MetaFilter posts tagged with self

Are you a giver, a matcher or a taker?

caddis — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 07:32:57 -0800

Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead? [Adam] Grant, 31, is the youngest-tenured and highest-rated professor at Wharton.... Grant might not seem so different from any number of accessible and devoted professors on any number of campuses, and yet when you witness over time the sheer volume of Grant’s commitments, and the way in which he is able to follow through on all of them, you start to sense that something profoundly different is at work. Helpfulness is Grant’s credo.... For Grant, helping is not the enemy of productivity, a time-sapping diversion from the actual work at hand; it is the mother lode, the motivator that spurs increased productivity and creativity. In some sense, he has built a career in professional motivation by trying to unpack the puzzle of his own success. He has always helped; he has always been productive. How, he has wondered for most of his professional life, does the interplay of those two factors work for everyone else? Grant’s book, incorporating several decades of social-science research on reciprocity, divides the world into three categories: givers, matchers and takers. Givers give without expectation of immediate gain; they never seem too busy to help, share credit actively and mentor generously. Matchers go through life with a master chit list in mind, giving when they can see how they will get something of equal value back and to people who they think can help them. And takers seek to come out ahead in every exchange; they manage up and are defensive about their turf. Most people surveyed fall into the matcher category — but givers, Grant says, are overrepresented at both ends of the spectrum of success: they are the doormats who go nowhere or burn out, and they are the stars whose giving motivates them or distinguishes them as leaders. Much of Grant’s book sets out to establish the difference between the givers who are exploited and those who end up as models of achievement. The most successful givers, Grant explains, are those who rate high in concern for others but also in self-interest. And they are strategic in their giving — they give to other givers and matchers, so that their work has the maximum desired effect; they are cautious about giving to takers; they give in ways that reinforce their social ties; and they consolidate their giving into chunks, so that the impact is intense enough to be gratifying.

Mad Max Rock City

rageagainsttherobots — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:00:50 -0800

The local rate of self-defense killings now stands 2,200 percent above the national average in Detroit.

Redefining the you that is you

Brandon Blatcher — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 05:51:13 -0800

You Are Not Your Name and Photo: A Call to Re-Imagine Identity.

Putting Des Cartes before the horse

Gyan — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:40:22 -0800

"The modern and contemporary philosophical tradition, which has emphasized the specialness and security of self-knowledge, especially self-knowledge of the stream of conscious experience, and in comparison the relative insecurity or derivativeness of our knowledge of the physical world around us, has the epistemic situation upside-down" - Eric Schwitzgebel (Previously)

A certain nonchalance which conceals all artistry

Apropos of Something — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 17:44:44 -0800

Love in the Age of Self Consciouness: Rob Horning argues authentic, risk-taking romantic love has been replaced, in the age of social networking, by peacocking aspiring to sprezzatura. "Modern identity, then, is born of the alienation of auto-surveillance, which makes the self seem a discrete thing we manipulate from behind the curtain of publicity." From the excellent New Inquiry, which I learned about from this recent thread.

Self Referential

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:13:30 -0800

"People have always had an ulterior or imaginative life," opines writer Will Self. "There's something about the act of will involved in believing in preposterous things that I believe is the very kind of muscle and key of having an imagination... here, you have an arena that is inherently psychotic." In a series of interviews about the nature of human imagination and violence as they are transformed by the Internet, Self muses on how primal human desires are being satisfied more efficiently and easily by the increasingly connected life, and wonders how this will change us as much as society.

women portrait themselves

SylviaAspevig — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 19:53:23 -0800

The original time-lapse self portrait? And some modern artists: Enchanting self portraits from Iceland's Rebekka Gaudleifs. Nude self portrait (NSFW) from Israeli artist Roni River. Disturbing stories from Canada's projecteye (NSFW) and magical self-portrait from New Hampshire-based Sarah Ann Loreth.

Where am I?

Obscure Reference — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:50:09 -0800

If your brain and body were separated, which one would be "you?" Philosopher Daniel Dennett explores what might happen in that event. (Previously)

Death of a caveman

fixedgear — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:33:46 -0800

RIP Dugout Dick

Feeling 'Selfy' ? Regarding 'The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind, and the Myth of the Self' by Thomas Metzinger

y2karl — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:15:44 -0800

Natasha Mitchell: So it's not a little man or woman inside our heads...

Thomas Metzinger: ...that looks at pictures. But the experience of looking, of being directed to one's own feelings or to one's sensory perceptions of the outside world, this is itself an image. There is nobody looking at the image, it's like the camera is part of the picture or the viewing is itself a part of the process of viewing. This is how a first-person perspective emerges in our own case, the question is, okay, if it's not a thing, if it's not something in the brain, what kind of a process is it?

And I think it's a process, as philosophers say, of representing, that is of making an image, and that process is not there all the time. You know you have a conscious self in dreams, you have one in your waking life. During anaesthesia or during dreamless sleep there is no such thing as this process of self-ing, if I may call it like that.

You are not a self! Bodies, brains and the nature of consciousness A review of Metzinger's The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind, and the Myth of the Self From the review:

Metzinger believes strongly that it is possible to solve the philosophical puzzle of consciousness only if we come to understand that to the best of our current knowledge there is no thing, no indivisible entity that is us, neither in the brain nor in some metaphysical realm beyond this world. Thus, highlighting a series of groundbreaking experiments in neuroscience, virtual reality and robotics, and his own pioneering research into the phenomenon of the "out-of-body" experience, Metzinger reveals how our brains construct our reality. According to him, our deepest sense of self is completely dependent on our brain functioning. The internal image of the person-as-a-whole is the phenomenal Ego, the "I" or "self" as it appears in conscious experience. The phenomenal Ego is not some mysterious thing or little man inside the head but the content of an inner image, namely, the conscious self-model. Metzinger claims that by placing the self-model within the world-model, a center, which we experience as ourselves, the Ego, is created. But, as Metzinger himself admits, one has to dissolve the problem of the subjectivity of consciousness if one wants to have the big picture. The ego tunnel is a consciousness tunnel that has evolved the additional property of creating a robust first person perspective, a subjective view of the world. It is a consciousness tunnel plus an apparent self. But, this is the challenge Metzinger takes in order to understand how a genuine sense of selfhood appears.

All In the Mind blog post on The Ego Tunnel New Scientist review preview via Mindhacks

Live Wedding Set from Dubfx and Flower Fairy

Lord_Pall — Thu, 21 May 2009 08:22:17 -0800

Dubfx and Flower Fairy play an amazing 40 minute set ( Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4), at the Wedding of Mathew* and Jes Bevans. Previously. *I believe it is the same Mathew Bevans, but I was not able to confirm this from a second source.

The Genomic Self

homunculus — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 17:48:16 -0800

My Genome, My Self: Steven Pinker considers what we can expect from personal genomics. Searching for Intelligence in Our Genes: Carl Zimmer looks at the hunt to learn about the role of genes in intelligence.

I Contain Multitudes

homunculus — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 13:00:10 -0800

First Person Plural. "An evolving approach to the science of pleasure suggests that each of us contains multiple selves—all with different desires, and all fighting for control. If this is right, the pursuit of happiness becomes even trickier. Can one self bind another self if the two want different things? Are you always better off when a Good Self wins? And should outsiders, such as employers and policy makers, get into the fray?" [Via]

head hacks

madamjujujive — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:42:37 -0800

Russell Higgs has been adorning his face and head with various objects and posting photographic portraits online since July 2006. Dutch artist Levi van Veluw also likes to modify his face by putting things on it and photographing the results.

Please put down your hands, cause I see you.

fair_game — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 11:10:04 -0800

A View In Your Mirror: Painter Jan Verhulst compiles self portraits made by artists in their preferred medium.

A self-portrait every day

MetaMonkey — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:09:11 -0800

A self-portrait every day: Sven and Tobias Staude, Ahree Lee, Noah Kalina.

A portrait an artist makes usig himself or herself as its subject...

nuclear_soup — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 09:53:40 -0800

Self-portrait: A portrait an artist makes using himself or herself as its subject, typically drawn or painted from a reflection in a mirror. There are many famous painted self portraits, but now that everyone has a digital camera, more and more photographic self portaits are popping up e v e r y w h e r e. Whether you think of it as vanity, narcissism, self-invovlment, or just art, it is hard to deny that there are a lot of interesting and well-composed shots out there. Sure, there are plenty of arm-length camera angles, but there is also work being done with black and white images, hands and feet, and, of course, eyes. Even photoshop is used sometimes. People are still speculating on what exactly all these pictures mean, but I think it is clear that from totally innocent to intensely personal to NSFW, self portraits are here to stay.

The concept of the Transhuman: human, the self, consciousness and their effects on the law

0bvious — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 17:43:01 -0800

The first Transhuman Conference On the Law of Transhuman Persons: Whether or not you believe humans are set to evolve into gods, or AI is destined to achieve self-awareness the idea of the Transhuman is a thought provoking concept. Philosophers have debated the nature of the self, of the human for millennia. Is it time to start drafting new laws to govern all possible sentient beings on this planet? or is it all just a science of fiction? a comfortable humanist illusion?

Conversation with Paul Ekman

hortense — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 01:42:30 -0800

Face to Face: The Science of Reading Faces. Transcript(and video)of a 2004 interview with psychologist Paul Ekman, who is known for his research on facial expression and the development, with associates, of the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). Includes a few facial expression photos. Part of the "Conversations with History" series at the Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley .

Let S be the set of all sets that don't contain themselves. Does S contain itself?

Citizen Premier — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 05:08:08 -0800

This link, which you are no longer looking at, will take you to a pretty cool essay.

1001 Self Portraits

feelinglistless — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 16:17:21 -0800

1001 Self Portraits reaches 40.

Future Me

pedantic — Wed, 10 Sep 2003 08:10:20 -0800

Scribe, schedule and send a soliloqy to the self. [more inside]