“I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.”

"Bias, Blindness and How We Truly Think" (2011)
Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow
Context: An experiment about your next vacation will allow you to observe your attitude to your experiencing self: At the end of the vacation, all pictures and videos will be destroyed. Furthermore, you will swallow a potion that will wipe out all your memories of the vacation. How would this affect your vacation plans? How much would you be willing to pay for it, relative to a normally memorable vacation? My impression is that the elimination of memories greatly reduces the value of the experience.Imagine a painful operation during which you will scream in pain and beg the surgeon to stop. However, you are promised an amnesia-inducing drug that will wipe out any memory of the episode. Here again, my observation is that most people are remarkably indifferent to the pains of their experiencing self. Some say they don’t care at all. Others share my feeling, which is that I feel pity for my suffering self but not more than I would feel for a stranger in pain.I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me." by Daniel Kahneman?
Daniel Kahneman photo
Daniel Kahneman 51
Israeli-American psychologist 1934

Related quotes

Daniel Kahneman photo
John Clare photo
Santiago Martínez Delgado photo

“I am not my self, I am the result of all my ancestors.”

Santiago Martínez Delgado (1906–1954) Colombian Muralist, Painter and Illstrator

"Leonor Concha SMD Collection" Santiago Martínez Delgado Papers, Periódico la Patria de Cartagena p. 3 - Palabras de Martínez

Maylis de Kerangal photo

“I am the sort of writer who needs another form to tell me who I am and what has happened to me…I think all my novels are self-portraits, but there’s no one character who resolves me, or catalyses me, or is me.”

Maylis de Kerangal (1967) French writer

On writing in “‘What is a heart? You have an organ in your body and you have a symbol of love’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/28/maylis-de-kerangal-interview-wellcome-prize-writing in The Guardian (2017 Apr 28)

Brian Andreas photo
Susan Sontag photo
Thomas Merton photo
Aldo Capitini photo

“In my inner self, where is duality, I am heard.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Hymn

Samuel Beckett photo

Related topics