The Self That Never Was

hedgehogreview.com

8 points·rntn··3 comments

I asked ChatGPT for definitions of Self, and this is what I got:

– The self as the sum of all memories. – The self as a narrative we tell ourselves. – The self as the brain’s model of its own body and mind. – The self as the sense of being a single, continuous subject. – The self as an emergent process of experience.

Within any one of these definitions, how does it make sense to speak of the self as an "illusion", or of a "false self"? I mean, the definition constructs and instantiates the self, so the moment you define it, it exists? Isn't it like saying "the set consisting of the numbers 1,2,3 is an illusion"? The moment I "create" the set, it exists?

And what's with this "not my thoughts" business? They're mine as much as it is only me that receives them, and nobody can take them away from me. Like a radio that only I can hear and carry around with me is mine?

If the self is an illusion, who is suffering the illusion?

we suffer because we construct an ego, superimposing fabricated values over simple experience. in Buddhist terms, this is called reflexivity: we automatically assign a value—desirable, undesirable, or neutral—to each experience provided by the senses and mind. but these values are imagined, arbitrary artificial constructions, not part of reality. Vedānta terms it adhyāya, superimposition. in that view, the individual self is due to the real Self, Brahman, being covered by an upādhi (limiting adjunct) of ahaṅkāra (false ego). so only the false ego appears to suffer.

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