"266","The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity","What is a self? I will try to answer this question by developing an analogy with something much simpler, something which is nowhere near as puzzling as a self, but has some properties in common with selves. What I have in mind is the center of gravity of an object. This is a well-behaved concept in Newtonian physics. But a center of gravity is not an atom or a subatomic particle or any other physical item in the world. It has no mass; it has no color; it has no physical properties at all, except for spatio-temporal location. It is a fine example of what Hans Reichenbach would call an abstractum. It is a purely abstract object. It is, if you like , a theorist's fiction. It is not one of the real things in the universe in addition to the atoms. But it is a fiction that has nicely defined, well delineated and well behaved role within physics.","http://cogprints.org/266/","Dennett, Daniel C","Kessel, F. and Cole, P. and Johnson, D.","       <span class=\"person_name\">Dennett, Daniel C</span>     (1992)  <a href=\"http://cogprints.org/266/\"><em>The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity.</em></a>       [Book Chapter]           ","","1992"