Will Storr on why you are not yourself

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Politics, News, News Commentary, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.5 • 11.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2018

⏱️ 83 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“To have a self is to feel as if we are, in the words of neuroscientist Professor Chris Frith, the ‘invisible actor at the centre of the world’.” That’s Will Storr, writing in his fantastic book Selfie. Ignore the very of-the-moment title. Storr dives deep into the cultural, evolutionary, and psychological construction of that thing that feels to us like our self, but is not actually ours, and is not a single thing. This is a mind-bending conversation that should, truly, change your understanding of your self. Definitely in the top five EK Show episodes to listen to stoned. ––– Recommended books: You Could Do Something Amazing with Your Life [You Are Raoul Moat] by Andrew Hankinson The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville Personality by Daniel Nettle ––– Notes from our sponsors:LEGO: In today's show you heard advertising content from The LEGO Store. With LEGO, every gift has a story. Start your story today at https://LEGO.build/EKS-Pop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	We have this stone age place to scene brains and we have evolved to play this kind of status
0:05.5	game with 150 people because that was the side of a human tribe and now because of social
0:10.2	media on Instagram especially we're playing a status game with the whole fucking world,
0:14.3	you know, it's not just the whole world, it's the best of the whole world.
0:16.6	Hello, welcome to the Client Show on the Vox Media Podcast Network and I'm beginning
0:32.3	today with a question, who the hell are you?
0:35.1	I mean that not like from me but literally to ask yourself like who are you?
0:39.7	What are you?
0:40.7	What is this thing you think of as a self?
0:43.6	I say this in the episode, this is definitely in the top five as our client shows to listen
0:47.8	to stone.
0:48.8	If you happen to be stone, I think you're really going to enjoy this one.
0:52.2	I read this book recently by British journalist named Will Stor and it's called Selfie which
0:57.9	might make you think it's about selfies and taking pictures of yourself but it's actually
1:01.8	about how the idea of the self has developed culturally and does I'm greener logically
1:08.4	over the course of human history.
1:10.7	And it's a really mind bending book and I think even more so if you have been obsessed
1:16.3	with some of the questions of attention and meditation and how social media is affecting
1:21.0	our ideas of ourselves that I've been recently.
1:24.3	And I just found the treatment of the self in this book to be really mind expanding.
1:30.0	And so I wanted to have the author of it Will Stor on the podcast because I think there's
1:34.1	something freeing in this.
	...

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