The Meme Machine

228 THE MEME MACHINE
about what we will do next are reasonably accurate and we can get away with
saying ‘I did this’ or ‘I intended to do that’. When they go wrong we just bluff.
And we use some truly outrageous tricks to maintain the illusion.
I meant to keep my cool but I just couldn’t. I’m supposed not to eat pork but I
forgot. I’d decided on an early night but somehow here we are in Piccadilly
Circus at four a.m. with silly hats and a bottle of wine . . . If all else fails – and
this is a truly audacious sleight of hand – we can reinterpret our failure of control
as an actual success! ‘I changed my mind,’ we say (Claxton 1986 p. 59).
Claxton concludes that consciousness is ‘a mechanism for constructing
dubious stories whose purpose is to defend a superfluous and inaccurate sense of
self’ (1994, p. 150). Our error is to think of the self as separate, persistent, and
autonomous. Like Dennett, Claxton thinks that the self is really only a story
about a self. The inner self who does things is an illusion.
The function of a self
Where have we got to in this brief exploration of the nature of self and
consciousness? I can summarise by comparing two major kinds of theory about
the self. On the one hand are what we might call ‘real self’ theories. They treat
the self as a persistent entity that lasts a lifetime, is separate from the brain and
from the world around, has memories and beliefs, initiates actions, experiences
the world, and makes decisions. On the other hand are what we might call
‘illusory self’ theories. They liken the self to a bundle of thoughts, sensations,
and experiences tied together by a common history (Hume 1739–40; Parfit
1987), or a series of pearls on a string (Strawson 1997). On these theories, the
illusion of continuity and separateness is provided by a story the brain tells, or a
fantasy it weaves.
Everyday experience, ordinary speech and ‘common sense’ are all in favour
of the ‘real self’, while logic and evidence (and more disciplined experience) are
on the side of the ‘illusory self’. I prefer logic and evidence and therefore prefer
to accept some version of the idea that the continuous, persistent and
autonomous self is an illusion. I am just a story about a me who is writing a
book. When the word ‘I’ appears in this book, it is a convention that both you
and I understand, but it does not refer to a persistent, conscious, inner being
behind the words.
Now, having accepted that, a new question arises. Why do we humans tell