Alter Ego

Do we have one unified self, or are we a conglomeration of various and often competing selves? How do our alternative selves influence our behavior if the latter proves correct? Thomas Blood’s Alter Ego considers this question through a surrealist lens (probably the most pertinent artistic movement to explore the unconscious).

The question of a dual self (or even a plural self) is at the heart of the millennia-old debate over free will. Most people do not take kindly to being told they don't have free will (myself included). Conversely, the absence of free will can provide comfort in certain situations. Many, if not most people (one would hope), do not blame a kidnap victim for their imprisonment. However, diehard advocates of free will occasionally fall back on (in my opinion, a disgusting belief) the line of reasoning, "well, they chose to walk there at night, and they knew something bad might happen, yet they chose to do it anyway.” I find this appalling because blaming the victim for the perpetrator's crimes is fundamentally wrong. But I slightly digress; the question remains, do we make our own choices?

I have a pitiful grasp of neuroscience, but from what I understand, most of our decisions originate in our unconscious before traveling to our conscious, thus, creating the illusion we are formulating the thoughts. Whether this is true or not (please correct me if I’m wrong), it would seem to me that unconscious or no, the decisions come from our minds. The little doppelganger stiffly standing atop the subject’s bowler hat is that alter ego, that subconscious director, the secret self.