The tendency to think of ourselves as having one self, rather than a multiplicity of selves or no self. Inside each brain, different selves are continually popping in and out of existence—bargaining with, deceiving, and plotting against one another. You hear these conflicting voices in your head all day long: "Don't eat another chocolate chip cookie." "Eat one!" "Just eat half, toss the rest." So why do we think we are one self and not many? The one-self illusion is, in part, produced by language. We use pronouns such as "I" and "me" and "mine." Why not "we" and "they." Plus we have just one body and others see us as a single unit, even if we're a siamese twin.
In the article "First Person Plural" by Paul Bloom in The Atlantic, November 2008, he says, "Each of us contains multiple selves—all with different desires, and all fighting for control. If this is right, the pursuit of happiness becomes even trickier. Can one self bind another self, if the two want different things?"
Patricia Churchland, a Neurophilosopher who teaches at UCSD, says, "There is no such thing as the self. I mean there isn't a little person in there. It doesn't mean that we don't have feelings of ourselves—of course we do!—but the self is a construction of the brain."
