Thinking - about your many selves - All of us are plural in many ways

By: Tom Cloyd - 2 minute read

(Published: 2025-10-27; reviewed: 2025-10-27:2353 Pacific Time (USA))

How many of you are there? What an odd question!

And it’s one whose answer you most likely will get wrong, psychologist Robert Ornstein suggests. Our brains have multiple mind processes which cause alterations in consciousness, and in our sense of self.

We typically don’t notice this, and, other than in dissociative identity disorder, which is characterized by a lack of unity in the multiple self-states of the mind, it is far from obvious.

He suggests, further, that there is a good reason for this normal multiplicity of selves (unified or not).

“The self is a small isolated part of the mind, sometimes called into play by consciousness, most often on the sidelines….

“…A set of minds swings in and out: One system, then another, then a third takes hold of consciousness. Once recruited for a purpose, the mind in place performs as if it had been there forever, then steps aside to be replaced by another “actor,” one with different memories, priorities, and plans. And “we”, our conscious self, rarely notice what has gone on.

“This is one reason why we don’t act the way “we” want ourselves to. Since minds shift, “we” are not the same person from moment to moment, not the same “self” at all. The idea most people have that they are consistent in the diverse situations of their lives is an illusion, one caused by the structure of the brain. The self is, itself, just one of the simpletons, with a small job.

“The mind is the way it is because the world is the way it is. The evolved systems organize the mind to mesh with the world.”

EXCERPT from: Ornstein, R. (1991). The Evolution of Consciousness: The Origins of the Way We Think. Simon & Schuster, pp. 10-11.

Robert Ornstein was an internationally renowned psychologist and author of more than 20 books on the nature of the human mind and brain and their relationship to thought, health, and individual and social consciousness. He taught at Stanford University, Harvard University and the University of California. He founded the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge, which he led until his death in 2018.

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