Apples, oranges, and self

ABSTRACT

Extending Thompson’s discussion of the extended self, I contrast his view if the I Self (in William James’ terms) with my focus on James’ Me Self. I go on to discuss the Aggregate Self, the Digital Self, and various concepts of plural selves and cultural differences. Thompson’s introduction of distributed self fits nicely here and further expands the discussion of self. I introduce the concept of the Extended Object and briefly examine thanobots and AI and the way they may affect our concepts of self in the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Extended self
• ontologies
• I/Me self
• extended object
• AI

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Russell Belk

Russell Belk is Royal Society of Canada Fellow, York University Distinguished Research Professor, and Kraft Foods Canada Chair in Marketing in the Schulich School of Business. He studies extended self, possession meanings, collecting, gift-giving, situational effects, sharing, digital consumption, and materialism, and is primarily qualitative, conceptual, visual, and cultural.