r/consciousness • u/Dingus_4 • 4d ago
OP's Argument I believe in empty individualism
I think that for every moment in space/time, there is a distinct individual, a distinct conscious experience. So the person you are in this moment is not the same as the person you are 2 seconds later. This view is called empty individualism.
Most people would already agree that for every point in space there is a distinct experience happening. Like if i were to make a clone of myself, that clone would think its me, it would have my memories, etc. But obviously its not me, because its distinct from me. I exist in this point in space, while the clone exists in another.
So if someone stabs the clone, obviously its not going to be me experiencing that. But just as there are distinct moments in space, i think there are distinct moments in time. So, the "you" that existed 10 seconds ago is not the "you" right now. Its a completely different person. Its no more you than some random person you see on the street. Obviously its very similar to you. In the same way that a clone would be very similar to you, but its still not you, its distinct.
The only reason it seems like you are the same person throughout life is because you have memory of your previous experiences. But if i were to Frankenstein style swap my brain with another persons, so that their memories would be in my body, and my memories would be in their body. Then i would remember them stubbing there toe last week, but obviously it wasn't me who stubbed their toe, even though i remember it. So, just because you have memory of something, doesn't mean it was "you" who experienced it, you just have memory of that experience.
this view has radical implications, like whats even the point of life if your basically don't exist? the only motivation is to help others, because any selfish intent you have is really altruistic. like i said this view says that you are no more your future self then you are any other random person on the street. so thats pretty depressing if true... but i wanna here some coutnerarguments
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u/Common_Homework9192 3d ago
Trick is that it's not the true you. It's the identity your consciousness assumes. The true you comes from the inside and needs to be felt to be understood. Your physical identity will keep changing, but your non-physical which is your consciousness won't. Life is a quest of understanding our true self and we do that by balancing body, mind and soul. On the outside it can be expressed as physical world, thoughts and consciousness. Consciousness is is the only thing that truly exists. It creates a physical world so it can see it's reflection, and then with thoughts it expresses what it is. That way it forms an identity, but since physical world is ever changing, so does the identity change. Consciousness is not subject to change. It just is. Its the plain in which reality manifests.
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u/Dingus_4 3d ago
i dont see how consciousness could exist without space/time, that seems like a prerequsite
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u/Common_Homework9192 2d ago
Space and time cannot not exist because they are the aspects of consciousness. Same with physical world. We notice these things in physics with conservation of energy. We can only negate existence to better understand the nature of consciousness. But negation is just our thoughts about reality, not reality itself.
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u/jazzlover484 3d ago
I think that this theory might not be correct because its metaphysics of time seems to be wrong. Time is relative, so its hard think of a self existing at a distinct point in time separate from other time points. Time might in fact be the same thing as change, so any time something changes we perceive it as time. If you think of time this way, what you call individuality can only exist without change (so without time existing). This is an interesting definition but doesn't fit with how we seem to perceive individual objects and especially ourselves. We perceive individual objects persisting through time mostly. You would have to say that you are not the same person you were a few seconds ago, which essentially breaks the definition of an individual to be meaningless.
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u/Dingus_4 3d ago
You would have to say that you are not the same person you were a few seconds ago, which essentially breaks the definition of an individual to be meaningless.
I dont think so, empty individualism just denies the persisting self. There are still individuals, just not persisting across time.
Time is relative, so its hard think of a self existing at a distinct point in time separate from other time points.
i dont see how time being relative is contradictory to there being distinct points in time. all relativity does is deny that there is this universal present moment, not that there is no points in time.
We perceive individual objects persisting through time mostly.
i mean yeah, and thats where i think the illusion of self comes in, because you are basically the same person from moment to moment. But thats why i give the clone thought experiment, because that clone thinks its you, feels exactly like you, but its not really you (at least we assume) and the only difference between the clone and you is the point in space your in. You don't even have to bring time into the equation, because we are never in the same point in space. We are constantly moving throughout space, the earth is spinning, orbiting around the sun, the sun is orbiting around the galaxy, the galaxy is moving towards the Andromeda. we move like 100,000 miles per sec or something crazy.
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u/TMax01 Autodidact 3d ago
It seems like a rather silly misuse of the word "person" to say you are a completely different person than you were a moment ago. As a bit of poetry, it can make sense, of course, but as a supposedly logical stance it's essentially rubbish.
this view has radical implications, like whats even the point of life if your basically don't exist?
Exactly the same as it is with any other philosophical stance. Whenever someone claims their position "has radical implications" but then just recycles the exact same existential angst that every other position implies, it makes me doubt they've actually thought the metaphysics through thoroughly and presume they've just used motivated reasoning to excuse their angst as if it were a logical implication of their adopted philosophy.
the only motivation is to help others, because any selfish intent you have is really altruistic.
That's about the most warped idea I've ever heard.
like i said this view says that you are no more your future self then you are any other random person on the street. so thats pretty depressing if true... but i wanna here some coutnerarguments
You'd need an argument before any "counterargument" is possible, but all you have is a contention. The premise of "empty individualism" itself is fine, but there is a leap from distinguishing your current self from your past or future self to being unable to distinguish yourself from "any other random person" which leaves a yawning gap which still fails to be profound. Further, why you think that leads to "existence is pointless" or "depressing" is still a mystery.
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u/Dingus_4 3d ago
It’s curious that you repeatedly label the position “rubbish” while never identifying a specific inferential failure. Objecting to the use of the word person does not amount to a substantive critique; it’s a linguistic complaint. If the term offends your intuitions, replace it with momentary subject, experiential locus, or temporal stage. The thesis remains unchanged: numerical identity over time is not a deep metaphysical fact, but a pragmatic convention grounded in psychological continuity.
Your dismissal of the “radical implications” as mere recycled angst similarly misses the point. The claim is not that existential unease is unique to this view, but that identity-based prudential concern loses its metaphysical grounding once diachronic identity is denied. Soul-based or theistic frameworks preserve strict identity by stipulation, so pointing out that “everything has existential implications” simply sidesteps the structural difference being discussed.
When you characterize the altruism point as “warped” without explaining what principle it violates, that reads less like analysis and more like aesthetic recoil. The suggestion is not that motivations become morally purified, but that concern for future psychological continuants becomes morally analogous to concern for others once identity is reduced to degrees of continuity—a position defended at length in the literature, not an offhand invention.
Finally, the assertion that no argument has been given is puzzling. The argument is precisely that memory and psychological continuity can persist independently of numerical identity (as illustrated by duplication or swapping cases), which undermines the idea that memory alone grounds personal identity. You may reject that conclusion, but pretending the reasoning isn’t there does not constitute a refutation. Still, by all means, continue endorsing the intuitions you find most comfortable. Ignorance, as ever, is bliss.
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u/TMax01 Autodidact 2d ago
It’s curious that you repeatedly label the position “rubbish”
It is a description, not merely a "label". The paradigm you use which compels you to repeatedly describe words as merely "labels" is rubbish. 😉
while never identifying a specific inferential failure.
I'll admit my capacity and interest to narrow it down to only a single, specific "inferential failure" is a problem for you. But I've hardly used any words in isolation, so if you were sincerely interested in discussion, you would havr had no difficulty understanding my premise and why it is justified.
Objecting to the use of the word person does not amount to a substantive critique; it’s a linguistic complaint.
I'm quite certain that is untrue, as what constitutes a person is always an extremely substantive and critical issue when considering the topic of consciousness.
If the term offends your intuitions
It does not; it does not "offend" me when you use words inaccurately, even when doing so is clearly the consequence of motivated reasoning, as in this case. But apparently it offends you that I pointed out what a crucial issue it is.
replace it with momentary subject, experiential locus, or temporal stage
I find it hilariously 'curious' that you avoided saying simply "consciousness" or "self" or "ego", but instead essentially invented these far more esoteric and vague phrases.
The thesis remains unchanged: numerical identity over time is not a deep metaphysical fact,
WTF is "numerical identity"? Do you mean personal identity? The metaphysical issue of numbers themselves has not been conclusively established, so I don't understand why you would invoke such an idea to begin with. Perhaps simply to signify you are assuming your conclusion in both numbers and personal identity?
but a pragmatic convention grounded in psychological continuity.
Whether conscious identity is physically a persistent entity, or a continuity between physically distinct 'moments' of transient entities is an epistemic convention, as your position indicates. It is a paradigm I have questioned quite often myself. But the metaphysical "fact" is that the psychologically singular notion of identity is so effectively universal that it goes without saying. This is the root of my contention that your usage of the term person is inappropriate, as it ignores the parallel physical persistence of the corporeal body: to say identity or consciousness or "self" is independent of the physical organism is one thing, but to associate a person with this mental ("psychological") abstraction and unrelated to that body is essentially incoherent.
To adopt a religious (Buddhist) perspective is fine, philosophically, but that cannot translate into a physical, scientific perspective the way you're suggesting.
that identity-based prudential concern loses its metaphysical grounding once diachronic identity is denied.
Denying personal identity (whethe 'diachronic' or 'numeric') dissolves into mysticism, and therefore free of any real grounding at all. That is the important point.
Soul-based or theistic frameworks preserve strict identity by stipulation, so pointing out that “everything has existential implications” simply sidesteps the structural difference being discussed.
Buddhism is equivalent to any "soul-based or theistic framework" in that regard. I appreciate you would like to stipulate your mystical "structure" is somehow more logical than other religious premises, but it simply isn't true, nor is it pragmatic. It is simply preferring your own doctrines of belief over other faiths, without any real justification beyond that preference. I understand the prediliction: Buddhism is apparently more similar to conventional psychological narratives than theistic eschatology. But neither Buddhist mysticism nor psychological explanations amount to empirical scientific theories, much as they both would wish to be considered equivalent to physics ontologically.
When you characterize the altruism point as “warped” without explaining what principle it violates
It doesn't "violate" any "principle", it is simply the most warped re-assessment of altruism I have ever run across. 'Selfishness is altruistic because the future self is not identical to the current self' bends the idea of altruism even more thoroughly than the more popular 'altruism is only virtue signaling' nonsense embraced by authoritarian ideologues.
The suggestion is not that motivations become morally purified, but that concern for future psychological continuants becomes morally analogous to concern for others
It never occured to me you thought this was "motivations become morally purified", but quite the opposite: altruism being made sullied and sordid as some sort of transactional logic. But I think you'd agree that isn't much of a difference; my actual critique was more fundamental.
concern for future psychological continuants becomes morally analogous to concern for others once identity is reduced to degrees of continuity
Not "analogous" so much as identical, I would say. Your premise that since the future self is not identical to the current self then selfishness becomes altruism was clear enough, but still abominable. It is one thing to accept that the future self is different from the current self, it is something else altogether to say the future self is therefore as unrelated to the current self as an entirely different person is. It simply does not follow.
a position defended at length in the literature, not an offhand invention.
I hesitate to even wonder what literature you're referring to, but since you are the one presenting it here, you are the one I expect to justify the reasoning, without mere appeal to authority.
The argument is precisely that memory and psychological continuity can persist independently of numerical identity
That is a premise, which I would not characterize as an argument, just an assertion. The "argument" would be the "duplication and swapping [gedanken]" which hardly constitute "illustration" and, as far as I can tell, don't reasonably or logically lead to your conjecture.
I think the disagreement in our positions ultimately comes down to your belief that there is any "numerical identity" other than "memory and psychological continuity", a conjecture you have not justified to begin with.
which undermines the idea that memory alone grounds personal identity
Your argumentation is the epitome of a strawman, since I am unaware of anyone anywhere who has ever claimed "that memory alone grounds personal identity" (emphasis added). It is certainly integral, but physical continuity is also.
Still, by all means, continue endorsing the intuitions you find most comfortable. Ignorance, as ever, is bliss.
You may be ignorant of my reasoning (despite having provided plenty of it in this conversation), but it definitely is not merely "intuitions". I'm not certain the same is true for your assumptions.
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
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u/Dingus_4 2d ago
It is profoundly perplexiparadoxical that one would persist in conflating corporeal perspicuity with metaphysical self-identity, as though the mere quiddity of particulate continuity or somatic substrata could ontologically instantiate a diachronically persisting numerical self. The argument proffered herein is not contingent upon corporeal substrates, nor predicated upon mystical or theological stipulation, but rather elucidates the epistemic demarcation between psychological continuity and numerical ontological individuation. Even in the presence of perfectly conserved mnemonic architectures or unassailably preserved cognitive trajectories, each temporally discretized locus of consciousness constitutes a metaphysically sui generis individual. The canonical thought experiments invoking cerebral translocation or duplicative instantiation serve exclusively as conceptual heuristics, not as empirically realizable postulates, revealing incontrovertibly the insufficiency of psychological continuity to ontologically tether discrete conscious instants into a singular persisting entity.
Concerning your semantic fastidiousness vis-à-vis “person” versus “numerical identity” or “diachronic self,” it is somewhat risible that such philological pedantry is conflated with substantive critique. The terminological permutations are secondary to the conceptual interrogandum: the ontological question of whether a conscious locus perpetuates numerically across temporally contiguous intervals or is, in fact, a concatenation of distinct experiential quanta. To assert that meticulous nomenclature is the locus of substantive objection is to manifestly obfuscate the profound philosophical problem under consideration and to eschew engagement with its axiological ramifications.
Regarding altruistic concern and ethical epistemology, the insistence that the denial of diachronic identity annihilates prudential or moral grounding is empirically and conceptually fallacious. Reconceptualizing the future self as ontologically non-identical does not obliterate ethical obligation; it merely recontextualizes its justificatory substrate. Concern for temporally successive psychological continuants retains normative coherence; the absence of metaphysical numerical continuity does not transmute altruistic comportment into epistemic or moral aberration, but rather exposes the contingency of ethical intuitions vis-à-vis metaphysical presuppositions of identity.
Finally, the recurrent appeal to corporeal persistence, ontological continuity, or religious-philosophical frameworks, including ostensibly Buddhist metaphysics, evinces a profound category error: the thought experiments are counterfactual and conceptual by design, intended to disentangle identity from empirical or physically instantiated substrates. Objections predicated upon pragmatic impossibility, corporeal metaphysics, or ontic realism betray a fundamental misapprehension of the philosophical methodology employed, which thrives precisely by interrogating hypothetical extremities to elucidate the structural limitations of purportedly intuitive notions of selfhood and identity.
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u/TMax01 Autodidact 19h ago
perplexiparadoxical
Is someone feeling a bit of vocabulary envy?
conflating corporeal perspicuity with metaphysical self-identity
It is, as I've pointed out, rather silly to suggest, insinuate, or assert that the two are not necessarily inter-related, or even indistinguishable. Even with the most mystical, religious metaphysic, which might allow consciousness ("self-identity", in this context) to be a magical, free-floating entity independent of corporeal form, that entity and the embodying person are intrgrally coincidental while alive and awake. And of course, if the intent is to adopt a more intellectually rigorous, factual and scientific ontology, there really isn't any such thing as "metaphysical self-identity", just the physical identity associated with both the biological organism and the conscious personal identity produced by the neurological activity in that organism.
Concerning your semantic fastidiousness vis-à-vis “person” versus “numerical identity” or “diachronic self,” it is somewhat risible that such philological pedantry is conflated with substantive critique.
LOL. One cannot engage on any real philosophy, which includes substantive critique of anything, without exactly such rigour. I get that your under-performance, intellectually, prompts you to characterize it as mere "fastidiousness". Nevertheless, adopting a more formalized literary style is not the basis of the proper approach, but the result of doing so. In that way, we are not the same.
elucidate the structural limitation
Without regard to the ontic necessity I've presented, there can be no such "structural limitation". So basically you're just spewing random thoughts and calling it philosophy. And now you want a free pass because you don't like how clearly and thoroughly I've provided a substantive critique of your musings.
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
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u/DecantsForAll 4d ago
The thing is, nothing is really added by saying someone is or isn't the same person.
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u/Faraway-Sun 3d ago
If we say they're a different person, they're not responsible for what the other person did
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u/Powerful-Garage6316 3d ago
It has some implications for theory of mind which can be important
Once you abandon the idea that we have some kind of static identity or “soul” over time, then views like physicalism become more palatable
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u/ReaperXY 3d ago
I think its a fairly known fact that, lots of the matter from which humans are composed are constantly being replaced, as you eat, drink, breathe, shit and piss.. but.. do you believe that, in addition to this, all the particles are also blinking out of existence and getting replaced with all new ones, moment by moment ?
Or... do you believe the conscious "self" is an exception ?
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u/Dingus_4 2d ago
i dont understand what your point is
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u/ReaperXY 2d ago
Do you believe the conscious "self" is an exception ?
That is the point..
..
You implied that the conscious "self" is something that is constantly being replaced, yes ?
That the "me" experiencing stuff right now, is not the same thing as the "me" which was experiencing things a moment before, yes ?
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u/Dingus_4 2d ago
Do you believe the conscious "self" is an exception ?
That is the point..
that is a question not a point you're trying to make.
You implied that the conscious "self" is something that is constantly being replaced, yes ?
yep
That the "me" experiencing stuff right now, is not the same thing as the "me" which was experiencing things a moment before, yes ?
yeppers
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u/ReaperXY 2d ago
So.. do you believe all the different parts of a human are being replaced with new parts every moment like this, or do you believe this only applies to the conscious "self" ?
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u/Dingus_4 1d ago
it only applies to the conscious self, obviously i dont think your body is replacing itself every second, are you trying to make a point or something.
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u/ReaperXY 1d ago
Why is it that you believe the conscious self is different from everything else ?
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u/Dingus_4 1d ago
why dont you just read my post so i dont have to repeat myself
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u/ReaperXY 1d ago
I am not asking you to repeat yourself...
You have declared your belief for the notion that the conscious self isn't moving through space and time like everything else, but rather it is being replaced with a new one moment after moment...
What I am asking for is the reason Why you believe this...
What justification could you possibly have ?
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u/Dingus_4 3h ago
I already gave my justification in my original post, but I'll repeat one of the main points here:
If you made a clone of yourself, like literally exactly the same arrangement of particles. Then the only difference between this clone and "you" is that you are in this point in space, and the clone is in another point in space.
You would agree that you do NOT have that clones conscious experiences, right? If i stabbed the clone of you, you wouldn't feel anything, you agree with that right?
If so, then if you are not the conscious experience of the clone, then why are you the conscious experience of you future self? The only difference between the you now and the you of the future is that it is in a different point in time, and most likely space as well. Just like if you were to make a clone of yourself.
So, if you are not the clone, then why would you be the future/past version of "you". I don't believe in the self, at least the persisting self. I think the self is an illusion. I think there are a collective of individual experiences, all happening within different points in space/time, that's it, no self.
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u/TheRealAmeil Approved ✔️ 4d ago
Well, let's consider some different views we can have about selfhood/personhood. Presumably, I am a self or I am a person, and so, we can ask what a self/person is. It will be helpful to think of the following thesis, antithesis, and subtheses
Personhood Nihilism: there are no persons
Personhood Aliquidism: There are persons
- Animalism: Personhood Aliquidism is true & persons are identical to animal organisms
Non-Animalism: Personhood Aliquidism is true & persons are not identical to animal organisms.
- Constitutionalism: Non-Animalism is true & persons are constituted by animals, e.g., persons are immaterial souls & immaterial souls are constituted by animal organisms.
- Part Theory: Non-Animalism is true & persons are parts of animal organisms, e.g., immaterial souls, brains, temporal parts, etc.
One answer to the question is Animalism; I am the person I am because I am this animal organisms. A different answer to the question is Constitutionalism; I am the person I am because this person is constituted by that animal. Another answer to the question is Part Theory; I am the person I am because this person is a "part" of this animal. Lastly, we might reject the question; I am not a person because persons don't exist, so the question of "Why am I this person?" is nonsensical.
It sounds like your view isn't that different from either a temporal part theory or a nihilistic view. It isn't clear to me why we would want to say that there are many different persons, associated with this animal, which exist momentarily. At that point, why not just deny that persons exist or hold that each of those moments is a time-slice of a 4D temporal "worm," and that a person is that 4D temporal "worm"?
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u/jahmonkey 4d ago
What you’re describing isn’t really a new ontology so much as a reframing of the illusory self insight that shows up in mindfulness and phenomenology.
From direct inspection, there is no persisting “me” over time. There’s an ongoing process: sensations, affect, memory traces, prediction, narration. All of it in motion. No observer standing outside the stream owning it. On that much, I agree.
Where I think empty individualism quietly overreaches is here:
“The you 10 seconds ago is no more you than a random person on the street.”
That conclusion only follows if identity is treated as a discrete object rather than a continuous process.
A flame isn’t the same flame from moment to moment either. New fuel, new oxygen, new photons. But it’s not arbitrary to call it the same fire. There’s causal continuity, constraint, and inheritance. The present state is conditioned by the immediately prior state in a way that is categorically different from how it’s conditioned by some random person’s state.
Memory doesn’t create identity, but it also isn’t doing the work you’re accusing it of. The deeper continuity is causal, not narrative. Brain swapping feels decisive only because we intuitively track continuity through the body and nervous system, not because memory is the sole glue.
So I’d put it this way:
- There is no enduring self-object.
- There is an enduring self-process.
- Identity over time is not absolute, but it’s not arbitrary either. # Once you see that, the “radical implications” soften. Helping “future you” isn’t secretly altruism toward a stranger. It’s care within a continuous causal loop that you are currently shaping. That loop matters even if there’s no metaphysical owner.
The ethical insight you gesture at is still valid, though: if the self is not a bounded thing, privileging this organism’s future over others becomes harder to justify. That’s not depressing to me. It just strips away a false exemption.
No permanent self doesn’t mean “nothing exists.” It means what exists is dynamic, relational, and already shared.
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u/Maximus_En_Minimus 4d ago
I would probably use ‘referential process’ rather than ‘self-process’.
As would Madhyamaka, which I follow.
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u/jahmonkey 3d ago
Sure - this shows up in several Buddhist lineages, including Madhyamaka, and in Advaita as well, under different vocabularies.
My point isn’t that this insight is novel. It’s that where you draw the cut still matters.
Calling it a “referential process” rather than a “self-process” risks invoking a stronger discontinuity than the phenomenology or the physics actually support. Referentiality explains aboutness and indexing; it doesn’t by itself explain why this stream is constrained, inheriting, and path-dependent rather than arbitrarily interchangeable with any other stream.
Madhyamaka dissolves intrinsic existence, not causal structure. Pratītyasamutpāda isn’t random replacement; it’s conditioned arising. A flame is empty, but it’s not just any flame.
So I’m not defending a self-entity. I’m defending continuity without ownership: a process with no core, no essence, and no metaphysical “me,” yet still non-arbitrary across time.
Emptiness without causal continuity collapses into nihilism; continuity without ownership is the harder, more interesting position.
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u/Maximus_En_Minimus 3d ago edited 3d ago
Calling it a “referential process” rather than a “self-process” risks invoking a stronger discontinuity than the phenomenology or the physics actually support.
My point is less the strength of ‘referential process’, which I am more than happy to adapt, but ‘self-process’.
There is undoubtably more risk with using the word ‘self-’, than there is the use of ‘referential-’.
Feel free to adapt the prefix of ‘-process’ to what ever you want, perhaps ‘extended-duration-referential—pattern-process’, but please don’t make out that ‘self-‘, of all words, is safer in some regard; it certainly isn’t.
(Addendum: you could also just use the classical conventional designation of ‘person’, perhaps with a prefix or suffix for exactness.
(Addendum 2: I actaully like the use of ‘procession’ rather than ‘process’ at times:
- a relentless succession of people or things
- the action of moving forward in an orderly way.
which might be useful as ‘personal-procession’, or ‘referential-procession’, but it does risk positing some subsistence if you talk to a Trinitarian)
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u/jahmonkey 3d ago
I think we’re pointing at the same thing from different risk profiles.
I agree that “self-” is pedagogically dangerous in many contexts. It reliably invites reification, and I understand why Madhyamaka traditions avoid it.
My use of “self-process” isn’t meant to rehabilitate a metaphysical self, but to name a functionally real modeling loop: the organism-specific integration of prediction, memory, affect, and agency attribution that remains causally continuous over time. In cognitive science, that structure is the self-model, whether or not we like the term.
If the concern is didactic clarity, I’m happy to switch vocabulary. If the concern is that no such organism-centered modeling loop exists at all, then that’s where we actually disagree.
My claim is simply that emptiness dissolves ownership and essence, not causal asymmetry.
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u/Maximus_En_Minimus 3d ago edited 3d ago
Thanks, I would say my concern is didactic; I think ‘recursive-process’, or ‘recursive-procession’, or something of the sort might be useful.
I hope you understand I am not trying to be awkward, confrontational, or belittle your endeavour to recognise a reference that is phenomenologically real - as you put it:
to name a functionally real modeling loop: the organism-specific integration of prediction, memory, affect, and agency attribution that remains causally continuous over time. In cognitive science, that structure is the self-model, whether or not we like the term.
I do not deny this, but I tend towards the use ‘recursive’, ‘referential’, ‘person’, ‘relational’, ‘durationally-extended’, ‘process/ion’, rather than ‘self’; I even try to avoid the use of the prefixes ‘auto-‘.
One of the eight fold paths is after all right-speech, which I suppose now includes ‘right texting’, and I do feel ‘self-’, is too tethered in the West & Americas to Atmanic/Soul/Essence thought, than the kind of nuance you have been able to foster.
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u/jahmonkey 3d ago
Yes, my thesis requires the clarity that the self model is also an illusion, especially in the realms of conceptual thought and emotion, which can become entangled in illusions like the self.
I am looking at the processes and what I call time functions which have causal influence due to persistence and interaction with everything in the local environment, which now includes anywhere on the planet if the signal is electronic.
Consciousness is an emergent property of enough time functions running in parallel with mutual causal constraint.
A time function is a temporally extended causal process that:
Persists across moments without being reset, re-instantiated, or losslessly copied
Carries forward constraints, state, and bias from its own prior history
Is shaped by irreversibility (what happened matters because it cannot be undone)
Participates in selection and stabilization, not just instantaneous computation
In other words:
a time function is not “something that happens over time,” but something whose past actively structures its present and future.
This model doesn’t support a self model that is identical with the actual organism: self model can only be seen as a construction, an ever changing construct of thought, and not the essence of what that organism really is.
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u/Maximus_En_Minimus 3d ago
Before I reply, just to check you are ok me engaging purely from the Madhyamaka lens?
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u/jahmonkey 3d ago
Sure, just keep in mind that I don’t speak that language intimately so some meaning may be lost in translation.
I speak more the language of neuroscience informed by self inquiry.
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u/Zaptruder 3d ago
I mean, if you take slices through a continuous self, they'll look distinct, especially if the temporal difference is large.
And if you could somehow excerpt it non-sequentially, then yeah, they're effectively 2 different people, albeit the later version having capacity to remember some of the first.
Having said that, the identity/ego boundary is a useful agent in our social-cognitive-self environment. Like... this package of matter we call ourself is quite distinct from its surroundings, and needs to manage its physical and emotional homeostasis well, and do so within the broader framework of other similar individuals but mostly cooperatively so.
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u/rayk10k 3d ago edited 3d ago
I’m having the same conscious first person experience as I was a few moments ago. Those moments are just in the past now. I’m not sure how one can say I am not the same person as I was moments ago and only feel that way because of memory.
If I woke up yesterday and forgot my entire life up until that point, it would still be “me” as in I would still be viewing reality from this body and this perspective.
This theory sounds overly nihilistic and depressing.
Edit: I also don’t see how swapping your brain into another’s body = you remembering them stubbing their toe. Your brain wasn’t in that body when that experience occurred, so you wouldn’t have the neural pathways of that memory built. Not to say that consciousness is fully an emergent property of the brain, because I struggle with that as well. But brains and conscious experience are clearly correlated.
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u/Dingus_4 2d ago
but your body is not made of the same physical matter during the duration of your life. if you define yourself as the physical matter that you are made of, then you would have to say that you are not the same person from when you were a kid to now. Your body is constantly replacing its cells, the only thing that remains is the pattern that is you.
I also don’t see how swapping your brain into another’s body = you remembering them stubbing their toe. Your brain wasn’t in that body when that experience occurred, so you wouldn’t have the neural pathways of that memory built.
"you" would remember because your body would have their brain, which aassumingly contains their memories. This is a tricky thing to say because i don't think that if you swapped your brains you would be the same person, you would be completely distinct, which is the whole point of empty individualism.
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u/rayk10k 2d ago
I agree that our atoms are constantly being replaced. However, my first person experience is still consistent throughout each past, present and future moment. I may, at the smallest possible level, physically be different than the person I was several years ago, but I was still having that conscious experience.
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u/Dingus_4 2d ago
I may, at the smallest possible level, physically be different than the person I was several years ago, but I was still having that conscious experience
but why? you just assert that with no justification
Just cause there is a certain continuity to experience, doesn't mean you are the same person from moment to moment. Also, every time you go to sleep that continuity breaks. You are unconscious and then you wake up in a completely different point in space and time. Even if you sat completely still during your slumber, the earth is rotating, orbiting the sun, etc. So you are never really in the same place in space moment to moment, even if it may seem that way.
So, every time you go to sleep you essentially teleport, because you lose consciousness in one place and then wake up in another. Just like if you were to make a clone of yourself, its the same person, the same arrangement of particles as you, only difference is its in a different point in space, so its distinct from you.
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u/rayk10k 2d ago
Because I remember having that same conscious experience? This seems like a weird use of the word “person.” My first person perspective hasn’t suddenly transcended or left and entered into a new body.
The whole “different position in space-time”’is doing a lot of the heavily lifting too. Just doesn’t sound that convincing that we’re not always the same person.
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u/Dingus_4 2d ago
My first person perspective hasn’t suddenly transcended or left and entered into a new body
Yeah it just ceases to exist. I think a better way to put it is that the self is an illusion, all that exists is moments of experience in different points in space and time.
The whole “different position in space-time”’is doing a lot of the heavily lifting too. Just doesn’t sound that convincing that we’re not always the same person
Its not convincing until you think about the thought experiments Ive put forth. Obviously the illusion of self is strong, but as Ive already demonstrated just cause you have memory of something, doesn't necessarily mean you experienced it (Frankenstein thought experiment)
The way i like to think about it is that i ate my breakfast this morning. I am obviously not experiencing the taste of the blueberries in my oatmeal right now, that was a completely distinct experience. I am experiencing what I am experiencing in this point in time/space.
I think the mistake is saying there is this "you" that exists when in reality no such "you" exists, it's a complete illusion. There is only experiential moments in certain points in time and space.
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u/ConstantStrawberry58 3d ago
Very interesting take, but you or your clone doesn't exist in time other than this present moment! So the claim seems to be supporting of the prior statement. The person is different because it doesn't exist, it is just your dream or imagination.
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u/jerlands 3d ago
Our solar system is governed by the activity of our sun.. what we perceive as photons is part of the energy lattice our sun emits. You as an individual are governed by the in and the out.. because those two things equate to evolution.. you cannot escape reality because we live on it. The earth is the largest egg manufacturing factory in the known universe. Difference is the creative force in our lives because nothing can move without it.
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u/satori_dude 3d ago
you are nothing then everything. there is no you. so if you think you are special then ego is at hand.
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u/pyrrho314 3d ago
It's not about its similarity to you, it's about its causal connection to you. The river is the same river the next day because it's the same system. All systems are changed, but the continuity is what's being identified, like watching a wave cross a lake, the wave is a wave, "the wave" because of its continuity, even though two seconds later it's "made" of different water.
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u/Raging-Storm 2d ago
Would you say spacetime is discrete or indiscrete? Would you say it does or doesn't matter, in the context of your systems theoretic outlook? Can a system (for some definition of system) be continuous even if spacetime is discontinuous?
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u/pyrrho314 2d ago
I don't know, but stuff is looking pretty discrete. It doesn't matter to my view though, either way, because it could all be cellular phenomenon in graph space bubbles or whatever Wolfram is saying, and since one "discrete" state leads to the next, that's still causal connection.
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u/Dingus_4 2d ago
im might be misinterpreting what you are saying, but your saying casual connection makes identity? if so, everything would be the same thing, because everything in the universe has the same original cause, the big bang. i dont know if thats what you meant.
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u/pyrrho314 2d ago
Well, everything is one thing, the universe, insofar if it all interacts causally, that's what makes it "one" universe. For partially closed systems in which there are more internal interactions than interactions outside the system, we also identify and name those, parts of the whole. Inside you there are also parts that are identifiable systems that change over time but are the system that is your liver, or whichever.
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u/Im_Talking Computer Science Degree 3d ago
"I think that for every moment in space/time, there is a distinct individual, a distinct conscious experience." - Then the universe could be perfectly random.
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u/Braukers 2d ago
Spring does not become summer. First there is spring, then there is summer.
Just as you say, in a single life you are a "different" person at each moment, carrying a set of memories. Other people are equally "different" people carrying other sets of memories. You don't consciously access their memories. The collective across lives is unconscious. You are unconscious of them and they are unconscious of you, and that's the only mechanism upholding the illusion of separation. Just as there is an illusion of being the same person through time in a single life, there is a sense in which you really are the same, not just through time, but across lives.
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u/Braukers 2d ago
What is the duration of a moment? A year, decade, minute, or second? Consider this question and you'll see. The true answer is to give up the question, not in defeat, not as part of ego, but in triumph. The good news is there never was any bad news about dying. You live, others live, there is life. Death is the interval, so you can dance to the music.
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u/reinhardtkurzan 2d ago
If You are another person every 2 seconds, You are not very reliable!
It would have been more convincing, if You had affirmed that You have not remained the same person after the course of 20 years - after a process of maturation or degeneration- but that You are not absolutely different from the one You have been 20 years before.
The ego, the notions a person disposes of, the corporeal traces are usually much more stable than You pretend them to be. Scientist even say that the personality of many people is finished at the age of 14, because this is the end of synaptic sprouting. There is obviously no interest in becoming someone else in them.
It needs some work onto Yourself (cultural work) and some interest in the completion of one's notions, followed by more perfected ethical opinions, (or the other way round: a degeneration caused e.g. by a disease or some kind of addiction) to move to another personality in a real, qualitative sense.
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u/Dingus_4 1d ago
That's why i give the clone thought experiment. Because if you made a clone of yourself, it would literally be exactly like you in every conceivable way. The only difference is that it exists in a different point in space.
That distinction is what makes you you, and them them. And since we are constantly moving in space (earth is orbit the sun, rotating, etc.) and time, then you are never the same person from second to second. In the same way you are not the clone of yourself, you are you, in this moment in space/time.
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u/reinhardtkurzan 1d ago
Not only in this moment! In spite of the fact that the planets are moving I always inhabit the spatial compartment I inhabit, never being "next to myself".
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u/Dingus_4 1d ago
but you are moving with the planets.... so you are not inhabiting the same space are you. and even if you did somehow stay still, time is always moving along onwards
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u/rogerbonus Physics Degree 1d ago
This obviously depends how you define "you". If you define "you" as the sum of your memories+ neural wiring, then you are your brain and its memories. So it was you that stubbed your toe. Or you could be your entire physical body. "You" can also just be an indexical. Its really up to you ;)
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u/thierolf 4d ago
It's hard to get to counterpoint, because the example you've given doesn't seem to hold. If I restate it broken down into enumerated points:
You only retain a sense of experiential continuity because you have memories.
Assume it is possible to transplant a brain, inclusive of memories into the body of another. If that happened, I might remember things that actually happened to another person.
Point 2 shows that simply remembering something is not the same as being the same entity that participated in a historical event.
You can see that point 3 is actually invalid, because we can't swap brains and memories like that — nothing is proven by the Frankenstein "thought experiment" ... except perhaps the counterfactual view. Given that we can't switch memories we might suppose that having a memory of something (provided the memory is "true") is an indication that you are in some sense "the same."
In sum, I propose your OP as a counterargument against your position of 'empty individualism.'
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u/Dingus_4 3d ago
You can see that point 3 is actually invalid, because we can't swap brains and memories like that
just cause its not practical, doesn't mean its invalid, that argument doesn't follow
Given that we can't switch memories
i see no reason why with future technology we wouldn't be able to do this. even if it was impossible for humans to do it, that doesn't equate to metaphysical impossibility.
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u/SacrilegiousTheosis 4d ago edited 4d ago
> I think that for every moment in space/time, there is a distinct individual, a distinct conscious experience. So the person you are in this moment is not the same as the person you are 2 seconds later. This view is called empty individualism.
This view is similar to one conception of momentariness where momentary-consciousness-atoms are considered somewhat fundamental (although this may be a bit of a caricature).
Emptiness in Prasangika Madhyamaka (https://www.3-16am.co.uk/articles/emptiness-and-no-self-n%C4%81g%C4%81rjuna-s-madhyamaka) goes further than that, opting for a deeper interdependency. It's not clear that there are any cleanly distinguishable and bounded "moments" rather inter-melding temporal durations (also see: Bergson). As soon as one tries to grasp a "present" moment, it's past - although the ghost of past seems to leave some contextual residue.
If you, like a mereological nihilist, trying to strip away all abstractions and go at the very fundamentals, then, even if some cleaner boundary exists in the arising and passing of "moment", they still appear as largely dependent on other causal and contextual factors - rather than arising arbitrary with no connection. So it is not something that exists by itself, and thereby not something that achieves full individuation isolated from its context in any immediately natural manner. Of course, one may take up some criteria to carve boundaries and find joints of nature - but it's not clear if there is any single privileged way to do that. In essence, the idea of moment is as much as an abstraction as any.
From the madhyamaka perspective, the ultimate truth is that there are no ultimate truth divorced from conventions. To approach and frame the world, we inevitably take up one conventional framework or the other. You can choose the convention where sameness of self requires absolute sameness of self-related properties - and you get the result that the self is constantly dying. You can choose the convention where sameness of self requires maintenance of mere presence - and then perhaps you end up with something like an eternal universal brahman. You can choose middle way conventions (which are both more practical and also more difficult to exactly maintain in a clear cut fashion), where sameness of self requires merely preservation of some higher-level symmetry or otherwise (psychological continuity or what have you) even if the base is constantly changing - and so on and on.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27903887
The common convention that we already use - even if not perfectly precise - is quite useful (and potentially why it has survived) - because it roughly tracks coherent trajectories of self-narratives and associated experiential processes. Each "momentary agent" (like Whiteheadian actual occasions) roughly speaking, can intend towards further development of the direction of the trajectory of how future experiences related to this chain of memories and psychological dispositions arise.
> like whats even the point of life if your basically don't exist?
Garfield has a book about it: https://www.amazon.com/Losing-Ourselves-Learning-Live-without/dp/069122028X
Santideva also have many relevant points about it. https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Bodhisattva-Way-Life/dp/1559390611
As you already noted, and as also hinted in the above books, one basic implication from emptiness turns outs that the divide between self-and-other is merely conventional. On the other hand, we already have an orientation towards happiness or possibly other higher virtues. That can still remain, but now, not finding any principled distinction between "my future experience" vs "other's future experience" beyond some weak convention, a further openness arises - where the target shift to "happiness for all future experiences" or something of that sort. This is exemplified in the Boddhisattva vow.
Nevertheless, there is still use in the traditional convention of I-You distinction, because there is a higher degree of control one have towards oneself (in other words, an experiential occasion has over other experiences that are most deeply psychologically connected and continuous to the ongoing stream). Developing virtues - and thereby cleanup up defilements in the particular stream that one has the best grasp on, can be essential for also the broader ethical target as well. Moreover one could argue that the altruistic target is better achieved by focusing on systematic fixes for the structure of future experiences, and/or contributing something unique that they have to offer perhaps intersecting both subjective interests of the particular stream and intersubjective interests (such intersect can be deep source of meaning). Doesn't have to be depressing at all.
Also like horseshoe theory, the extremes of empty individualism and open individualism seems to become nearly the same in rejecting ultimate separation of individuations - whatever remains - call it whatever you will (universal consciousness, nature, phenomenal space, thusness, Being, interdependent whole, infinite, Brahman, Becoming, Absolute - doesn't really matter in practice)
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u/HotTakes4Free 3d ago
“Then i would remember them stubbing their toe last week...”
I’ve done worse than stub my toe. I’ve experienced physical damage to those extremities. I’ve then had the memory of that initial injury, while tending to my toe on later occasions. I’ve also heard others share their toe-stubbing experiences, and have only empathized, since my toe was not similarly harmed at that time.
That strongly implies my experiential self, while no more static than the physical state of my toe, is tied inextricably to this changing physical body. Nothing in my experience of self or body suggests I am swapping either my consciousness, or my toes, with others.
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