The Self Delusion

I count myself among a growing number of scientists who believe that the construction of self identity is not much better than the Lo-fi representations of other people we hold in our heads.

Susan Engel... has written “We are who we are by virtue of what we have experienced, but part of who we are is determined by what we imagine.“ Through her work with children, Engel has been able to identify five phases of increasing sophistication in childhood storytelling.

First, toddlers learn they have an extended self .(connecting to memories) I

Who you think you are--your notion of "self"-- is a mere cartoon, just as your notions of other people are cartoon versions of them, but critically these cartoons form the touchpoints of narrative that bind together our mental models of the world and our place in it.

This book reveals how our brains construct narratives for our lives, and how this process constructs our self-identity