"When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
- Sherlock Holmes

So, what isn't the self or the present or whatever you wish to define? Why not? You could, in theory, use the answers of the prior two questions to begin to narrow down the answer to your root question.

but my strategy is not a familiar one: the self, the genuine self "behind" the empirically constructed self, is affirmed through ethics, that is, metaethics, — Constance

I agree. Although please say a bit more about metaethics. And self certainly seems layered. There is its surface, its manifestations in the moment, and as well its explanations, motivations, and its capacity for self-adjustment. Small point, Husserlian bracketing is a taking away. Adding ethics is no part of bracketing.

By "ethics" do you mean a choice in how you will live? If so, how do you handle the self in situations when choice is removed? Our genetic disposition for example.

I think what you are talking about really is what is called the ego by psychologists, and is the conscious entity which makes decisions. It could be called a self but the idea of a self has wider implications, encompassing deeper levels of consciousness which merge in and out of conscious awareness, for example in falling asleep.

That is the way of apophantic theology/philosophy (neti, neti in the East), and this is certainly does seem to be the "end" of philosophy, in both senses of the term. I am reading Caputo's Tears and Prayers of Jacque Derrida, and an epigraph is from Meister Eckhart: Oh God, deliver me from God!" Derrida infamously uncenters all thinking, revealing a kind of nihiism of semantics. But once there, Husserl's epoche, one might say, reaches its definitive juncture. I think this is essentially what the Eastern philosophies of liberation have been teaching for many centuries.

I think what you are talking about really is what is called the ego by psychologists, and is the conscious entity which makes decisions. It could be called a self but the idea of a self has wider implications, encompassing deeper levels of consciousness which merge in and out of conscious awareness. — Jack Cummins

The ego, or, better, the egoic center to release this term from the grip of psychology. Deeper levels of consciousness? But the self is only revealed in the conscious unfolding of such things, and when they do arise, as with a good old fashion repression, they do not present the observing agency with a disclosure of the self, only a presentation TO the self. I, this self, am not the recollection of the trauma of my parents arguing.

The other issue is that, in some ways, the self can be seen as illusory, in the sense that the Buddhists describe, as not being static, but a viewpoint rather than an actual entity in its own right.

It is an argument that begins with an analysis of ethics and I will have to present it in pieces. First, ethicsd is a matter of parts, and are all things. There is, on the one hand, the "presence" of that which ethics fights over, the material presence of suffering, bliss and everything in between the referring this as "presence" is to reduce the material part to its phenomenological essence: the very clear and actual feelings of the deliciousness, the gladness, the the raw feel of the arm breaking, the tediousness of doing homework, and on and on. This is, of course, the existential basis of all ethical issues, for if there is no actuality of this nature in play, there is simply no ethics.

On the other hand, there is the entanglements in our engagements in the world, our politics, interpersonal contradictions and our principles, culture and the magnificent messiness of our lived lives. These conditions are in themselves ethically incidental, that is, they are the, as Wittgenstein put it, facts, and factual affairs are without ethical nature.

So the matter turns away from what to do and how make principles of good behavior in entangled conditions, and it turns to metaaethics: the GOOD. This is the beginning of the argument, pending your response thus far

But therein lies the rub: Buddhists do not try to eradicate the self in order to achieve abstract nothingness. Beneath the self, so to speak, the empirically constructed self or memories, attachments, the "stream of consciousness", is joy, bliss unparalleled. There is nothing more palpable than this.

I am certainly not wishing to dismiss the inner world and wrote a thread on it less than a fortnight ago. However, I did feel that a lot of people objected to the idea of the inner world, mainly as being dualistic or too selfish a concept.

But I am all in favour of meditation. I try to practice it but do improvise and don't always get to the point of bliss. So, you are doing very well if you can achieve this.

But what I would say is that you are starting up a really interesting area of debate, connecting the idea of the self(inner world) with ethics, so I hope that you get a lot of discussion going. I dived into the discussion because I couldn't resist it. If anything, the self is such a complex topic for debate because, for better or worse, we all have one.

By genetic disposition you refer to, more generally, the imposition made upon decision making, bringing into play possibilities that are yours, that constitute the choices you can make. A world, so to speak. Genetic predispositions are only a part of this. These possibilities are there, at the moment of choice, and while they do define what choices are there for a self, they do not decide. Now, this is a rather iffy proposition, for it will be insisted that choice requires freedom, and this term is nonsense, given that the principle of sufficient cause is inviolable. But here, this principle is dduly noted, and dismissed" it is the critical existential withdrawal from habit and familiarity that defines freedom.

Dualism is a surviving vestige of a failed attempt, failed because it tries to divide Being into parts, while it is an entirely simpliciter concept, beyond predication: you say Being is such and such and you have already presupposed being.
And meditation, I do this and have found that what stands in the way of real progress is the unseen assumptions that normalize the world constantly in play keep in place a foundation our affairs. Meditation works to undo this foundation, this language and culture, but more deeply, (and this is where things get frankly beyond weird) it undoes, or intends to undo, the very fabric the world, and by world I refer to Heidegger's dasein, being in the world. Phenomenology is the ONLY way to make sense of meditation., and this puts the matter in the hands of an examination of the structures of the self for it is in the self that the world is bound to the familiar.

I am aware of how this might sound, for most do not read phenomenology: it is thick and hard and alien to common sense. In my view, it is the only, heh, heh, true view.

Let us now praise non-existent things. Like the building the architect has drawn, that the builder has not yet built and that the planner may never allow. Like meta-ethics, like the self. "Non-being is such...", say I, presupposing being also.

"In the beginning was the word..." but the beginning is the beginning of the self - self is time.

Metaethics? No more non existent than any given empirical concept. Indeed, more real than these.

to — Constance

This world is a world full of outcomes and the spiritual world that ties with this world is the world of causes. Looking into the cause of all things you strip away the layers until you are left with awareness, will, energy, but more important a word for this primal cause is love itself. This is the essence of your soul and is what created your body in the first place. God or nature could be called the love that gives life eternally and infinitely in the Universe. You yourself are a part of that universal love. So in realizing yourself by truly loving what you are... love, you in turn are loving God which begins the process of fully merging and being one with God.

This is the way of the mystic, by knowing and controlling what to love or bring energy to, you in turn, control your destiny and whatever you may want to manifest as a part of your reality. Hence, love truly is what makes miracles happen, so long as you are conscious aware of it and only direct it to the things that which is good. Love is the primal essence of everything, including who you are, as well as being the energy to influence anything in this world of outcomes so long as you know how to use or invoke it.

Love is the primal essence of everythin — Thinking

Is this true? I wonder if you would put some meant on this. Not that I disagree, at all. But it is stated, not argued, that is, justified. I think for starters, one has to examine love. How is this an absolute?

Everything that exists in the universe has a state of being, which is nothing but pure awareness. Said in other words, giving your awareness to something also means to give it love and attention.

You can intellectualize all you want about love. But, you would still not understand it. To understand it you must experience it, hence it is termed "Mysticism"

You can intellectualize all you want about love. But, you would still not understand it. To understand it you must experience it, hence it is termed "Mysticism" — Thinking

Experience it will not get you understanding. The understanding is not structured for this; it is rather a tool that has one function: to solve problems. Love is not the goal of the understanding, for the understanding cares about nothing. It is OUR goal, the extraordinary presence that beckons beyond the everydayness we are so invested in. Love is the desideratum that exceeds the desire. (You might want to check out Levinas's Totality and Infinity: an opaque, difficult thing to read, but once you are in it, it will destroy dogmas and orthodoxies.

This is an extremely difficult problem. I've read a but about this topic, and I think I've found a novel that discusses, or problematizes this issue better than many philosopher have, to my taste anyway. But even with all that, I haven't a clue what it is. Unlike topics like determinism, the soul, the beginning of the universe or other such concepts which are hard to talk about, at least I have a kind of "mental image" in which I can approach the problem in some way.

With this topic, I find nothing. By this I don't mean to suggest that the self is an illusion or useful "folk psychology" or something of the like, it's just that I don't know how to properly think about it. It's easy to play games with the concept, such as: if Jones killed someone while he was drunk driving, 15 years ago, is the Jones now the same Jones who drove drunk? Or if I bang my head, and my personality changes, am I still "me"? This depends on the criteria you set up. But you can also do this for ethical considerations in relation to the self, the same problem arises.

But the concept is not less clear to me.

To the extent that I understand, I fully agree that the self is intimately tied to ethics as nowhere else is responsibility as central and as critical as in ethics and responsibility is all about the so-called self.

Is it more important to understand love or experience it? You will come to understand that love is quite understandable and acts in quite irrational ways. However, no matter how irrational it might seem, love will always confirm the perfection of life.

To the extent that I understand, I fully agree that the self is intimately tied to ethics as nowhere else is responsibility as central and as critical as in ethics and responsibility is all about the so-called self. — TheMadFool

I would add that ethics is a thing of parts. On the one hand, there are the entanglements of our affairs, which is all you might find in Wittgenstein's great book of facts (Lecture on Ethics); on the other, there are the concrete actualities that are in the middle to these entanglements, the pains and joys themselves, looked at phenomenologically, released from the many contingencies and contexts that might otherwise possess them.

The facts are not incidental to ethics, some are scientific, fixed and abstract, like the Earth being closer to the Sun than Mars, they also vary across the board between people, cultures, principles, and so on, as in the "fact" that marriage stabilizes relationships; however, they are incidental to metaethics: the reality, if you will, behind our ethical entanglements, our arguments about the shoulds and shouldn'ts in this or that situation, that which all the fuss is about, is value, and its "thing itself" dimension, metavalue: The badness of the "ouch!"

Of course, such bads and goods are an integral part of experience. Even as I type, I have interest, concern, there are worries in the background, and so on. This the reality of the self that "shows" itself through its "value qualia" and is the genuine object of inquiry into the nature of the self.

Is it more important to understand love or experience it? You will come to understand that love is quite understandable and acts in quite irrational ways. However, no matter how irrational it might seem, love will always confirm the perfection of life. — Thinking

But to understand is to deliver one from the nonsense that would otherwise define it. Look at the understanding as a kind of jnana yoga (as I do): is it first a pragmatic function that brings clarity, that prevents one from holding crazy beliefs and committing atrocities in the name of love. But there is also the Kantian insight: As integrated agencies, we are bound together by logic and language, keeping in mind that such things are in themselves transcendental: I use logic, a recall memories within the structures of logic and solve problems and even have a sense of self in logic, but the nature of logic is utterly alien to me. The nature of all things is transcendental.

Having said this, I agree with everything you said.

I will add a quote that "when you understand you cannot help but love". If that's true and if "you have to experience it to understand it" is true. Then, in order to love love, you have to experience love, hence a clue to the perpetual eternity of love. Once, you are genuinely loved by someone you cannot help but love them back in magnitude.

But therein lies the rub: Buddhists do not try to eradicate the self in order to achieve abstract nothingness. Beneath the self, so to speak, the empirically constructed self or memories, attachments, the "stream of consciousness", is joy, bliss unparalleled. There is nothing more palpable than this. — Constance

I'm going to need a Buddhist canonical reference for this, please.

I have come to the conclusion that the self is not illusory, but my strategy is not a familiar one: the self, the genuine self "behind" the empirically constructed self, if affirmed through ethics, that is, metaethics — Constance

When you put it like that, it sounds like atman.

I'm going to need a Buddhist canonical reference for this, please. — baker

Nirvana?

Buddhists do not try to eradicate the self in order to achieve abstract nothingness. Beneath the self, so to speak, the empirically constructed self or memories, attachments, the "stream of consciousness", is joy, bliss unparalleled. There is nothing more palpable than this. — Constance

Nirvana? — Constance

The idea that the self = nirvana, or that once the defilements are done away with, what is left is pure goodness and joy, is an idea that can be found in some Buddhist circles (esp. in Mahayana, and modern developments of Buddhism), but to the best of my knowledge, it has no support in the Pali Canon (ie. the text that is generally considered the authoritative text of what the Buddha taught).

/.../
This is why the Buddha never advocated attributing an innate nature of any kind to the mind — good, bad, or Buddha. The idea of innate natures slipped into the Buddhist tradition in later centuries, when the principle of freedom was forgotten. Past bad kamma was seen as so totally deterministic that there seemed no way around it unless you assumed either an innate Buddha in the mind that could overpower it, or an external Buddha who would save you from it. But when you understand the principle of freedom — that past kamma doesn't totally shape the present, and that present kamma can always be free to choose the skillful alternative — you realize that the idea of innate natures is unnecessary: excess baggage on the path.

And it bogs you down. If you assume that the mind is basically bad, you won't feel capable of following the path, and will tend to look for outside help to do the work for you. If you assume that the mind is basically good, you'll feel capable but will easily get complacent.
/.../
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/freedomfrombuddhanature.html

Ethics in a world where only you exist..;

Love of self is the same love for other selves around you. Perfection in relations is elementary.