This seems the exact opposite of what you said yesterday:

in order to have this human sense of self through time, one must already be the same 'subjectivity' which had the past experiences and which remembers them. ...If there's no subjectivity persisting through time already in existence, how can it be the very same 'self' which has the prior experience which the human without any memory undergoes, and then remembers, in order to form it's first memory? There must be a more prior sene of ownership of experience than that *derived* from the contents of experience like human identity, memory, future anticipation, etc. — dukkha

I'd like to cut this rational justification/ emotional response knot and simply say : Nearly all of us would be scared if condemned to torture & we'd be scared because it's going to be us who is tortured. — csalisbury

Well, that's a plausible answer to the question "Why should you be worried about something that's only going to happen to you." The answer you give is that it's going to happen to you. But I would object that that's not why we are worried; we don't actually reason this way. There is no why, it's just something we do instinctively. You might speculate though that it's the same instinct that makes us believe in the invariance, or at any rate, continuity of the self over time. Maybe.

So, well & good. but personal continuity is an explanandum, not an explanans. We might posit some sort of soul (which, having been posited, drastically lowers any assurance one might have about the impossibility of one's existing after death.) But if, on the other hand, one rejects the idea of a soul, then another explanation must be put forth.

That second explanation is what I was hoping to draw out. — csalisbury

My explanation is deflationary (but not eliminativist). I do not think that personal identity constitutes a sharp metaphysical unit. I think that it is a psycho-social construct, rather than some independently existing entity, like a soul. (Which is not to say that it is not real: psycho-social constructs are as real as anything else.)

This is a broader, less specific answer than John's idea of an integrated memory stream. That is one possible psychological mechanism, but it at most addresses the sense of one's own identity; there is also a recognition of personal identity in others, which would have to have some other explanation. I suspect that, our evolved psychology being a terrific mess that has accumulated many ad hoc patches, crutches and shortcuts over the ages, there is no one simple and elegant mechanism to account for all aspects of our self-identification.

If personal identity is a psycho-social construct, it is to some extent a product of our biological makeup, and to some extent a matter of cultural tradition and even personal preference. Therefore, to come to the title question, there is no objectively right or wrong answer to the question of whether your self can continue or to reemerge after your death. Our common intuitions with regard to personal identity are based on our common experiences. But of course, we none of us have afterlife experiences - at least none that could be shared with our mortal selves. Nor do we have experiences that could shape our intuitions with regard to any number of other fantastical thought experiments that are often trotted out in order to explore issues related to personal identity: teleporters, matter duplicators, etc. Such thought experiments, rather than providing an insight, defeat their purpose by being too extraordinary.

Fortunately, nothing important is at stake when considering such questions - unlike the realities of our existence that have shaped our intuitions with regard to personal identity: contemplating our own "selves" and the "selves" of people around us. So if you must answer the question, then knock yourself out, believe whatever strikes your fancy. There are no consequences to having such an opinion, nor is there any way to put it to the test.

Cases of the kind you cite are, for me, cases of cause and effect operating in the empirical world. I haven't denied. or even questioned, those. My question was about the purported spiritual consequences of intentional acts.

I agree with what you write about freedom in the second paragraph. But I see things pretty much the opposite way to how you express it in your third paragraph. For me, there is no self when we are caught up in the objectified world of deterministic actions and having rather than being. We lose ourselves in this world; that is why it understood to be a fallen world. Freedom belongs to persons; it is the self, not the no-self that is free. However this apparent disagreement is probably more a matter of preferred terminologies, locutions and emphasis than anything else.

So, I don't, for example, see Buddhism as contradicting Christianity, but rather as expressing a different emphasis; namely an emphasis on detachment and non-action instead of love and engaged action. Different emphases have been more or less appropriate in different times and cultures. For me, it comes down to a question of which emphasis is more spiritually appropriate to the contemporary world.

May be going off-topic here. :-O

Cases of the kind you cite are, for me, cases of cause and effect operating in the empirical world. I haven't denied. or even questioned, those.

There is no hard-and-fast barrier between the empirical world and the 'domain of the transcendent'; it's more like a porous membrane, although in our culture it has been hardened into a concrete barrier.

But the point is, in relation to the subject at hand, if karma doesn't provide a connective principle between past actions and future states, then what does? If karma isn't central to the notion of identity, then what is?

We lose ourselves in this world; that is why it understood to be a fallen world. — John

Well, we forget outselves, in the sense of becoming identified with our circumstances and then taking ourselves to be something we're not. That's a universal teaching in philosophy and the subject of many parables even in popular culture (e.g.The Lion King, Star Wars. And I think that's also the meaning of 'anamnesia' in Plato.)

I am not saying that the self is merely or simply unreal, but is something that is to be transcended; we 'loose ourselves to find ourselves'. In the Christian idiom: 'he that saves his own life will lose it; he who loses his life for My sake will be saved'. So 'saving your own life' is maintaining your worldly identity. The Buddhist equivalent would be 'he who clings to [self and world] will not realise Nirvāṇa; he who renounces [self and world] for the sake of Nirvāṇa will find it.' The false sense of self is what has to be transcended; which demands sacrifice. (Not making any claims on my part here. X-) )

But I understand how some interpretations of 'no-self' can lead to nihilism and have had debates on this subject on dharmawheel. I think there's a tendency towards nihilism or indifference amongst some Buddhists, but I don't believe it's representative of the real meaning of their teaching, any more than dogmatism and bigotry are of Christianity.

There is no hard-and-fast barrier between the empirical world and the 'domain of the transcendent'; it's more like a porous membrane, although in our culture it has been hardened into a concrete barrier.

But the point is, in relation to the subject at hand, if karma doesn't provide a connective principle between past actions and future states, then what does? If karma isn't central to the notion of identity, then what is? — Wayfarer

Nowadays I don't think in terms of barriers or membranes or separation of any kind between the empirical and the transcendent. I see them as two different orders, with the empirical being the symbolic (or semiotic if you like) expression of the transcendent. This has a parallel with the contemporary physical idea of the 'virtual' giving rise to the concrete.

Since we can know nothing whatsoever of of the virtual outside its effects, the big philosophical question becomes 'what should we think about the virtual?'. This is where faith, intuition and, if you believe it, revelation, come in, or you can just sit in the fence.

I would say that it is memory and the sense of unity, that is soul and not so much karma, that is central to the notion of identity.

I am not saying that the self is merely or simply unreal, but is something that is to be transcended; we 'loose ourselves to find ourselves'. In the Christian idiom: 'he that saves his own life will lose it; he who loses his life for My sake will be saved'. — Wayfarer

In Christianity it is always the soul that is saved by the truth of the spirit. "And the truth shall set you free". In Christianity the individual soul, the person, is understood to be a unique and eternal manifestation of the spirit; and hence immortal. So the appropriate metaphor is always one of finding, not one of losing, the self. Losing the life in order to find the Life is not losing the self, because there is no self in the life to be lost. Of course, in this way of thinking the ego is not the self, but an illusion that grows out of separation of and from the self.

Transcending the ego, that's what I was referring to. And don't forget, there's a verse somewhere in the Bible which says 'God is no respecter of persons'. Always presents an interpretive challenge, that one.

Do you think that verse expresses the idea that God does not play favorites? Humans tend to "respect persons", for example the Queen much more than the laborer, the celebrity much more than the nobody, and so on.

Perhaps it would have been better translated as "God is no respecter of personages".

I would say that it is memory and the sense of unity, that is soul and not so much karma, that is central to the notion of identity. — John

But, doesn't something have to be already in existence that's experiencing those memories and that sense of unity. Otherwise it would be like, no self exists, then memories of prior experiences are had, and the self arises as a sort of construct based on this.

That doesn't make sense because there already must be a continuos experience in existence, in order for one to have had prior experiences that one is remembering. The experience must already be having had by a continuos identity, *before* one forms and has memories. Otherwise you couldn't have had the prior experience that you are remembering, because you wouldn't have existed.

It's like saying "the self arises from a continuous ongoing experience." But, in order for experience to be ongoing some sort of identity/subject must already be in existence. Otherwise the experience could not be continuous. An ongoing experience means that whatever experiences at T1 must be the same thing experiencing at T2.

How can we understand periods of non consciousness? If you actually cease being conscious entirely when you're knocked out, or when in deep sleep, or under anaesthesia, how is it that you survive the gap in conscious experience? Why don't you just stay unconscious and then something else experiences waking up? Because you do survive the gap, so doesn't that mean that you must continue to exist in some way through periods of non consciousness? Otherwise you'd be popping in and out of existence, and yet it's still the very same identity/self/'you' having the experience.

How do we explain the persistence of self/identity through gaps in conscious experience? The same 'thing' feels or knows about or undergoes the experience before the gap, as does after the gap. You experience pain before you are anaesthetised, and then you experience pain after you come to. Why do you not just cease to exist and then something else experiences the pain after the gap?

This suggests to me that perhaps the self/subject/identity/'thing which is undergoing conscious experience, is not itself experiential, or arises from experience. Seems like it must exist outside conscious experience in order to survive the gap. If the self is a construct, then wouldn't it be a different/separate construct after the gap than before? How could a construct of self arise through say memory, then cease to exist at the moment of unconsciousness, and then another construct of self arises after the period of non consciousness, but it's also the same construct as the first one, because you felt the pain before the gap and now you're feeling it after.

We experience right now, here in this present. We experience a memory in the present and project a past behind us, as if we existed before the present. We project a future ahead of us, as if we are going to reach the future, and be the same self in the future. "It will be me that has the experiences in the future."

We think of time as this linear track, which actually exists outside our present experience, and our present experience is travelling along this track leaving behind it a past (containing facts) and heading into a future ahead. As if we are a train carriage travelling along a railway track. I think it's more like we are the railway carriage, and we're stationary, and the track we are travelling along supposedly, is just an idea in our minds. A projection of the same identity behind us, and the same identity which we will be, ahead of us. But even if this is the case, there must still exist some sort of fundamental identity, right? Because the present is a constant change, and yet we persist through (as?) it.

that's one interpretation but recall 'ego' and 'person' are practically synonyms. 'The persona' was the mask worn by actors in Greek drama.

Dukkha raises some interesting points above but I'm on an iPhone here, will return later.

But, doesn't something have to be already in existence that's experiencing those memories and that sense of unity. — dukkha

Yes, that is what we know as the soul. The existence of the soul is not like the existence of a thing; a satisfactory analytical account of it cannot be given. But it seems obvious that the existence of the soul at least must consist in memory and unity. Freedom, memory, unity and the spirit are intrinsic to the soul and the soul is intrinsic to freedom, memory and unity and the spirit; as well as all the other permutations. There you have it.

But it seems obvious that the existence of the soul at least must consist in memory and unity. — John

But these are experiential. Isn't the soul that which is undergoing the experience?

There is memory (as faculty) which is not experienced but thought, and there are memories which are experienced, or rather, are experiences.

There is unity, which is not experienced but thought, and then there is the sense of unity, which is experienced, or rather is an experience, and underlies all experience.

There is the self, which is not experienced but thought, and then there is the sense of self, which is experienced, or rather is an experience, and underlies all experience.

Of course you will be able to find inconsistencies and inadequacies in what I have written here, just as you will be able to find them in any verbal formulation.

@John has drawn a distinction between the transcendental and the empirical (the ontological and the ontic, the conditions of experience and experience itself) and I find myself sympathetic. But I am sympathetic, too, to @dukkha's challenge.

If memory is to serve as a condition for selfhood, then it must circumscribe some region - it must draw a line and say: that which happens within this boundary will be preserved in the memory of entity x. If memory is to be the eminence grise behind selfhood, it must also be a drawer of boundaries. And that makes things difficult. Because that which draws the boundary is also that which is to be bounded.

This brings me back to another point of Dukkha's: The idea of 'ownerless' experience. It seems to me that 'mineness' is essential (even if it's a lower karma-compromised calcification of a deeper experiential stream or storehouse ( @Wayfarer ) ) because that's precisely what explains the apprehension felt at our own impending torture. If all experience is ownerless, then everyone should be well afeared of anyone's torture, past or present. (Though I'm sure there's some mystic out there who claims we're all participating in the crucifixion of christ: approaching it asymptotically or converging on it from different angles; or that the crucifixion is an event which we all experience ripples of, in a kind of twisted neoplatonic theory of emanation; or that the crucifixion itself is a kind of singularity of suffering which gathers into itself each and every worldly travail, making them equal...the crucifixion as a mystic-metaphysical zero-point that recollects, anticipates and embraces all instances of suffering, forges them into one, and requires each of us to experience the same thing through a glass darkly in a kind of prismatic distribution ---- ) So you could go on, there are a lot of ways to truss this up, but no matter how acrobatic you get, you still need to explain the vulgar experience of mundane selfhood, even if its only an illusion

I understand what you're saying, but the point of such thought experiments is not to consider extraordinary events in-and-of-themselves, but rather to use them as leverage to render explicit certain presuppositions that would otherwise remain assumed and unspoken.

And in any case, I don't think the thought experiment I've posed is all that extraordinary. Throughout history, many people have awaited torture. This is a far cry from teleportation.

I'm sure personal identity is a psycho-social construct, but such a construct requires a lower-level continuity in order to even get off the ground - The construction of a self-narrative requires some kind of spatio/temporal/experiential boundary (boundary-process?) which excludes certain experiences/elements as candidates for integration in a self-construct and includes others.

In other words, calling it a construct doesn't really get at the heart of the issue. Boundary drawing is a little closer. I'm not sure if even that is quite there.

If memory is to serve as a condition for selfhood, then it must circumscribe some region - it must draw a line and say: that which happens within this boundary will be preserved in the memory of entity x. If memory is to be the eminence grise behind selfhood, it must also be a drawer of boundaries. And that makes things difficult. Because that which draws the boundary is also that which is to be bounded. — csalisbury

Must it be memory that circumscribes or is it not the thought of 'self and other"? The circumscription, though, the very thought of self and other must be enabled by memory, no?

So, I don't think the experience of memory, of remembering and of memories is a matter of circumscription, but a matter of owning which is primordially implicit, and is only made explicit in the process of explicit circumscription.

It is the ontological ownership of experience and therefore memory which makes possible the explicit circumscription of the self and what it owns, including memories themselves. In a way the soul does not own the faculty of memory though, that is a gift from the spirit, or from God, if you like.

Let's imagine though that the soul is preserved in a sort of spiritual 'storehouse' of the type Wayfarer described. And that it reappears on the worldly stage at certain moments. When does the soul enter into the physical world? At what stage of physical fetal development? Is there already a boundary drawn (by some autopoetic physical system) or does the soul itself enter and draw the boundary? But then can it enter and draw the boundary at any moment?

This is a little unclear, but do you see where I'm going?

Memory, imagination, obsession are really all that are at play. Being aware that someone else is about to be tortured is a lot more difficult to address, and deal with...

When it's me, I will, for one thing, not really know what torture is even like, and will probably be imagining it to be a lot worse than it is, be worried about long term effects, or perhaps death. Like for spies, they don't teach you how to resist torture, they teach you how to deal with being broken. The only reason one would want to resist spilling the beans is if you are reasonably sure they're going to kill you afterwards, then you should probably keep them lips sealed for as long as you can. In both cases you're putting off the inevitable, but when they just want the info, and aren't going to kill you, and it will stop the torture, then you might as well give it up. If they're going to kill you afterwords, then you might as well tell them nothing, and make them break you.

If you're just sitting in the cell, then even if you're absolutely obsessed with the impending torture, you'll still forget about it and think about something else at least once, and then you'll notice in that moment that right now, you're fine. Maybe even feeling pretty good. Well rested, full of gruel or whatever, and everything's fine. Thinking about all of those things you won't get to do, and all of the future horrors is just what you do all of the time right now anyway. The only difference is that you imagine the physical torment of torture to be so much worse than psychological pain, but is it?

Let's imagine though that the self is preserved in a sort of spiritual 'storehouse' of the type Wayfarer described. And that it reappears on the worldly stage at certain moments. When does the soul enter into the physical world? — csalisbury

The Buddhist answer is that the self is not a permanently existing entity; in fact the self neither exists nor doesn't exist. To say 'it exists' is to declare the reality of something changeless, something that always remains as it is - which is the 'fallacy of eternalism'. But to say 'it doesn't exist' is the opposite fallacy of nihilism. The reality is, everything that exists, including us, does so as the dynamic interplay of causes and conditions, and in relationship to others. There is nothing within it that is fixed and immutable, or exists in its own right; but at the same time, actions have consequences, and identities have continuity; karma definitely happens, you can't laugh it off or dodge it. But it is like a whirlpool in a stream. (As many have noted, in this respect Buddhism has some similarities with process philosophy and modern systems theory).

So this doesn't posit 'a self that appears', although it is true that the school of Buddhism that proposed the storehouse consciousness, was sometimes criticized by other Buddhists for being too much like the Hindu view of ātman. But again, it isn't exactly that, because the process, the being, is dynamic. It doesn't deny the phenomenal reality of individual lives, but it does deny there is something fixed, changeless and immutable, which is what the ātman is supposed to be.

What is beyond change and decay, is Nirvāṇa; but it is an error to objectify or reify that as a target or object. This leads to the 'negative dialectic' of Buddhist philosophy - to awaken to the truth is to 'realise the emptiness' (śūnyatā) of all composite existence. Thich Naht Hanh describes emptiness as 'inter-being'; nothing exists in its own right; everything co-arises. Nothing absolutely is, or is not; everything exists dependent on causes and conditions. That is the central truth of Buddhism.

So in this view, is not as if the self is one thing, and its attributes another. Alan Watts used to ask, when we say 'it is raining', what is 'it'? When lightning flashes, are the lightning and the flash separate things? That is the sense in which the Budda radically diverges from the Aristotelean paradigm of 'substance and attribute'; there are no substances; the underlying reality of existence is constant change. (Recall Wittgenstein's remark from his Notebooks, 'I am my world'.) The aim of the Buddhist analysis is to understand how the wrong perception of that process leads to suffering by causing us to cling to what is inherently unstable and unsatisfying. Not that this is an easy thing to understand or undergo.

So I'm down with that perspective---but it leaves us with the exact same question: when and why does the self start self-ing? (verb-ing to avoid the reification of the self). We're left with the same questions about boundaries and memories and all that. (Again, even if we agree that the self is not substantial, the questions remain.)

Indeed it does! Good luck with that.

Not to mention that if nothing stays the same, then how can we continue to identify it later in the future? There's clearly more of an interplay, or tension between difference/sameness, but this is clear from the very get go. You and I are both humans, but we don't have the same exact parts or features. "Red" can be attributed to many things without sharing a single physical part.

What's way more interesting is that we're fucking doing it on purpose. We are things, and have certain forms because we will it, work on it, strive for it, and make it happen.

I told a self-proclaimed prophet that I know the other day, after he was talking lottery winnings, and prophetic dreams that I don't wish, or hope for a particular future, I demand it. create it. I make it happen. I don't hope, I intend.

Point being that that is clearly a one way parts sans wholes view of things. The problem is just flatly denied, or attributed to "convention". There's a real problem of universals and continuity that cannot be coherently denied.

Indeed it does! Good luck with that.

That doesn't seem like a sincere 'good luck,' indeed it seems like a bitter sarcastic one. Why?

The trouble is people begin a the rejection of universality and difference in the first instance. Both become lost in an attempt to define each other in the basis of the other.

Are we humans? Well, that universal (or rather similarity) is thought to be given by difference-- have the arms, the legs, the DNA, etc.,etc. and one is human. Lack them and one is not. Yet, this narrative always bashes up against are usage and values. We claim the genocidal manic is not human. We pronounce the entity with experiences and intelligence like us belong to humanity. The difference we thought defined the universal of human doesn't so at all-- turns out we may human robots and inhuman homo sapiens.

A similar mistake is made with difference. How do people usually think difference is defined? By a universal of some sort. Humans are not animals because they always have this particular sort of brain with intelligence. To understand and spot difference, it is thought we pick out a universal form an then note the different states of the world it constrains. Yet, this is never satisfactory because we find it is different beings who are similar.

Supposedly, the universal (Willow) defines the difference (to be tortured Willow and tortured Willow) and is needed for me to care about a difference (tortured Willow), but we can see this doesn't make sense, for the two Willows are different. My to be tortured self will never experience torture. By difference it has no torture to fear.

The fear only make sense when tortured Willow matters. Concern not for the universal, but for difference. When tortured Willow matters, it's to different Willows that proceed them. I do not fear my present self, but for the person who comes after me. Identity over time is not a universal that constrains the world, but difference expressing some sort of link or similarity-- the body, actions and experiences of the to be tortured person are linked to the difference of tortured person.

Over time, I am many different people who's actions affect those to come, who follow from my present body and experiences. If I care which person exists in the future, I have to be careful about what's happening in the present. To be condemned to torture means that, barring some cultural change, pardon or incompetent guards, a future person linked to my body an experiences will experience torture. If I want to avoid that fate for the person who comes after me, my fear makes perfect sense.

The "problem of universals and continuity" is an illusion generated by not accepting difference and universality for themselves.

sorry, CS, I dashed that off but it was in not meant in a hostile way. It's more that no matter what kind of theory we have, it's a genuinely difficult question. it was meant ironically.

It seems there's already a boundary inherent in the notion of a soul entering a world. I suppose I would have to say the soul enters at the moment of conception. If the soul is just the basic 'beingness', then it must be infused with the spirit in order for personality to develop. Part of that obviously seems to involve spirit as culture, as per Hegel.

True, 'ego' is an equivocal term, as is 'personality'. We can speak about the personal ego, meaning the social personality and sense of self within and as defined by a social milieu. We can speak about the transcendental ego as the principle unifying experience. It's arguable that more than half the misunderstandings and disagreements that arise in these kinds of discussions stem from equivocities of all the terms.

I thought the soul entered at the quickening.

Perhaps if one views the physical body as a vehicle for the self. A vehicle whereby the self does some self-ing. I would personally add another tier of vehicle, the vehicle of the soul, wereby something like being does some being-self. With memories in both tiers,

In the physical vehicle, memories of experience and living in the physical world. In the soul vehicle, memories of soul business.

Ohhk, yeah, misinterpreted you - I agree that it's a super hard question.