The Extended Mind Hypothesis

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Sally Kohn: I like the, you know, how you begin the book or in the book, talking about the very basic idea of where the self is. Most healthy and individuals have that experience - they're right behind their eyeballs,. You went just three or four inches behind their eyelids to see what was going on. She says it's a little bit with this kind of desire for immortality, like uploading the neural pathways and your neural network to the cloud as if that would be you.

There is an image, especially in Western cultures, of the rugged, authentic, self-made individual choosing how to navigate the intricacies of the social world. But there is no mystical soul within us, manifesting as the immutable essence of self. What we think of as our "self" is shaped by our environment and our genes, and most of all by our interactions with other people. Psychologist Brian Lowery argues for a strong version of this thesis, positing that our sense of self is largely a social construct. We talk about the implications of this idea, and what it means for shifting notions of personal identity.

Post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/06/12/239-brian-lowery-on-the-social-self/

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Brian Lowery received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California Los Angeles. He is currently Walter Kenneth Kilpatrick Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University Graduate School of Business. His new book is Selfless: The Social Creation of "You."

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