Nature of the Human Self
Buddhas Five Aggregates of Human Existence suggests that the soul of humans is a psychophysical unity or monism. Humans have 5 constituents namely, Rupa, Vedana, Sanjna, Sanskara, and Vijnana. Buddha sees that humans exist to these five parts (Rahula, 1962). They have different roles in every individuals life, as Rupa constitutes ones physical identity as it is made up of four elements (Earth, Water, Fire and Air). Vedana along with Sanjina gives individual the basic experience of feeling and perception respectively. Sanskara is the karma formations or dispositions the locus of character, moral responsibility and karma. Finally, Vijnana is the function of continuity in the experiences of individuals it is the consciousness or awareness
The Brain in a vat by Dennett is an element utilized in various though experiments proposed to draw out particular features of peoples notion of reality, mind, knowledge, truth and meaning (Putnam, 1982). This is gotten from the idea, typical to a lot of science fiction stories that a mad scientist may have remove an individuals brain from his body, hovering in a vat of life-sustaining fluid, and attach its neurons through wires to a supercomputer that would supply it with electrical impulses similar to those the brain usually receives. According to these stories, the computer then becomes a simulating reality with proper responses to the output of ones brain and the individual with the disembodied brain would persist to have absolutely normal conscious encounters devoid of these being connected to events or objects in the real environment or world.
Gender identity is an issue experienced by an individual who hugely identifies himself or herself with the other sex. The person may identify to the point of deeming that he or she is in fact a member of the opposite sex who is merely trapped inside the wrong body. An individual with a gender identity problem may experience dissimilar personalities and behaviors to regular people who are not suffering from such identity issue (Kopf, 1996).
In the medieval and ancient philosophy, self was identical with ones soul, and the soul was deemed to be a permanent substance that existed earlier than its temporary conjunction with the physical body and which lives on the suspension of the body. Aristotle, a great and well known philosopher, rejected this notion and advocated a theory that is more in relation with natural science. He viewed a persons soul as the entelechy of the body, and as it is the bodys form, it was indivisible from it as well.
Social and physiological factors influence the farther patterns of personality development. Social psychologists were inclined to affix greater significance to the social environment where in the human child grows and develops (Buller, 2005). Physiologists on the other hand, hold that hormones secreted by a persons endocrine glands, play a crucial role in the development and normal functioning of ones personality. It is through the process of socialization where personality emerges.
In the view of psychologists, personality grows and develops as a result of the individuals reactions itself. The important factor for personality is not the social control or influence where the person is exposed but through the process in which the individual responses or reacts to it.
A persons self concept or identity is multi-dimensional paradigm that concerns the persons individual idea of his self in connection to several numbers of characteristics like gender roles, racial identity, academic, sexuality, and many others (Buller, 2005). This idea of ones identity or self-concept is not limited to the present as it can include past and future ideas of him.
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