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The Ego Trick: In Search Of The Self

3.87 of 5 stars 3.87 · rating details · 141 ratings · 23 reviews

Are you still the person who lived fifteen, ten or five years ago? Fifteen, ten or five minutes ago? Can you plan for your retirement if the you of thirty years hence is in some sense a different person? What and who is the real you? Does it remain constant over time and place, or is it something much more fragmented and fluid? Is it known to you, or are you as much a myst...more

Paperback, 304 pages

Published March 1st 2011 by Granta Books (UK) (first published February 3rd 2011)

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Mar 21, 2013 Tulpesh Patel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ethics-philosophy, non-fiction, pop-science

The Ego Trick* by popular philosopher Juilian Baggini is a highly-readable attempt at describing what makes you, you. Using a blend of anecdote, religious and secular philosophy and smatterings of neuroscience and neurology, he tries to answer questions that have plagued us as soon as we became ‘self’-aware: What is the ‘self’ that we are aware of? Where is it found? What exactly is it made of?

The first half of the book tries to get at what the self is by illuminating what it isn’t. Baggini uses...more The Ego Trick* by popular philosopher Juilian Baggini is a highly-readable attempt at describing what makes you, you. Using a blend of anecdote, religious and secular philosophy and smatterings of neuroscience and neurology, he tries to answer questions that have plagued us as soon as we became ‘self’-aware: What is the ‘self’ that we are aware of? Where is it found? What exactly is it made of?

The first half of the book tries to get at what the self is by illuminating what it isn’t. Baggini uses a ‘black swan’ approach, using anecdotes and personal testimony to falsify the idea that we have a discrete core, or ‘pearl’ which constitutes self-ness. For the idea that the self is intimately tied to the body, he uses examples of those who experience gender dysphoria, who have an overwhelming sense that their gender does not match the sex of their physical bodies, to show that whilst the medium of our existence (the physical body) most certainly shape the person, the person is not just the medium. I thought his neat metaphor of bodies as musical instruments was so good it bears repeating: “just as a violin can play notes that a bass guitar cannot, and vice versa, so a tall, beautiful female body provides different possibilities to a short, plain male one … [those with gender dysphoria] are like players who have switched instruments mid-performance.”

Some of the best known experiments in neuropsychology also show up: Zimbardo’s infamous 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment is used as an example of how context-dependant and discomfitingly malleable personalities are; Phineas Gage and his famous and fascinating personality change after having a steel pole spear his frontal cortex; and patient HM, one of the most studied human beings in all of science, who developed anterograde amnesia(the inability to form new memories) after having some of his brain surgically removed to cure epilepsy. They’re all used to demonstrate the way that personalities can and do change according to the brain and the environment. Away from these classic examples, there are the occasional contemporary references, particularly Belle De Jour, that make the writing, but not necessarily the ideas, feel needlessly dated, although I was fascinated to learn that Dr Brooke Magnanti is actually a research scientist with a raft of publications under her name.

Baggini, as he is well-known for doing, wears his atheism lightly throughout the book, and readily draws the parallels between scientific thinking and the teaching of Buddhism. He is, however, careful not to show Buddhist monks too much reverence, and is quick to point out where they, and Christian apologists, have gone awry in their tangled philosophising as they attempt to ‘rationalise’ reincarnation and the resurrection of immaterial souls.

Having done an admirable job of putting to bed the idea of a singular pearl of self, and not getting bogged down in stodgy philosophising on the way, Baggini outlines his own thesis, the titular ‘ego trick’, which is the ability of the brain to (un)consciously create a uniform self from disparate, fluid character traits, which evolves over time and is far more contextually dependant than we might like to admit or be comfortable with.

This ‘bundle’ theory (Hume, is quoted as saying ‘what we call the mind, is only a bundle of thoughts, passions, and emotions, without any subject’) is founded on the functionalist philosophy that, as Baggini put it ‘we are no more than, but more than just, matter”. In laying the foundation for this paradoxical statement, Baggini must be commended for managing to write one of the plainest and neatest debunking of mind-matter dualism http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dua... (that mental/non-physical aspects of the ‘mind’ are different and distinct to ‘matter’ of the body) that I’ve come across. To take the Cartesian line is to make an elementary category mistake: the mind is not something which is distinct from the body, but it is a function of the body - the mind (the self/consciousness) is what the brain/body does.

I remember reading somewhere that “I” is best thought of as something dynamic rather than static; more like a verb than a noun. This simple to express but difficult to grasp idea is one that has been the mainstay of neuroscientific conceptions of the self for some time, and with The Ego Trick, Julian Baggini has done an excellent job of bringing this sophisticated and counter-intuitive idea to the public conscience.

How conceptions of the self will change in light of our ever-increasing lifespans or dependence and meshing with technologies is touched on only briefly at the end of the book. Many of the ideas mentioned, such as Aubrey de Grey’s Methusala Foundation, Baroness Susan Greenfields far-fetched doom-mongering, or transhumanism are pure speculation, but as thought experiments (i.e. when not presented as actual science à la Greenfield), pose fascinating questions.

What’s not speculation, however, is that the Tulpesh in one, five, or fifty years down the line, will not the same person that is sitting here typing these words, but my brain will be doing its best to convince me that it is, and that is a very trippy thought.
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Aug 28, 2012 Mau rated it 4 of 5 stars

Baggini's defense of the self as an embodied process—the bundle theory—is at once accessible and robust. He builds a compelling case for it utilizing methods that are quite distanced from the pure reasoning and thought experiments often used in academic philosophy. Taking off from "extreme" cases such as major brain trauma, gender dysphoria and social experiments—all which he claims provide more than enough evidence and variety to fill in for any of the classic and all-too-reducible thought expe...more Baggini's defense of the self as an embodied process—the bundle theory—is at once accessible and robust. He builds a compelling case for it utilizing methods that are quite distanced from the pure reasoning and thought experiments often used in academic philosophy. Taking off from "extreme" cases such as major brain trauma, gender dysphoria and social experiments—all which he claims provide more than enough evidence and variety to fill in for any of the classic and all-too-reducible thought experiments—he builds on them to disprove and occasionally support conceptions about the self and what the term entails—social relations, religious beliefs, emotional states and so on.

Albeit heavily steeped in the analytic tradition, the book features multiple references and contributions from the vast spectrum of social sciences, psychology, religion, biology and on occasion even Wittgensteinian linguistics and physics. Baggini takes his time on each claim, providing many metaphors and systematically debunking claims, giving a "watertight" feel to his theorizing and conclusions. Though occasionally glossing over potential pitfalls and highlighting fascinating and complex implications only to sidestep them and move on to the next aspect of his investigation into the self, the book—as is the "ego trick"—is credible enough to convincingly answer many questions pertaining to the self, if not give an account which seems up-to-date and scientific enough to be at the very least a workable framework.

At his best Baggini avoids the obfuscations of academia by extracting marvelously simple excerpts from his interviews and then working on them. Seemingly you can't avoid being understandable and succinct in conversation so the book's best and most lucid moments come from there specifically. Conversely the major shortcoming is perhaps Baggini's tendency to lash out against religions, philosophers, schools of thought and the like with such vehemence as to be distracting.

Despite being relatively brief, the book covers much terrain and is an excellent read for anyone interested in the topic, and no pre-existing expertise is needed to fully appreciate it. Chapter 7 "The Ego Trick" alone is deserving of being being read and thought of separately, as an individual thesis. And the last chapter—in which the existential implications of the bundle theory are spelled out—is, surprisingly, an emotionally charged one which will stick with me whenever I venture into the complex microcosm of the self, my self.(less)

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Jan 31, 2013 Shannan rated it 4 of 5 stars

As I entered my 40s I started thinking seriously about whether I'd figured out yet just who I am and what I really want to do "when I grow up". Am I the same person I was when I was 20? When I was 30? Am I the same person I was yesterday? With a life expectancy of at least another 50 years, is it normal to think about starting a new phase of life?

Wondering if I could possibly be the only person thinking this much on the concept of self in modern society, I saw this book and thought it looked int...more

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Nov 03, 2012 Pete rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Aug 19, 2012 Ben Payne rated it 3 of 5 stars

I found this book interesting but frustrating. It's a great discussion on what makes the "self" and whether there is an intrinsic "me". And the parts that deal directly with this are fascinating reading.

However I found the author also gets distracted a lot and goes off into arguments with other thinkers, religious figures etc, which he can't seem to resist getting bogged down in. I would have prefered a more focussed book about the self without some of the diversions.

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Oct 24, 2011 Bill Lalonde rated it 5 of 5 stars

Baggini makes an excellent, clear, and comprehensible case for a bundle theory of personhood. Those already devoted to an alternate theory won't find enough to persuade them to change their minds-- too many things are covered to go into that much depth-- but for those still undecided and open-minded, Baggini's case is persuasive indeed.

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Sep 24, 2012 Elise marked it as to-read

Shelves: tom-hiddleston

LOLing at the fact that scores of girls added this to their "to-read" shelf on September 23, the day Tom tweeted about it. Hiddles' army is indeed mighty. :-)

I have just decided to start a "Tom Hiddleston" shelf.

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Aug 02, 2012 David rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone interested in finding out what, if not who, they are.

Shelves: holiday-reads, non-fiction, thinking, favourites

I read this on my Kindle and when I got to the end unexpectedly early, I actually went "noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" (very quietly, as I was on the tube). I didn't want it to end.

The Ego Trick is absolutely fascinating. Julian has a refreshingly thorough way of presenting ideas and thinking them through, something you don't often get with 'popular science' books.

It might seem like an examination of the true nature of 'self' would be enough for a book, but what delighted me was that Julian the...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Kirthi marked it as to-read

Tom Hiddleston recommended this: so I must read it. It sounds very fascinating, and I really do want to read it for more than just that reason!

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Sep 14, 2012 Suzie Burrell rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was very readable. Which is a good thing as I will need to re-read more than once in order to fully understand and convey my comprehension.

Well written and very accessible without any academic-speak to hide his own misunderstanding.

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Nov 29, 2012 Jiang Shi rated it 4 of 5 stars

He gave us a lot of examples, which make we have to think by themselves. But the theoretical system of this book is indeed subdue.

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Apr 19, 2013 Mithu Lucraft rated it 2 of 5 stars

Not sure I would have described this as pop psych, didn't really appeal to a general interest reader

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Jul 11, 2012 Sushmita Rao rated it 5 of 5 stars

One word: Awesome!!

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Jan 25, 2013 Louisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

A really interesting and informative read. However, I agree with the reviewer who said that the author sometimes gets bogged down in theories and details that don't directly relate to the main topic of the book. That aside, I highly recommend it. :D

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Sep 16, 2011 Antinus Maximus marked it as to-read

New books on my 'to-read' List.

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Oct 31, 2012 Ploy marked it as to-read · review of another edition

I cannot wait to read this! x100

I recommend everyone to read it too because I can already tell that it is a brilliant book!

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Apr 18, 2013 Mohamed Halim El-Gendy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Deconstructing self, soul, memory and matter.

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Jun 25, 2011 Frank Spencer added it

This book about self and consciousness, free will, etc. Leaves you with a bit more than most.

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Oct 11, 2012 William rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-and-rationalism, philosophy

I was looking for something a bit more abstract and on one specific question I have, and although it came up in a way, this book is more of a whirlwind tour of the available perspectives on 'self' and 'identity'.

Good and emminently readable, just didn't contain anything new to me :P

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Aug 29, 2012 Allister rated it 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars

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Jan 30, 2013 Rachel Gerhardt rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you like psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience, you will love this book. It makes you think!

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Nov 08, 2012 Subata is currently reading it

"I could imagine myself running ten miles a second, but I could never do it."
Actually, if you think you could never do it, you couldn't possibly imagine it. But moving on.
--Nov' 8th '12

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Sep 05, 2011 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy, favorites, mind-and-consciousness

A clear look at the bundle theory of self.

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Jan 20, 2013 Annette rated it 5 of 5 stars

Intense...

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May 22, 2013 Shaelie Dumont marked it as to-read

May 22, 2013 Hannah Smith marked it as to-read

May 21, 2013 Justin rated it 4 of 5 stars

May 21, 2013 Jordan marked it as to-read

May 21, 2013 Wibee is currently reading it

May 21, 2013 Sam marked it as to-read

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About Julian Baggini

Julian Baggini is a British philosopher and the author of several books about philosophy written for a general audience. He is the author of The Pig that Wants to be Eaten and 99 other thought experiments (2005) and is co-founder and editor of The Philosophers' Magazine. He was awarded his Ph.D. in 1996 from University College London for a thesis on the philosophy of personal identity. In addition...more

More about Julian Baggini...

Books by Julian Baggini

The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher

The Philosophers Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods

What's It All About?: Philosophy and the Meaning of Life

The Duck That Won the Lottery: and 99 Other Bad Arguments

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