# The Self May Be an Emergent Output Mistaken for a Decision-Maker by Bruce Hood > “Yet, the self, like a conceptual zombie, refuses to die. It crops up again and again in recent theories of decision-making as an entity with free will that can be depleted. It re-appears as an interpreter in cognitive neuroscience as capable on integrating parallel streams of information arising from separable neural substrates. Even if these appearances of the self are understood to be convenient ways of discussing the emergent output of multiple parallel processes, students of the mind continue to implicitly endorse that there is a decision-maker, an experiencer, a point of origin.” > **— Bruce Hood**, *2014, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT?”* ## Sources and Context - **Direct Edge response and surrounding essay:** [The Self](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25483) — Edge published this exact, continuous passage in its 2014 Annual Question collection, *WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT?*. The response page preserves the surrounding argument and qualifications. - **Complete local collection index:** [[research/Edge 2014 Full Quotation Curation|Edge 2014 Full Quotation Curation]] — retained source-first record for the response cohort and this passage's promotion status. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Edge|Edge]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta|Host Infrastructure Overview]] - **Article:** [[articles/Technologies for Consciousness Mapping and Transfer|Consciousness Mapping and Transfer]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Last Migration Will Not Be Human|The Last Migration]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Personal Identity|Personal Identity]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Personal Identity|Personal Identity]] - [[wiki/Free Will|Free Will]] - [[wiki/Self-Awareness|Self-Awareness]] - [[wiki/Information Theory|Information Theory]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “Yet, the self, like a conceptual zombie, refuses to die. It crops up again and again in recent theories of decision-making as an entity with free will that can be depleted. It re-appears as an interpreter in cognitive neuroscience as capable on integrating parallel streams of information arising from separable neural substrates. Even if these appearances of the self are understood to be convenient ways of discussing the emergent output of multiple parallel processes, students of the mind continue to implicitly endorse that there is a decision-maker, an experiencer, a point of origin.” — Bruce Hood, 2014, Edge Annual Question, “WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT?” https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-bruce-hood-self-emergent-output-mistaken-decision-maker ```