Where is the self? How can dualism stand if it's just a fiction?

Now that was funny, Fresco.

I enjoyed it.

There ! There !

hear hear...or is that supposed to be here here....

Three stooges. Mo says, 'Hear, Hear'

Curly says, 'There, There"

Well I suppose the unconscious and the conscious is one way to look at it. I was just coming over from another thread that was partaking in a discussion over the finding of a neuro-scientist named David Engleman and his scientific research that supposedly suggests that the unconscious brain is more active and dominant than our conscious brain. I was disappointed to see the discussion end so abruptly.
To the subject matter at hand, yes, I suppose now that you've brought up your profession, we are talking about two entirely different subject matter. I suppose if non-duality or oneness is found at a fundamental level where brain function is one with mental life and disproving a non-material mind, bu there is a matter of dualism in a different context of "self" and that is from a dualistic sense of conscious and unconscious.

Yes, Matt. All theories are tentative, but we can also argue that all facts are provisional. And all present and future paradigms are probably going to be seen to be temporary.

Yep, all those things follow from accepting theories as tentative.

Gasp ! Do those really still exist !
You are presumably aware that any shared semantic field can be effective as any other in communicating with "a patient". (Parish priests do quite well)

But I'm more intrigued about how you reconcile what you are calling "neuroscience" with Freudian Theory. In particular, second generation cognitive scientists like Rosch reject much of "neuroscience" as mechanical tinkering. She makes the point that finding "brain locations" for cognitive concepts like "religious belief" is about as useful as correlating "knee activity" with "Catholic prayer". In general, the trend in cognitive science seems to be away from conscious-unconscious dimensions to Gestalt notions of embodiment within a psycho-social environment.

Perhaps the reconciliation could be in if, the systems analytic way of looking at the brain in particular and living system in general, reveal relationship structures is some way grossly similar to something like the (Id,Ego,Superego).

I don't know.... I guess.... I'm maybe imagining the representation as being a vast network. Within this network are a sort of "super loci", those loci of course each having their own emergent behavior, but also participating in the emergent behavior that is the total of mind.
If it was also shown:
That those three "super loci" interact in a way analogous to the relationships in [Id, Ego and Superego].
Then: I think some case could be made.

And I might also be able to wrap my head around the triumvirate person in a theological sense.

Possibly....but I'm thinking that because Freud's is a pseudo-mechanical system it relates somehow to "mechanical tinkering". If so, that would be like regressing to the model of at atom as a simple solar system, from which we have obviously moved on.

Yeah... you'll have to climb past the "mechanical tinkering" step on the ladder.
But some of psychoanalysis will maintain the similar meaning that it had before this step is taken.
It seems that behaviorism (for instance) would have a much more difficult time than psychoanalysis in being able to take that step.

In general you are correct. However a version of behaviourism is loosely followed in modern "cognitive behaviour therapy" which keeps one foot in the "conditioning findings" of Pavlov (et al) and in the other in gestaltism which has come back into favor in cognitive science. As I understand it, this involves the patient shifting from gestalt world views of say "I am a victim" to a "healthier" alternative, by gradual reinforcement. At the biological level this could be visualized either as a reprogramming of general "bodily hardware" or at the neural level a detectable structural reconfiguration.

Ahhh...one of the wisest comments I've heard in this discussion.

I'm glad we got this much definition, as least for me. My understanding is that there are three levels, conscious, sub-conscious, and self or ego. Conscious is our interaction with 'reality'. Sub-conscious is our internal thoughts. And self is a level beyond that which guides our sub-conscious. The level that forms our thoughts. Do you and Lolo agree with that concept?

That is certainly interesting. I had never thought to relate those concepts.

I note (slightly cynically) that the "magic number three" is popular in many metaphysical systems.

Hinduism: The three gunas (cosmological forces)
Christianity: The Trinity
Sufic Esotericism: The three "brains": Head, Heart and Guts.
Hegelian Dialectic: Thesis, antithesis,synthesis.

So does the most inner level equate to God in the Christian model? Or is God an outside force that guides that level? I guess my years of Christian upbringing fails me. When you say magic number are you inferring that the levels may be continuous or there may be more of them?

No, I am saying that a triumvirate system in which a third element transcends, resolves, or governs the other two is an instinctive* cognitive device. Think perhaps of the essential role of a referee.

The ascendant (3rd element) in my cited cases would be
Hinduism: Sattva
Christianity: God the Father
Esotericism: Head
Hegel: Synthesis.
...and Freud: Superego.

* "Instinctive" could be taken to mean another of what Kant called perceptual a priori (wired in modes of interpretation).

It depends on how one defines self.
I am thinking of the core nature of self in the philosophical sense in that is the mind a non-material entity, or is the mind the same as the hardware (brain)?
Neuroscience is leaning more away from the idea of our mind being a non-material identity.
In that sense, I see the concept of self as the fundamental structures of the physical brain that is one with the large multifaceted phenomenon with various complementary accounts that are integrated, and that includes the the conscious and the subconscious aspect of our mind.
Therefore, is no constant or permanent soul in the background, and that we are incredibly dynamic, changing beings. All this somewhat seems very obvious based on empirical observation.

Not according to what I have read. What are your references ?

Try this for some of mine.
http://consc.net/online