Inner Self Vs Outer Self

The Inner Self Vs. the Outer Self

Public Self and Private Self

Psychology has worked hard to explore the inner self. Modem psychology was born in Wundt's laboratory and Freud's consulting room, where the inner self was pressed to reveal some of its secrets. Freud, in particular, devoted most of his life to explor ing the hidden recesses inside the self-hidden even from the conscious mind, he said. From Freud's work right down to the latest journal article on self-schemata or self-esteem, psychologists have continued to tell us about the inner self. More recently, psychology has turned some of its attention to the outer self, that is, the self that is seen and known by other people. Various psychologists have studied how the outer self is formed (impression formation), how people control their outer selves (impression management), and so forth. But how is the outer self related to the inner self? There is an easy answer, but it is wrong. The easy answer is that the outer self is mostly the same as the inner self. Put another way, it is that people reveal their true selves to others in a honest and straightforward fashion, and that others accurately perceive the individual as he or she really is. Sometimes it works out that way, but often it does not. The issue is far too complex for the easy answer.

The Hierarchy of Intelligences

You are a conscious intelligent living being, yet you are more than an individual being, since you are an entire living compound made of distinct living beings, all forming you, all contributing to your unique life and existence. Because you are your trillions of living cells, composing your body one after another. And with each cell, you are a zillion subcellular components forming you one molecule at a time and one cell near another, designing or creating your life one fulfilment at a time and one moment of existence after another, animating you from within in this manner, from the smallest subcellular level. Since this is who you are only at the physical, objective level, while all living beings generate, sustain, and coordinate continuously a multitude of intelligent modulations throughout the physical brain and entire body, forming your entire cognition, living intelligent impulses associated to your mind, consciousness, awareness, and intelligence. From the physical perspective of your body, these are simple encoded impulses within your neurons and therefore within your entire mind, and everybody has them, capable to sustain entire inner cognitive instances forming together your cognitive system, your entire mind, in all its thoughts, awareness, feelings, and reactions. But then, from an inner, cognitive perspective, all these physical impulses become alive, making everything possible throughout your mind, organism, life, and entire world, in a living intelligent manner, since these are your intelligences. All your intelligences are aware, conscious, and certainly intelligent, and through their own consciousness and intelligence, they give you your entire mind in all its cognitive abilities, becoming everything that you truly are. More precisely, your intelligences form your mind altogether, since the human mind is their living world, while your intelligences perform the entire cognitive activity within, just for you and for the entire organism. And now, their continuous existence is your life, while their purpose becomes your meaning, achievement, learning, and subsistence. Since among all your intelligences, you are the conscious intelligence yourself, specialized in the coordination of the entire organism in the outside world while fulfilling its needs, or while fulfilling your needs, since it is the same. Because your intelligences have their own specialized tasks and needs, together forming not only your mind, but your entire life, in its entire existence. Yet these are only your own intelligences, the human intelligences, while throughout this book, we focus on all intelligences of the wider world, including these. This book studies all intelligences, from living, cognitive, interconnective, and existential perspectives, throughout a comprehensive classification of everything alive and intelligent, helping you understand yourself, life, intelligence, consciousness, the world, and your conscious place, meaning, and fulfillment in life and in the world.