Experiencing self vs the narrating self

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• Homo Deus –– Yuval Harari
  
  • [[experiencing self vs the narrating self]]
    • Experiencing self is our moment-to-moment consciousness. It remembers nothing. It tells no stories, and is seldom consulted when it comes to big decisions.
    • The narrating self retrieves memories, tells stories, and makes big decisions. It discounts the duration of our experiences, and adopts the [[peak end rule]] - it remembers only the peak moment and the end moment and evaluates the whole experience according to their average. Most of our critical life choices - careers, residences, holidays, partners - are taken by our narrating self.
    • The narrating self forgets the vast majority of events, remembers only a few extreme incidents and gives a wholly disproportional weight to recent happenings.
    • These two entities are intertwined. The narrating self uses our experiences as important raw materials for its stories. These stories in turn shape what the experiencing self actually feels. The experiencing self is often strong enough to sabotage the best-laid plans by the narrating self.
    • Most people identify with the narrating self. When they say 'I', they mean the story in their head, not the stream of experiences they undergo. We identify with the system that spins seemingly logical and consistent stories. We always retain the feeling that we have a single unchanging identity from birth to death, regardless of how contradictory the stories in our heads are. This gives rise to the questionable liberal belief that I am an individual, and that I possess a consistent and clear inner voice, which provides meaning for the entire universe.
    • [[Sunk cost theory]]
      • The narrating self would much prefer to go on suffering in the future, just so it won't have to admit that our past suffering was devoid of any meaning. Eventually, if we want to come clean about past mistakes, our narrating self has to invent some twist in the plot that will infuse mistakes with meaning.
      • It is much easier to live with a fantasy, because the fantasy gives meaning to the suffering.
      • "The more you've bought into it and the more you've commited to that reality, the more you are committed to making sure other people abide by it. This is the dangerous territory. "
    • What happens when the yarns spun by our narrating self cause great harm to ourselves and those around us?
    • [[The Self]], too, is an imaginary story, just like nations, Gods and money. Humans are masters of [[cognitive dissonance]], we allow ourselves to believe one thing in the laboratory and an altogether different thing in the courthouse or parliament.
• Sum: Forty Tales From The Afterlives –– David Eagleman
  
  • [[experiencing self vs the narrating self]]