As a person who gets the metaphor and previously felt as though my mind was split between two parts, maybe I can help address this.
The part people talk about as the rider is the part of your brain that sees itself and constructs memories. Neurologically this is probably centered on the loop between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex but I don’t know enough about neuroscience to say that with a lot of confidence, but the point is that it’s the thing that seems to exist between memory formation and the fancy, large-in-humans parts of your brain that deal with language and abstract reasoning. The rider is also the part of the system that gives you complex, multi-layered self experience that we often refer to as some combination of “consciousness”, “self-awareness”, and “qualia”.
The elephant part is basically everything else because it’s the parts of the brain that are not directly connected to this loop where conscious memory formation happens. These are the parts of your brain that do things without involving the rider loop prior to taking action, although after action the rider loop may become aware of the consequences of the elephant’s actions.
Of course this is a metaphor but the point of it is to highlight that there are parts of the brain that are tightly integrated with the memory loop and parts of the brain that are not. The parts inside can feel better seen than the parts outside, and this sets up the opportunity for feeling as though one is split.
Then saying you “identify with your elephant” means that when you turn to the question of “what makes me me?” you think of the parts outside the memory loop as more constituting what differentiates you than the parts inside the memory loop. The alternatives are to identify more with the rider or the parts inside the memory loop, identify with both equally (which may mean not much noticing the distinction), or to not identify anything as much uniquely you.
As a person who gets the metaphor and previously felt as though my mind was split between two parts, maybe I can help address this.
The part people talk about as the rider is the part of your brain that sees itself and constructs memories. Neurologically this is probably centered on the loop between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex but I don’t know enough about neuroscience to say that with a lot of confidence, but the point is that it’s the thing that seems to exist between memory formation and the fancy, large-in-humans parts of your brain that deal with language and abstract reasoning. The rider is also the part of the system that gives you complex, multi-layered self experience that we often refer to as some combination of “consciousness”, “self-awareness”, and “qualia”.
The elephant part is basically everything else because it’s the parts of the brain that are not directly connected to this loop where conscious memory formation happens. These are the parts of your brain that do things without involving the rider loop prior to taking action, although after action the rider loop may become aware of the consequences of the elephant’s actions.
Of course this is a metaphor but the point of it is to highlight that there are parts of the brain that are tightly integrated with the memory loop and parts of the brain that are not. The parts inside can feel better seen than the parts outside, and this sets up the opportunity for feeling as though one is split.
Then saying you “identify with your elephant” means that when you turn to the question of “what makes me me?” you think of the parts outside the memory loop as more constituting what differentiates you than the parts inside the memory loop. The alternatives are to identify more with the rider or the parts inside the memory loop, identify with both equally (which may mean not much noticing the distinction), or to not identify anything as much uniquely you.