How do people who believe in "no self" live?

General Discussion
1

The philosophical argument for “no-self” (Buddhism’s Anātman/Anattā) posits that there is no permanent, unchanging, or independent self, soul, or ego. Instead, what we call the “self” is a fleeting collection of constantly shifting physical and mental processes—form, sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness—that are dependent upon causes and conditions.

Key Arguments for No-Self

The Argument from Impermanence: Everything that constitutes a person (the “five skandhas” or aggregates) is impermanent and constantly changing. A permanent self cannot be composed of, or found within, these fleeting elements.

The Chariot Metaphor (Dependent Designation): From The Questions of King Milinda, this argument highlights that a “chariot” is just a label for a collection of parts (wheels, axle, axle-tree). There is no chariot independent of its parts. Similarly, “I” or “Nagasena” is a conventional designation for the mental and physical parts, but no permanent entity exists behind them.

Lack of Control/Ownership: If a self existed, one should be able to command it (e.g., “let my body not be old” or “let my mind be calm”). Because we cannot fully control our feelings, thoughts, or physical aging, these components cannot be a self that we own.

The Bundle Theory (Humean View): David Hume, a Western philosopher, similarly observed that when he looked inside himself, he only found specific perceptions (heat, light, love, hatred, pain) but never a unified “self” to which they belonged. He described the self as a “bundle of perceptions”. Philosophy Now +4

The Illusion and Function of Self
The “self” is not considered non-existent, but rather empty of inherent existence. It exists conventionally—as a convenient designation for managing daily life—but not ultimately. Believing in a solid self causes attachment and suffering (suffering arises from trying to protect a permanent ego that doesn’t exist). Understanding no-self is intended to reduce this craving and suffering.

I’m just wondering how people who don’t believe in the existence of the self life and operate in the world, because much of our daily life is structured around there being a self or other, especially a lot of our media.

1 Like
2

Yes, because it feels like we do, so religions and governments developed around it. Laws are based on us having a high degree of power over our thoughts and actions in the moment.

But we don’t..

With the discovery of hormones and inherited traits and psychology we now know that we are constantly at the mercy of forces that we are not aware of. Those forces don’t feel like the self of our memories or the voice in our head.

How do I live with this?

  1. I don’t worry much about “no self”. I can’t conceptualize all these unknown forces, by definition. I can’t create a picture of myself that is completely at odds with my evolution.
  2. But, I can read the science and apply it to experience and accept that it’s true.
  3. So, I go on feeling like I have control, because that feeling is the thing that helps me survive and has allowed my species to evolve.
  4. I don’t have to understand how the entire history of the universe happened to trust that it will continue to be a mechanism of survival.
  5. Granted, it fails sometimes. But I can’t change the whole history of the universe either, so I don’t have much choice except to live with it.
3

That goes on further to just viewing humans as mere collections of selves, parts, instead of a unified whole. If there is no unified entity then who are we engaging with?

4

That was step one. I don’t know how that works exactly, or if it’s “proven” in any sense, or how it relates to my experience exactly. I know I have a name that I remember from childhood. I know I’ve forgotten things, but there’s a thread. So, I don’t dwell on it too much. I think my day to day decisions would remain the same no matter what. I would still want people around me to thrive and hope they want the same for me.

5

I guess it’s hard to see people and animals the same way again when people deconstruct them to their base parts. Like there is no magic, no soul, nothing extra, it’s just…there. And when I read the same thing about the self per the original post (namely Hume saying it’s just a collection of sensations and not an entity actually having them) I’m not sure what to think anymore.

like…are people and animals still people? I treat them as such because that’s just habit I guess but it’s a losing battle because it feels like denying reality.

6

Hume died in1776. If you’re basing your feelings about what it is to be human on his words, that’s on you. Even with everything we know now, I don’t accept anything as the final word on what the self is. And, more important, I don’t accept that there’s a final conclusion on how we should live. Again, that’s you doing that.

If it’s chemicals leading me to care and feel like life is valuable, why fight it? It feels good. So what if that’s “just a survival mechanism?” I feel a desire to do it either way. Knowing that someone who has hurt others maybe did it because of some chemical imbalance, leads me to be even more compassionate toward them.

7

How about someone more recent like Douglas Hofstadr:

No, Hofstadter’s “strange loop” theory does not mean people do not exist. Instead, it argues that the “I” (self or soul) is an emergent phenomenon—a pattern formed by self-referential feedback loops in the brain. It suggests the self is a “meaningful illusion” or a structural pattern rather than a separate, physical “thing”.

Key Aspects of the Strange Loop:

  • Emergent Identity: Hofstadter proposes that our sense of self arises from neurons processing symbols, mirroring the brain’s interaction with the world back onto itself.

  • A “Pattern” of Existence: The “I” is viewed as an abstract, high-level pattern, much like how a pattern of pixels can form a shape on a screen, even though only the pixels physically exist.

  • Illusory vs. Non-existent: Hofstadter’s work argues that the self is a “strange loop”. It’s a “fictional” or “imaginary” construct in that it’s a mental representation, but it’s not “non-existent” in the sense of being meaningless; it is a real pattern of experience.

  • Metaphorical View: The theory, notably discussed in his book I Am a Strange Loop, is seen as a way to understand consciousness and the “soul” in a cognitive, rather than a religious or physicalist, way.

In summary, the theory states that you are a pattern of self-reference, not that you are not.

thehowtolivenewsletter.org/p/selfness#:~:text=That%20loop%20is%20a%20pattern,the%20people%20who%20raised%20them ?

Douglas Hofstadter posits that we are, each of us, all just strange loops. Our interpretation of what we see is no more—and no less—than our own projection onto external material. To understand these projections, we ascribe them meaning and then register that meaning as our own perception.

The “I” inside of us manifests itself as the “I” we project and perceive in the world, and our experience is the experience of ourselves, tossed out and absorbed back, like looking in a mirror. Our sense of the world is a mere projection of ourselves onto signs and symbols, which acquire meaning that we provide.

If this is the case, then the “I” of ourselves, and how we interpret what we see, is never outside of ourselves. When speaking to a friend, we are talking to ourselves inside the body of another.

And if we are mere projections of the person viewing us, then aren’t we all just replicas of the people who raised us, and they of the people who raised them? We look outside to understand who we are, but if we are looking at only ourselves projected outside, then who, or what, is the “I” inside?

8

It’s the same. You exist

9

It’s not, did you read the link?

10

No. I’m sure it’s slightly different. You asked how I live with it. My answer is the same. #1, don’t worry to much about the details, so reading another version isn’t going to help. Getting “no self” exactly right is similar to picking the correct deity so I get into the right heaven.

11

I really think you should read it because like the quoted part it kinda undoes what we take to be “us” in the day to day.

At the end it talks about how when asked who we are it’s only ideas we give, and that ultimately whatever it is it’s not something that we have control over. It’s not like picking the right diety but more like questioning something we take for granted.

Deepak Chopra, a physician, author and alternative medicine advocate, has a similar view of the self, which is essentially that we create our own world because we can only see from one perspective.

We see with our own specific sadness, joy, sorrow, anxiety, and insecurity.

And certainly, there are moments where we are free from that, but does the world make as big an impression on us when it’s not fraught or heightened in some capacity?

And what of “I”?

A single letter suggesting a single definition, but “I” cannot be just one thing, and to answer the question, “Who are you?” isn’t possible or even fair, as we don’t and perhaps can’t ever know all that we are, as much as we might know all that we aren’t, and so to write about oneself as though you know the answer to “I” is as false as claiming you know God, or you know what made the world.

We can only guess.

To say who you are is to offer ideas.

We are patterns that we’ve made to mean something.

We think we know who we are, but most of us are wrong—who are we really, but the internalized stories of ourselves that other people tell?

Among those who proclaim to know that they’re this way or that, what they can and can’t do, buy into the story of themselves that’s not even their own, didn’t even know they’ve been living—but underneath, or over to the side, maybe even high up, there, is where a different self-state exists—one you think isn’t you, but it is, it’s just an unfamiliar part of yourself, like the part that couldn’t swim before you learned, couldn’t sound out words you didn’t yet know.

Once, you didn’t know, and then you did.

That once part exists still for other things, but just because it’s not familiar doesn’t mean it’s not you.

12

I get your instincts but unfortunately it really just doesn’t matter. And it’s especially disheartening because of how bad the disease of capitalism currently is. So so many people/cults/organizations out there boil down to the commoditization and monetization of the very ideas you’re talking about. Pitiful really. So I’m with Lausten, just go about your life and don’t worry about the details. Be a good person by your own self-set standards and hope for the best.

1 Like
13

I can’t just go on, not when there are so many unanswered questions:

Like this thread about how we are determined by some “Other” (society in this case) and to be ethical and authentic one must break out of it’s rules.

14

Okay, read it

You do this a lot. You take the beginning of an article, that part where they are asking the difficult question and showing how they are hard to answer, and you stop. You get caught up in the process of working through the question, and miss the help for how to move on.

Next to last paragraph:

This self-reference in equations is a recursive loop. It’s a self looking back on itself, and in so doing, it becomes self-aware; this is how an established system acquires a self.

Our ability to be aware that we are something, to sense our bodies, is what we experience as self. That we don’t fully understand it is not a problem, it’s us being ourselves.

15

Yeah but the point is that there is no separate we, and from the way you’re writing that seems to be the impicit assumption we make about ourselves.

Except I didn’t the people they cite show how our basic intuitions about it don’t really add up.

16

You talk about the self as if it’s something that we are looking for but can’t find. It’s an experience, it’s something that, when asked about, you have an answer. It’s a word with a definition. The people you cite are saying it doesn’t exist in the way people in the past have said it does.

You don’t believe there is a soul that God put there, do you? People were burned at the stake for questioning that. Now, we get to talk about how experience of ourselves maps on to the science of brain, body, chemistry, neurology, and the role of evolution. None of those have found a tiny being in our that talks to us or a section of the brain that is dedicated to being a self.

No one is saying the experience of self doesn’t exists. We couldn’t talk about what it is if we did that. The discussion is that it doesn’t exist in the way people talked about it before there was science.

17

Well I did kinda believe in a soul, because the alternative of brain, body, chemistry, and neurology just dehumanizes things. It reduces animals and people to just parts. But the thing is we don’t get to talk about how we experience ourselves as brain, body, chemistry, etc, because none of that is how we experience ourselves. How everyone experiences themselves is like a soul in a body.

But they are saying that, because they’re calling the experience an illusion. You experience what isn’t real.

18

I wish you would have said that a long time ago. I’ve wasted a lot of time taking about philosophy and science when you were talking about religion

19

Who brought up religion? And even the concept of a soul is a philosophical topic as well. I say “kinda” because I don’t think there is a spirit, but rather a unified sense of the person. Some whole that is more than the parts. IT’s similar to the idea of a self. It’s also worth noting not every religion believes in a soul (re. Buddhism) so just deflecting as religion is short sighted.

However lately it’s hard to hold that view when much of the other stuff I’ve been reading seems to dismantle that sense of unity and I’m not sure what to think, like the Chariot Argument:

In Buddhist philosophy, skandhas refer to the five compounds that come together to form the human being. These five compounds are form, feelings, cognition, volition, and consciousness. The compound of form (rūpa) consists of the external sense organs as well their corresponding objects. The external sense organs are the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin. The corresponding objects are those that can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched. We can talk about solidity, fluidity, heat, and motion because of the forms. The compound of feelings (vedanā) consists of the various sensations that we receive when the external sense organs come into contact with their corresponding objects. Feelings are known through the internal sense organ, which is the mind. The mind comes into contact with the external sense organs, and we get the experience of pleasant, unpleasant, desirable, or repulsive sensations. The compound of cognition (saṃjñā) comprises concepts and classes. Cognition helps us to distinguish one thing from another thing. Concepts and classes are necessary for knowledge formation. Our memory and perception are built on the recognition of similarities and differences between objects of experience. The compound of volitions (saṃskāra) consists of decisions, impulses, and intentional actions based on them. Volitions are responsible for creating karma residues. The karma residues can be good or bad depending on the quality of actions. Finally, the compound of consciousness (vijñāna) is the totality of awareness. It consists of eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, touch consciousness, and mental consciousness.

As such it’s been hard for me to see people as people.

20

See this thread also for more of a breakdown: