What Is the Self?

If you're not used to thinking philosophically, here's a bit of a conceptual conundrum for you: you have certain personal and professional goals, projects and desires that you'd like to accomplish and satisfy. And presumably, much of what you do is, to varying degrees, something that you do for your the sake of your future self. You are used to thinking that you have a self, that you will continue to have an enduring self through time, and that there are boundaries that separate your self from others and the rest of the world.

So what is this self thing that makes you you? Is it bodily identity? Psychological continuity? Some immaterial soul? A bunch of neurons that are not themselves conscious and which are bundled together in ever-changing patterns without centralized control? There are no answers in the following short clip, just questions that may be interesting to think about and whose conclusions may imply we ought to change certain attitudes toward self and others.

Of course, if Hume was right, there is no self... it's just an illusion... and maybe our moral attitudes may have to radically change to correspond to that fact.