Appendix to Session 5 The Johari Window & The Bundle Theory

Questions on identity never fail to intrigue and haunt us from cradle to grave. What we discussed in class yesterday can date back to the very ancient ones, e.g. "Who am I?", "Is my mind identical to myself?", and etc. At a moment, something just flashed into my mind and delighted me to connect these new items to knowledge I obtained before. I believe it is just about the magic of a profound topic and I really want to share those inspirations with you all. Apart from an interesting article on the uselessness of time management and a famous poem I posted on this blog during the reading, here are the other two issues I would like to share. Let's enjoy the pleasure of thinking!

• The Johari Window

It is a cognitive psychology technique that we talked about in class. Abbey's pretty chalk drawing is attached below. According to whether one's self is known to him/herself or known to others, this "self" can be divided into four parts (i.e. windows), arena (known to self & known to others), blind spots (not known to self but known to others), hidden (known to self but not known to others), and unknown (not known to self & not known to others). This structure is useful for us to gain an insight into how one's self and identities are formed with regard to one's relationships with people around him/her. As I suggested, since this structure was put forward in 1955, more than 60 years ago, some modifications can be applied to it to make it more up-to-date. For instance, the self once hidden may now be exposed to some people online, though it is under a mask of an anonymous avatar. Also, the self once we were blind to may be easier to know with the help of some functions provided by social media, such as labels from friends and friends' impressions.

But what should be emphasized here is that "The Johari Window", strictly speaking, is not a theory or a model. It is just a technique that "help people better understand their relationship with themselves and others" (Wikipedia). "During the exercise, subjects are given a list of a few adjectives out of which they need to pick some that they feel describe their own personality. The subject's peers are then given the same list, and each pick equal number of adjectives that describe the subject. These very adjectives are then inserted into a grid" (Wikipedia). Hence, it does not ensure that each one of the four windows really exist, the "unknown" grid in particular. Besides, it by itself does not tell us what are the relationships among these windows and why. If someone is interested in it, he/she can search for more resources that explain the underlying mechanism.

• The Ego Theory VS.The Bunddle Theory

These two theories I learned as an undergraduate occurred to me when our group discussed that essentialism is much more western than eastern. But how indeed do the two different cultures think about one's "self"? You are likely to find some clues below.

The first one, Ego Theory, claims that a person's continued existence over time can only be explained by the continued existence over time of an ego or a subject of experience. The reason why all my experiences are unified is because there is a single person, a single ego, that experiences them all.

The second one, Bunddle Theory, claims that there are many different series of mental events (thoughts, sensations, desires, etc.) that are unified by causal relations. It is like a bundle of pencils (mental events) tied together by a string (causal relations). So there are no persons. There are just bundles of bodies, brains, and mental events.

The bundle theory seemed to be first brought out by the Buddhist, Nagasena. He took the chariot as an analogy.

A chariot is made of five parts: a cart, two wheels, an axle, and a pole. We know that the chariot is not identical to any one of its parts, but is the chariot identical to all the parts together? Nagasen says, "no!" He takes it as a mistake to regard the chariot as an additional thing besides its five components. The word "chariot" is used simply to refer to the five parts but nothing more since all parts of a chariot are more "real" than the chariot itself, i.e. the parts of a chariot can exist even when the chariot does not. (The description of the theories above is adapted from the material in one of my undergraduate courses on philosophy taught by Daniel Lim in Renmin University of China.)

However, you may say that a human being is very different from a chariot. The existence of a self is the prerequisite of the existence of our different slices. Isn't it indisputable? Let me remind you of a famous clinical case called "the split-brain case".

Split-brain cases occur when the corpus callosum, the bundle of nerves that connect the two hemispheres of the brain, are severed. Although the patient behaves almost as a normal person after this effective surgery for refractory epilepsy, he/she will have some unusual reactions while taking the experiment shown in the picture above. The subject of the experiment is asked to pick up what he/she see on a word board with left hand and in the meantime speak it out loud. When he/she is shown a word board with "key" on the left and "ring" on the right, the subject will pick up a key while speak the word, "ring". (Please google it for more details.)

In this case, the subject has two different visual experiences. In seeing each word, he/she is not aware of seeing the other. He/she has two separate streams of consciousness and in each only one word is seen. Moreover, these two streams of consciousness are unaware of each other! Does it mean that there are two persons that share a same body?

What's more, Nagasena is not alone. There are even followers in the western world who share the similar idea on personal identity. The British philosopher, Derek Parfit, may be the most famous among them. I won't talk more about him here since it is far beyond the scope of this passage. But if you are curious about his story and theories, please search for more information online or in the library. It will certainly be a nice journey to go.