Me, Myself, and My Conceptual Spere

In the most recent reading Hoffstadter describes how concepts are shaped like spheres - the most pithy and typical example at the center with less-tightly related information and looser associations orbiting around in a surrounding cloud. These spheres are the structure of all concepts, including many ordinary commonsense notions. Hofstadter describes how we generalize based on these spheres, often relating information about an incident to the most immediate location or type of structure (tennis courts, pill bottles, etc).

What about our self-concept? Is this structured in the same way? Do we also have some sense of core or information (like an event might) that is more likely to be generalized in a situation? [Can we think about our lives as one long event?] During the Me-Too phenomena, we find ourselves generalizing about a situation's "essence" - not the details. The musical instrument is unimportant, the determination and wherewithal is primary. Is the core of this event mutable, based on the sphere it's being compared to? Continuing on DH's example, because there is no bassoon element in the man's self-conceptual sphere, it becomes obvious that the only overlap or generalization could come from his musicianship. Similarly, if there is a beer closely tied to a man in the moment he says "me too", we can  safely assume he's paying for his own beer, not ours.

The self-concept sphere plays a role in the me-too phenomena. Other's are able to sense our self-concept, and see where overlaps occur to understand our generalization. While our self-concept may encompass all of our experiences, there does seem to be a core or nucleus. For the musician, playing an instrument is closer to the core than playing the bassoon, so when not explicit we assume he's generalizing about something closer to that center. Similarly, when the newlywed Carol speaks of forgetting her married name and Peter responds with having that trouble every January, we can immediately understand that the issue of a maiden name is too loosely associated with him to be generalized non-explicitly. If Carol had instead been talking to a "Patricia", this situation would be more ambiguous because a last-name change may have been more highly associated with her because of her gender. (Confusion would probably be resolved with a little thought.)

The me-too phenomena might be partially explained by applying the conceptual sphere to the self, and then assuming that when there is ambiguity, it's most likely that the person is generalizing about something closer to the core of their self-concept sphere.