igm wrote:Can you put together something which shows that the existence of a 'truly existent self' is untenable based on our agreed list of characteristics that a truly existent self would need to be such a thing?
I can try.....
Model of Self that Meets the Discussed Criteria
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I make the ASSUMPTION that consciousness requires self-reference. Because my personal experience is that I am aware of myself as existing.
I claim the noble tradition of Kant in this regard.
Consciousness is a manifestation of certain types of interactions within a complex but structured system. Certain complex structured system (like brains) exhibit behaviors that can be labeled as being conscious behaviors. One of the requirements of such systems is an ability to "represent the system within the system". Systems can be conscious, but they do do not have consciousness as in the sense that, consciousness exists somewhere (some physical place).
Consciousness should be treated semantically as we would treat other classifications of behaviors in systems. If a system exhibits cyclical behavior, you will not get a meaningful response by asking "where is the cyclicalness in the system?" The cyclical is a characteristic of the behavior of a system.
Because consciousness is simply the characteristic of something, it follows that it has no defined physical location. To suggest that it does have a physical location would be like asking where is the roundness in a circle.
Non-physicality of Self:
Self (with a capital S) is the label that occurs in conscious behaviors of systems and is used to point references back to the system.
It is the representation of the system, by the system.
It is the tool needed for 'self-reference.'
Self (capital S) is also not properly treated as a 'thing' (having physical location). It is a label that exists only as encoded in the consciousness behavior of the system.
From this view all concepts should not be treated as 'physical things' because concepts are labels encoded within a behavior.
Autonomous-ness of Self:
Autonomous simply means self-directed.
The behaviors of a system originate from within that system.
The cylical behavior of a solar system originates from within the solar system.
Systems that exhibit conscious behavior have a 'self' label and the representation that creates is Self (capital S) within the system, so it should interpret its own system behaviors as autonomous (that is, as Self directed behavior).
Continuous-ness of Self:
The label encoded within the conscious behaviors of a system should remain relatively unchanged, or if it does change, it must change in small enough increments so as that it can still be recognized for what it refers to by the system. (Since this was presupposed as a criteria of conscious behavior.)
Regardless of whether a label does or does not change, since conscious behavior ALWAYS requires self-reference the label must always be able to be correctly interpreted within the system. For as long as the system is exhibiting conscious behaviors, there must persist a representation within the system that is Self (capital S).
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I think that this basically includes the discussed features, while staying inside the material world
and outside of metaphysics.
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