gotta crash, but I'll respond tomorrow to all. Thanks for all the interest in this thread!

My future self will be different than my present self in the sense that it will have had more experiences, it will have different memories and most likely different understandings about itself and the world, and so on. On the other hand it will be the same insofar as it must be the same in order for the very idea of it being my future self to make any sense at all. — John

We could separate the two into say the human sense of self - which is a sort of ego with an identity and a collection of memories, and gains knowledge and understandings of the world - from a more ontologically prior sense of "subjectivity/sameness" which (I believe) must exist in order for the human sense of self to come about.

So 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. Imagine a human which has no memories. If there's only this human sense of self, and it's derived from memories and the like -things which form the contents of conscious experience - then the human without memories etc would have no sense of self. And so if there's no more fundamental sense of sameness/subjectivity, how could this human begin to form memories? 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. It can't be derived from memories because it must already exist for the idea of memories (recollections of *prior* experience - there must already be the same subjectivity in order to have had a prior experience to form memories of) to be coherent.

So, the problem here seems to be that the sense of "sameness/ identity" which is purportedly prior to memory, and in fact to be responsible for its very possibility, would seem to be itself impossible without memory. Maybe we can say that it is memory itself, and not any specific memories, which enables a sense of unity to develop such that particular memories can subsequently be connected to, associated with, that unity.

Can we say that there could be a persistent subject (other than the body) even if there is no sense of there being a persistent subject? This raises the problem of whether there is any persistent objective identity, and not just in regards to humans, but in relation to any object you care to consider. (The identity we consider other objects to possess across time is actually a projected subjective identity, and that's why we refer to the 'object itself'. Although in this case the subjective identity does not belong to the object as a subjective identity, but is projected by us as a purported objective identity).

The main problem with your question is that it can be interpreted in two ways:
(1) assuming "you" is your person as we see it with distinctive behaviour and look
(2) assuming "you" is your "self" abstracted from your specific person as it is, the entity (or maybe entities?) that is continuously percieving experience through your body, the entity that would continue to be the same even if your personality and behaviour would change abrubtly into someone else's

With the first interpretation the answer to your question is "no"... unless we are in a universe which has a periodic motion returning again and again in the same states.
With the second interpretation the answer can be yes or no depending on the solution of the hard problem of consciousness: if panpsychism is true then the answer is "yes" (you would never stop existing and experiencing, although in a more elementary way), if emergentism is true you are probably forced into an eliminative materialist position and the question wouldn't make sense because there would be no "self".

The fear of torture is the same movement of fear inside you like any other fear. Fear is not divided into fear of heights, fear of death, fear of rejection, and so on..

Fear is uncertainty. Uncertainty of the outcome.
We seek security all our life, and when we face something uncertain we fear it because we don't know how to respond to it.

So fear arises when you don't have control over something ( like death - it's coming no matter what ) and Taxes :))) thats why people fear the IRS like the Devil :)

Your atoms still exist after you die, so there is something going on. I wonder however why do we fear so much the ending? The ending of what? Our memories, our possesions, our ideology, our friends - who will die too :)

The puzzle of the relation of self-identity is backward, since it's not that there are two things that already exist, or one that already does and one that will, and then a temporal or psychological link that has to be established between them. Rather the notion of there being the same person at another time is derivative of the phenomenology of the future. And the future is inherently ethical, what's not done but coming.

Human consciousness if you like is too immature to take responsibility for this connection.

I seem to remember an old saying 'as you sow......'

It's kind of like asking whether one can walk across a golf course in spite of Zeno's Paradox.

Some would say rigid designators are the tool for handling stuff like that. But I've recently come to the conclusion that that's just an elaborate game. Explaining our confidence in contiguity past to future requires getting a little Kantian. I don't think there's any way around it.

But why were you worrying? After all, no one was caning you in the hallway. Caning may have been impending but it wasn't happening then. So why worry about it? (Again, I know these questions seem stupid) — csalisbury

Let's get some clarification on terminology here. Worry implies anxiety. Anxiety implies anticipation. So Wayfarer is very consistent here:

I have no anwer, other than 'anticipation'. — Wayfarer

The difficulty here is that the relationship between anticipation and worry, through the medium of "anxiety", is an irrational relationship. In other words, worry is an irrational response to anticipation. When anxiety takes hold, and we pass from intelligible anticipation, to unintelligible worry, we can no longer make sense of our anticipations.

So, let's focus on anticipation, perhaps we can determine why it leads from intelligibility to unintelligibility through anxiety to worry. What csalisbury appears to point to is an assumed continuity. There is an identity, an assumed continuity between myself right here, now, and myself at a future time. That assumed identity ensures that these are the same person. Further, through empathy or similar means, we can also create an identity between ourselves and others, and this assumed identity, between us and others is produced by our anticipation of what will happen to others, involving a continuity between us and others. Notice that my claim is that anticipation creates this assumption of continuity. We assume a continuity between us and others because it is necessary in order to account for anticipation concerning what will happen to others. This makes that anticipation intelligible, just like the continuity between me now and me later makes that anticipation intelligible. That is what TGW points to:

Rather the notion of there being the same person at another time is derivative of the phenomenology of the future. — The Great Whatever

We feel anticipation, we create, within our minds' a continuity, and this continuity justifies the anticipation, rendering it intelligible. The anticipation becomes intelligible based on the assumed reality of this assumed continuity. But stemming from within, in its raw form, anticipation is unintelligible. In reality then anticipation leads from unintelligible to intelligible.

The problem with anxiety and worry is that it is a failure of our capacity to make anticipation intelligible. When we fail, anticipation remains unintelligible, and proceeds to anxiety and worry. So in response to your question csalisbury, it is the continuity of identity, between myself, here and now, and myself at a future time, which justifies or validates the anticipation. If the continuity is real, the anticipation is valid. The continuity between myself and another does not do so well to justify anticipation as does the continuity between myself now and myself later. If the event is imminent, and in my future, anticipation is highly justified. How I deal with this anticipation, in my mind, determines whether I go into an irrational anxiety and worry or not. If the event is immanent, but in someone else's future, anticipation is may not be so highly justified because the continuity between myself and another, may not be so well justified.

Explain why it makes sense for someone who knows he will soon be tortured - but isn't being tortured yet - to fear the impending event. — csalisbury

What do you mean by "makes sense"? I mean, there's a fairly cogent story we can tell rooted in evolutionary theory that "makes sense" of why organisms feel, anticipate and attempt to avoid pain. Do we need more than that?

Rather the notion of there being the same person at another time is derivative of the phenomenology of the future. — The Great Whatever

Derivative of the phenomenology of of the past as well? I project backwards a past and think of myself as the same self now as was then. I think of my memories as being of my prior experiences.

But your experience is present, and it continues to be present. Pinch your arm twice, you felt it both times. Your experience is constantly changing and yet it's always present. You are continuing to exist. How? That conscious experience is ongoing is not derivative of the phenomenology of the future.

There's a more fundamental self/identity, which allows you to have any sensations at all in the first place.

Explain why it makes sense for someone who knows he will soon be tortured - but isn't being tortured yet - to fear the impending event. — csalisbury

A slight quibble in the scenario. You start with the person knowing he will be tortured, but then ask why it makes sense for them when they haven't been tortured yet, aren't being tortured now.

But if the person knows it to be true, then it will happen. The person will feel undesired pain, and knows that they will feel undesired pain.

Though maybe this isn't that important, actually -- what else is fear other than a product of desire, after all? One would only need to believe they will feel undesired pain tomorrow and the fear would seep in.

I think I would say that it makes sense because the person believes that an (intensely) undesired event will take place tomorrow. Perhaps they believe that torture will result in losses in other ways, too, like a lack of being able to walk. But let's take it a step further then -- the scenario is in some future society where people who are inclined towards sadistic torture are tortured, and then the conscious memory is wiped. Maybe the state has been convinced that this is how to combat sadism, by implanting visceral non-conscious impressions into the brain the sadist begins to feel empathy without realizing it (so the theory goes).

It would make sense, even in that scenario, to fear the pain. And I think that it makes sense because of the desires a person has.

Without the desire -- say the same future society, in developing the above experiment, decided to re-arrange the mind so that the desire for comfort was simply not able to be felt -- then there would not be fear.

If you run your hand up your arm you continue to exist and feel the sensation all the way up. Why do we not just die right at the start?

That we don't die right now doesn't seem derived from our future or past phenomenology. I am stabbing my fingernail Into my forehead and wondering why the sensation of pain keeps persisting. It is continuing to hurt, therefore I am continuing to exist through the (or we might say, "as the") changing/ongoing sensation.

Explain why it makes sense for someone who knows he will soon be tortured - but isn't being tortured yet - to fear the impending event. — csalisbury

I don't see how that's related to the question you're asking in the subject line of the thread.

Anyway, it would only be unexplainable to one why someone might worry about future events if one has no understanding of the phenomenon of psychological continuity.

I am stabbing my fingernail Into my forehead — dukkha

Don't start drooling, too, or men in white coats might haul you away.

But you weren't experiencing pain or death (beyond the pain of anxious apprehension) waiting. in the hallway, to be caned. So why be frightened? What did the suffering of a boy, not in the hallway, have to do with you? — csalisbury

Reason is the slave, not the master, so your question has no rational answer. One might say that psychological time is created by identification; and identity becomes the centre of experience. Anticipation just is identification with an imagined future - myself continues. The alternative is to live now completely and end now completely, to be dying all the time. Then there is no fear but the immediate.

But you weren't experiencing pain or death (beyond the pain of anxious apprehension) waiting. in the hallway, to be caned. So why be frightened? What did the suffering of a boy, not in the hallway, have to do with you? — csalisbury

I understand (I think) that your line of questioning has to do with the question of personal identity and its continuity through time (or lack thereof). But like others here I find the questions you choose to ask to be confusing, and perhaps confused. What sort of answer to you expect here? Are we supposed to rationally justify our feelings? Do you mean to imply that feelings of fear, anxiety or empathy need to have a rational justification? Rooted in what?

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. "

So, yes, you're right - it's about the continuity of the self (for lack of a better term) over time. So the first step is: we understand our self to be continuous - we understand that there's something that remains the same, despite other personal changes (I use the torture example because I think it really drives this point home, lends it an existential weight.)

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.

So, the problem here seems to be that the sense of "sameness/ identity" which is purportedly prior to memory, and in fact to be responsible for its very possibility, would seem to be itself impossible without memory. Maybe we can say that it is memory itself, and not any specific memories, which enables a sense of unity to develop such that particular memories can subsequently be connected to, associated with, that unity. — John

I think this is an interesting direction to go on. Can you expand on what you mean by memory itself though?

So the first step is: we understand our self to be continuous - we understand that there's something that remains the same, despite other personal changes — csalisbury

I don't think that there's anything that remains literally the same. I think that it's simply a matter of being connected to and developing out of previous states in particular ways. One thing that's pertinent to that is that we're talking about connections and development, at least insofar as senses of self go, in a particular brain.

I haven't really thought extensively along this line yet, but at first strike I would probably say that memory itself would be the sense of unity and continuity. What would isolated memories be if there were no sense that they were images of life events which were interrelated and integrated within a continuous and seamless stream of life? They would not be memories at all but would be just isolated context-less thought-pictures.

So, on this line of approach memory itself would be the stream in which individual memories are related and integrated. Sometimes I have thought that identity is a purely logical matter; and I have thought that when it comes to our imputations of identity to 'external' objects it is so. But in the context of the apprehension of our own selves there is a sense of identity which would seem to be constituted by memory itself. And it would even seem that the imputed identities of external objects are abstractions projected from this sense of identity, although on the other hand it may be true to say that we actually feel the identity of external objects, but surely not with the same intensity as we feel our own identities.

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

I did try.

memory itself would be the stream in which individual memories are related and integrated — John

In Buddhist psychology, there is no separately-exising self or 'ātman' which stands apart from and is witness to the stream of psychological and physical events that comprise human existence. The nature of being is understood in terms of the principle of dependent origination, and the five aggregates or constituents of experience, those being name-and-form, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness.

These are the constituents of experience and therefore of identity. In some sense, they persist from life to life, but not by way of being embodied in an ego or soul; they propagate as causes and then give rise to effects in future lives.

Obviously the metaphysics of who it is that lives, who suffers and dies, is central to that, and is the basis of considerable debate and elaboration. Eventually it gave rise to the idea of the alayavijnana, the 'storehouse consciousness', which is comparable to Jung's idea of the collective unconscious, in the school of Buddhism called Yogācāra (mind-only). This is also associated with the concept of the citta-santana, the 'mind-stream', which constitutes the identity of the individual up until their liberation from samsara.

I think the question of continuing identity is a red-herring. To fear to to be worried about what is to come. We run or eliminate a threat to avoid damage of destruction which has happened yet. The present individual is never what fear is concerned about. Worrying about future events was to be concerned about someone else all along.

Suggesting fear's concern for the future is dependent on the present is to miss the point entirely. The point is difference, not continuity. One worries not for themselves, but for a person who is yet to come.

I've come across the idea of a "storehouse consciousness' before. It seems to be the idea of something like a universal memory. The interesting question for me is how the individual memories or memory streams within the storehouse are thought to be inter-related. My understanding is that in denying that there is any individual spirit Buddhist thought conceives of Karma or action as the interrelating force. I find this problematic because it introduces the idea of a deterministic causality operating within the spiritual dimension. I think this is a projection of our understanding of the natural world, and therefore an objectification of the spiritual. I am reminded of Kant's denial that causality operates outside of the empirical. The problem is that to say that causality operates in the spiritual dimension seems to deny the possibility of personal freedom.

Karma is not fully deterministic. There used to be a lot of popular literature around in the early 20th Century saying things like karma was the 'law of action and reaction' in vaguely Newtonian terms, but was very much a product of Western idealisation.

Karma is a sound ethical principle in my view. After all it is simply saying that 'all intentional actions have consequences'. When it becomes grounds for allocating blame, or rationalising failure, then it is pernicious and can easily turn into fatalism. Otherwise what's not to like?

It's not so clear to me that we can say that all intentional actions have consequences, but rather something like intentional actions reflect who we are:
"By their fruits shall ye know them".
The problem I have with the idea of "consequences" is just that to the extent that is not a kind of deterministic notion of cause and effect, then it would seem to become vague and ultimately just a notion of 'influence' in the broadest and most indeterminate sense.

So, well & good. but personal continuity is an explanandum, not an explanans. We can either 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.) 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

That's a tall order, asking someone to put forth an account of the continuity of existence. We see that inanimate objects, as well as the living, continue to exist through time, so we can rule out the soul as the source of continuity. What next?

Think about some concrete cases, such as drug or gambling addiction. People fall into those habit patterns, and it often precipitates their death, loss of home and livelihood, and so on. Habitual liars get caught up in webs of their own devising. On the converse, think about someone who trains assiduously for some professional or athletic achievement. Both are illustrations of 'intentional actions leading to consequences'. There's a lot of folk psychology about this - 'as you think, so you become', 'habit becomes character become destiny', and so on. This is going on in all of our lives, all the time - every one of our intentional actions leaves traces and forms habits.

There is a sense in which freedom really comprises no longer being bound by any habits, positive or negative. I think of that in terms of breaking through to the unconditional. That is the domain of spontaneous action, the ability to act or create without reference to habit-patterns and 'typical ways of doing things'. So freedom doesn't come as a consequence of karma, but if one's karma is such that one is bound up in the consequences of previous actions, then clearly it is hard to act freely or spontaneously.

The underlying principle of anatta, no-self, is that one's self-conception, who you think you are, is like a magnet which attracts iron filings. They cling to the magnet, because of magnetic field effects (allegorically speaking). But when the false idea of 'ego, separate self, personality' is dispersed through clear seeing into the causal nexus which gives rise to karma, then the 'magnetic field' ceases operating, and there is freedom from karma. But, nobody to be free! And that is reflected in 'self-abnegation' or renunciation; the enlightened are said not to be 'karma-creating' beings, hence beyond the cycle of birth and death.

Explain why it makes sense for someone who knows he will soon be tortured - but isn't being tortured yet - to fear the impending event.

It "makes sense" because "someone" is, by definition, a creature developed to survive over time. Creatures or things which aren't developed to survive, or persist over time, have already ceased to exist, long ago. This is a world of the persistent. Creatures persist longer when they develop behavioural strategies derived from analysis of experiences.

It looks as though you are also asking something along the lines of Karma, or being, independent of a creatures current instantiation of behaviour. Well like some of the other posters I don't see how we can address it in any real sense apart from our common conditioned knowledge and understanding. This is not to say there aren't other ways of knowing, but rather that all indications are, around us, that there is none. So karma (or its equivalent) and reincarnation (or its equivalent) are human ideas and sentiments present in the face of clear evidence(on the surface at least) to the contrary.

All experiences seem to have this thing in common which is this sense of subjectivity, or 'being experienced by me', 'my sensations', 'first person character'. We can call this "pre-reflective subjectivity". The "pre-reflective" part means that it comes before any higher order thoughts or ideas of 'this is my experience', 'I am having this experience'. It's a subjectivity which comes before any sort of thoughts about subjectivity.

Just as all experiences have an intentional aspect, and a temporal aspect, I believe they all have this aspect of pre-reflective subjectivity - a felt quality of 'mineness'.

In the past I considered this theory that there is nothing to 'ourselves' over and above this felt quality of mine ness. What do I mean? Well, because conscious experience is ongoing, what we experience is an ongoing pre-reflective sense of subjectivity. This is because built into all different types of conscious experience is that pre-reflective quality. So what I mean is that there is no self independent if conscious experience, nothing is actually having or undergoing your conscious experience. All that's happening is there's an ongoing felt quality of 'mineness', which because it is all pervasive makes us feel as though that experiential quality is actually something far more fundamental than it is.

So we can think of conscious experience as being sort of free floating ontologically 'un-owned' things. We might say that experiences experience themselves. So let's take the example of pain. Imagine the experience of pain, but lacking the felt quality of 'my pain, 'a subjects pain', 'I am being pained'. So we drop that aspect of the pain experience, what remains. Something like the pure sensation of pain which exists without an owner or subject, it's just sort of there in existence experiencing itself.

So the idea here is that all conscious experience is fundamentally ownerless. Nobody or thing has or undergoes the experience. The experience just exists by itself through brute force. The only reason we think there is a subject/haver of all these experiences, is because what is actually a contingent part/aspect of the conscious experience itself (pre-reflective subjectivity), is built into the nature of all experiences. So, experience exists ownerless, and by brute force, they're sort of just in existence experiencing themselves. But part of how all experience exists is with this aspect of mineness. Because conscious experience is ongoing - so they exist by brute force in an ongoing present process - and all have as part of their nature a felt quality of mineness, there exists this pervasive illusion of mineness, of subjectivity. We have this higher order thought experience (post reflective) that there must exists a haver or feeler of conscious experience.

So all that exists is an ownerless experience, it just sort of exists there by itself and through its own force, experiencing itself, the experience qualia sensations feelings just sort of exist. But all aspects of this ownerless experience have as part of their make up an experiential quality of 'mine ness'. This causes higher order reflective thoughts to form about a pre existent/before subject or haver of experience, a self or actual subjectivity. But it's just an ongoing illusion. The ownerless experience is just sort of tricking itself through its pervasive felt quality of 'mine ness' into forming higher order thoughts about something having or feeling the experience.

Do you see what I'm saying? This pre-reflective mineness is a contingent part of the experience. It could be stripped away and what would exist would be a pure experience which didn't feel owned or had.

So what I am saying is there is no actual self. All that actually exists is unowned experience, which is what we are. All we exist as is this unowned conscious experience. But because all aspects of what we are - which is un owned brute existing experience - contains a felt quality of mineness, there exists an illusion both pre and post reflective (ones the all pervasive quality of mineness, the other are the reflective higher order thoughts about being a self and a subject having or feeling the experience) that something has or undergoes the experience, when in actuality the experience is there just existing by, and experiencing, itself.

Hope I'm being clear. Any thoughts?

One problem which strikes me is if this is true, how do we account for the unified nature of conscious experience, what combines all the various sensations into a sort of cohesive whole. And so there's no me and no you really, do we just say there's a cluster of brute fact existing experiences over here, and another over there?

Seems like any theory of a self has insurmountable problems. Whether it's an illusion, or it exists in x, y, or z way, it's extreme difficult to make sense of it.