Instead, attention is focussed on the sensations, emotions and thoughts, on their causes and on ways of changing them to suit us.

Blissfully unaware that emotion generates thoughts

This holding on to our concepts and rejecting the emotions is the real crux of the problem because ultimately what matters to us is how we feel – not what we think. Thoughts, sensations and emotions are only problems if we do not like how we feel about them and cannot, or will not, tolerate the attendant feelings. In order to relieve dissatisfaction, suffering and sorrow we must pay attention to the urge (which is an emotion) to have our own way. As long as our attention is with thoughts and concepts we remain blissfully unaware of the emotions and of what they are doing in us and to us. When upset or excited the underlying emotions (which are how we feel) drive us in thought, word and deed. When anxious we think anxious thoughts, we talk anxiously and we behave anxiously. This is how vicious cycles arise leading to grave disturbances and perturbations in us. It is important to recognise that what needs to be dealt with is the emotions and that this cannot be done by thinking. Emotions lead to problems because, until they have been tamed, humanised or civilised in us, they will remain wild and primitive and will continue to control us in thought, word and deed.

Vicious cycles

As part of the process of life (which process is life), thoughts are but constituents of the vicious cycles driven by emotional energy. In this it does not matter whether our thoughts are right or wrong; what matters is that we cling to them as if they were real continuing entities, or representations of real continuing entities, because our clinging is the main condition giving rise to the sense of self (see ‘eddies’ above). In other words, in these circumstances, the contents of our thoughts are less important than the effects of the emotions. As long as we are unaware of these causal connections the thoughts will act as efficient causal conditions giving rise to further emotions, thoughts, speech and actions. If not able to achieve what we want to our satisfaction, for example, we feel thwarted, frustrated, threatened and insecure. And then, not liking these feelings we try to get rid of them. If repeatedly unsuccessful we become increasingly upset and disturbed as ever stronger emotions arise in us and we try to get rid of them. We are so convinced of the need to resolve our problems by thinking that we unquestioningly give our attention to the thoughts and so we remain unaware of the physical emotions driving us. Eventually we are overwhelmed by these emotions and we break down with depression, anxiety, stress or unacceptable behaviour – all because we cannot, or will not, tolerate how we feel. In this are the two aspects: taking for granted that our thinking selves are all-important, and not being able or willing to bear and tolerate our feelings.

These brief outlines give a general overview of how our basic assumptions (whether conscious or not) affect how we live, how we feel and what we think – all of which are the subject matter of psychology.

Clutching illusions

Most people would agree that it is unreasonable and even counterproductive to be attached to and to rely on illusions. And yet this is precisely what most of us do. In contrast to the assumptions and beliefs of contemporary western psychology, process philosophy, especially as is explicitly made clear in Buddhism, regards self as nothing more than the effects of series of thoughts and memories, both of which are constantly changing: coming into and going out of existence as flowing streams.^23-26 A psychology based on this latter view of self aims to undermine our delusions about self.

Buddhism describes how we are normally pre-occupied with our likes and dislikes and how, to satisfy these, we are driven by desire, aversion and delusion – the three basic drives of life in human beings. These drives are manifestations of emotion. Delusion here means our inability or reluctance (turning a blind eye) to see how things really are. As long as we are attached to self these drives will give rise to distorted, because biased, perceptions, thoughts, speech and actions. This means that while engaged in our personal views, opinions and beliefs we cannot see that they are biased and distorted. Instead, we believe that how we see life is how life actually is. These distortions also give rise to and perpetuate the illusion of self. From the point of view of self we want to believe that we and others are permanent – we have a vested interest in imagining, thinking and believing that we and they are permanent – which is largely why we turn a blind eye to any evidence to the contrary. The moment we see that our thinking is biased we no longer hold on to the distorted thoughts: the illusion is broken. But seeing is not thinking, it is awareness with insight.

According to process philosophy, everything – every conscious and every unconscious moment – comes into existence and goes out of existence depending on its efficient and final causal conditions. The difficulty in applying such a philosophy to ourselves arises because we are bound up in and are attached to our thinking selves. We identify ourselves with whatever we are attached to and we feel threatened when it is challenged, or lost, or even at the mere suggestion of letting go of it. In order to hold on to something secure we maintain an attitude of objectivity, especially by losing ourselves in and preoccupying ourselves with ideas and concepts. We are reluctant to look inside for the one who seems to have them.