Difference Between Ego Theory And Bundle Theory

What is the self? Defining this concept has been a struggle for man since the earliest thinkers first looked inwards on themselves, only to find that they could not truly comprehend what was there, or as some came to believe, not there. Over time, everyone from philosophers, to psychologists, and neuroscientists, to religious thinkers, and the ordinary man have thought on this, yet many have come up empty. Two prominent theories, which see themselves at the forefront of the debate on the truth, are known as ego theory, and bundle theory. The majority of world religions teach their followers the concept of a spirit, or soul that “transcends the physical”, continuing to exist in some way, shape, or form after the death of the body (Thagard).

According to this theory, the self is simply a bundle of constantly changing perceptions, unified only by “various kinds of causal relation” (Parfit 20). This is often seen as giving the false impression of an ego, which the human mind manipulates its user into believing, just as it gives the illusion of three-dimensional vision. The bundle theory of self is often compared to, or even equated with the Buddhist concept of anattā (Rudd 869). That is, to say, the idea of “no self” (Rudd 869). The idea that there is no self is very difficult for human beings to accept, as it implies that it is “an empty question whether one is about to die, or will instead live for many years”, and that, compared to ego theory, their death is rather meaningless (Parfit 23). Bundle

Recent science fiction works such as Shirow Masamune’s Ghost in the Shell have tackled the issue of self by creating worlds in which the self can exist separate from the body it originally inhabited. In the world of Ghost in the Shell, science has rapidly progressed over time to the point where an individual can no longer be identified by their body, and the concepts of personal identity, the self, and humanity have been blurred by technology. By the time the show takes place, the vast majority of the population of Japan has what is known as a “cyberbrain”. That is, an artificially-enhanced biological brain with components added to increase memory capacity, and processing speed, and which gives users the ability to directly interface both with computers, and with other people. In some cases, individuals who have suffered severe, life-threatening trauma have had as much as 97.5% of their brain replaced with digital components. The majority of people have at least some cybernetic components in their body, and some, referred to as “cyborgs”, have little remaining of the body that they were born with. This begins to blur the line between humans, and androids, who are not considered to be people, and thus have no rights, despite the increasingly limited differences between themselves, and the humans who created