The bottom fell out at 40. Not the dramatic collapse you read about in spiritual memoirs, but the quiet implosion that happens when every strategy fails. Personal development, therapy, philosophy, religion – I had pursued it all with the desperate...
The conversation about self can go on forever. Shoonya isn’t an answer in it—it’s what’s left when there’s no one needing an answer. Just what’s here, before thought moves.
Neha, beautiful. 'Before thought moves' - that's it. Prior to all the sophisticated arguments, all the philosophical positions, all the need to be right. Just this.
Have you read The Law of Three by Cynthia Bourgeault. The collector, the sufferer, and the performer leading to the collapse is how she describes the affirming, denying, and the reconciliation lead to a new entity.
Enjoyed the article immensely. My wife and I are still discussing its implications. Thanks again
Kurt, thank you for the kind words and for sharing that connection. I haven't read The Law of Three, but your description of the collector, sufferer, and performer leading to collapse sounds fascinating - and remarkably aligned with what I was pointing to about the phantom's mechanisms.
The fact that you and your wife are still discussing the implications tells me the article hit something real. That's exactly what it's meant to do - not provide answers but point to what's already the case when the seeker dissolves.
I'll definitely look into Bourgeault's work. Thank you for the recommendation and for engaging so thoughtfully with the piece.
With respect. None of this is actually how a sense of self forms or functions within a human being. The sense of self isn’t a thing or an entity in your head somewhere. The self is a process and there are many levels to it as we know through cognitive science. And at the most basic level it is a reflexive awareness/knowing if the beings existence. If you didn’t have that you would fail the mirror identity test as some animals (not all) do. To say your without a self is either a lie or some form of depersonalisation.
It’s also worth mentioning that eastern traditions disagree profoundly about the self (most Hindus believe in the atman) and you can’t solve that by saying “but I have experiential insight” that’s what everyone in essentially every religious tradition says about their claims.
If you’re going to talk about identity and the self, at least underhand what it is first, not from a religious perspective. But what we know to be true about identity in cognitive science and psychology. Or even other phenomenological approaches like the German introspectionists.
I used to be a non duality teacher btw, and practiced Mahayana Buddhism. I was shaping my experience to conform to the no self view, not discovering some truth about the nature of the mind
David, thanks for engaging, your comment reveals something important. You describe yourself as a 'former non-duality teacher' - but there's no such thing. You can't be a former truth-realized being any more than you can be a former adult or forget how to ride a bicycle once you actually know.
What you're describing is the collapse of a spiritual identity - the recognition that you were teaching concepts rather than pointing from direct seeing. That's not the same as having been a genuine teacher and then stepping away.
The irony is that your critique about 'shaping experience to conform to belief' is exactly what happens when someone mistakes intellectual understanding for recognition, builds an identity around it, then has that identity collapse.
I'm not interested in credentials or former positions. I'm pointing to what's looking through your eyes right now. The one who would have been a teacher, former or otherwise - where is it?
Your first point is just a non duality talking point, there is no actually substance or evidence for that claim. Your claiming a radical submersion in the experiential side of this. “truth realised being” is something you have made up and have constructed in your experience and which has been reinforced by probably countless teachers and religious systems. You can’t claim that, and it’s what most religious extremists say. Keep that in mind.
What are you teaching that’s not a concept? Or in some subtle way smuggled hidden axioms or conceptual structures into your view and experience of the world? Such a thing does not exists because meaning and conceptual structures are baked into perception at a foundational level even into the unconscious. It’s a circle you can never ever escape. Can you point out any non dual or Buddhist pointing or practice that does not come with hidden conceptual meanings or assumptions? You’re interpreting your experience through a massive non dual/religious conceptual lens and calling it the truth of things without even realising it.
“The irony is that your critique about 'shaping experience to conform to belief' is exactly what happens when someone mistakes intellectual understanding for recognition, builds an identity around it, then has that identity collapse.” This is just another extremely common non dual talking point. What you call recognition was arrived at by looking at the mind in a pre moulded and directed way, and those pointings are conceptual in nature and shaped your experience in a certain direction . I’m not sure if you can coherently deny that?
I'm not interested in credentials or former positions. I'm pointing to what's looking through your eyes right now. The one who would have been a teacher, former or otherwise - where is it?
There’s no “thing” looking through my eyes. That’s not what the self is! The self is a a whole system fluid process and at the very basis it is simple self reflexivity without which experience wouldn’t even be possible at all. Again, you’re speaking with me now because you have self reflexivity at the basis of your cognition. To deny that is on a whole other level of absurd. It’s just not possible
Man, this might sound condescending, but it really isn't – it's like an adult trying to explain something to a child who's acting, playing, and really beginning to believe they're an adult. Which can be both amusing and hard to watch for the actual adult.
You're demanding conceptual proof of what's beyond concepts, scientific evidence for what's prior to science, external validation for what's self-evident. You're using the mind to understand what's prior to mind – like trying to see your own eyes.
This entire exchange has become a perfect demonstration of what I was pointing to in the article. You say 'truth-realized being' is made up, that all recognition is constructed, that self-reflexivity is irreducible. But who is making these claims? What's aware of self-reflexivity? What's aware of the concepts you're using to argue against concepts?
You're absolutely right that meaning and conceptual structures are baked into perception. But what's aware of perception? What's aware of the baking? This isn't about eliminating self-reflexivity or denying cognitive processes – it's about recognizing what's aware of them.
You can keep building more sophisticated arguments, appealing to more authorities, demanding more proof. But what's aware of the building, the appealing, the demanding? What's looking through your eyes right now as you read this? Not the eyes, not the brain processing the words, not the self-reflexive process, but what's aware of all of that.
You want me to prove water is wet using fire. It's an impossible task by design, and you know it. The investigation I'm pointing to doesn't conflict with neuroscience – it's prior to it. The authority for this isn't external – it's what's undeniably present right now.
This isn't a debate to be won or lost. It's what you already are. Everything else is just the phantom defending its territory through increasingly sophisticated arguments – which is exactly what this exchange demonstrates. Cheers! 🎭
Brother, your going around in circles saying the same thing pretending as though the debate about the nature of the self hasn’t been argued about for thousands of years in Hindu and Buddhists circles (across hundreds of different schools) your claim that it’s just self obvious is completely nonsensical. You are basically claiming to have solved one of the biggest phenomenological questions ever asked.
What do you say to a Hindu meditator who experientially has discovered the very obvious fact that there is a self? An atman? Your claim to hold the truth on this experientially is a form of extremism with absolutely no basis. And the arguments I’m making are not even complex, this is basic cognitive science. (Which you were trying to do in your original post by explaining how a self forms)
How can you experience anything that’s beyond concepts? In order for memory to function, there has to be concepts like past and future, and at the very least a conceptual foundation for distinction itself as well as many others. Without these memory wouldn’t function. To say you’re expecting something without concepts isn’t true! Because you would be dead or have no memory of experiencing such a thing. Again, perception and conceptual structures are axiomatic, you can’t get under them! Or experience life without them. Your stuck in a circle you cannot escape from no matter how hard you try.
You keep repeating, who’s making these claims, this is undeniable right now what you already are. This is just what every non dual YouTuber says.
And who’s aware of perception? A Hindu would say awareness! Cod science would say that’s not how it works because awareness and perception are intertwined. Again, you keep dismissing my point that the self isn’t a thing behind your eyes, it’s a complex process we don’t actually know fully. It’s mysterious.
My final point is a David Bentley Hart quote.
“The metaphysical primacy of the one over the many is what allows for thought at all. The essential continuity of the self is what permits any intentional consciousness to be more than a mere atomic moment in a random flux of disconnected points of view. You can’t have intentionality without a self to which the intention is ascribed, any more than you can have a thought without a thinker. And you can’t have a series of mental states, each apprehending the next, without there being a single subject of apprehension that persists throughout. Otherwise, it’s just an illusory linkage conjured out of nothing, by nothing, and for nothing.
One often hears that the self is simply a series of mental acts held together by contingent associations—perhaps, say, a long narrative we fabricate about ourselves to explain away the illusion of an enduring subject of experience. But, then, who is doing the fabricating? What is the unity of that narrative for, and who is it addressed to? If the self is simply a delusion of some impersonal neural system, who or what is being deluded? An illusion of consciousness must be a consciousness of that illusion.”
David, thank you. This exchange has become a perfect demonstration of what I was pointing to in the article.
You've shown exactly how the phantom defends itself – through increasingly sophisticated arguments, appeals to authority, emotional investment in being right, and missing the obvious in favor of the complex.
You say I'm claiming to have solved 'one of the biggest phenomenological questions ever asked.' But I'm not solving anything or claiming anything. I'm pointing to what's undeniably present right now – what's aware of your questions, your arguments, your David Bentley Hart quotes.
Hart's argument about the necessity of continuous selfhood for intentional consciousness is like saying 'You need eyes to see, therefore there's no one looking through the eyes.' He's talking about the functional necessity of selfhood – which I don't deny. I'm pointing to what's aware of that function.
What's aware of your need to be right? What's aware of your emotional investment in this debate? What's aware of the very sophisticated arguments you're using to avoid looking directly?
This conversation is complete. Your responses have been more educational than any answer I could give.
Well considering your arguments mostly consist of subtle attacks on my way of thinking and on my personal psychology rather than the substance of what I’m saying says a lot more about your intentions.
You’re not saying anything. You keep referring back to “your just proving how the phantom self works, look everyone see!!!” That is a typical way fundamentalists like yourself appeal to audiences and it’s manipulative and dangerous. Which is why I’m pressing you so hard. And which is why I plan on making future posts about your content, because it’s dangerously misleading people.
To say you’re not solving or claiming anything is absolutely shocking! You can’t just keep saying “it’s undeniably present right now” that only things that’s undeniably present right now is that fact that you exist, and that there is knowingness present. Everything else you’re saying is riddled with assumptions and subtle ways of attending to the mind that are based off pre assumed axioms and concepts. I’m not even providing sophisticated arguments which is the funny thing.
You keep asking what’s aware what’s aware, what’s aware? Awareness is aware. It’s that simple! A very simple self reflexive awareness is aware of my crushing need to be right, as well as yours.
“Your responses have been more educational than any answer I could give.” - This is manipulation and attempt to one up me, which is childish. Respond to the substance of my writing rather than what you’re projecting on to me.
I stumbled onto this article (and your stack, subscribed!) through Joan Tollifson, whom a friend encouraged me to spend more time with when discussing nondualism, our different spiritual paths leading us to non dual experiences through Vedanta/Hindu orientation (mine) vs Zen Buddhism (theirs), etc. Anyway, your post resonated with me, and I will be following and passing it along. I liked the archetypes analogy as a way to parse the functions of dualistic clinging. Also liked many quotes herein, especially that paragraph toward the end that started with “What remains is not emptiness or void….”
I also thought your replies to David Mc Donald were calm and kind, considering the mildly hostile undertones. Psychologists whose approaches are rooted in dualism, like that of cognitive psychology, are very attached to their views, regardless of whether one approaches from a spiritual or scientific lens. Monism is an underlying philosophical assumption of radical behaviorism, the philosophy based on the science of behavior analysis, a subdiscipline of psychology that preceded and gave rise to cognitive psych . Radical behaviorism and nondualism have lots in common. One of my colleagues and mentors has, for years, been developing a behavioral interpretation of self that is very much in line with the things you said here and, I think, could compliment it nicely. “We” are our conditioned experience, essentially. There’s nothing but that experience. And there certainly isn’t a homunculus self driving the bus. The sense of self is constructed complexly, through our language (English makes “I” the center and cause), and our countless interactions and interlocking behavioral contingencies. Obviously too much to get into in a comment section. Just saying, not all psychologists are cognitive dualists. There’s a subdiscipline of psychology, the only one rooted in natural science, that would not only agree with you (and other nondualism teachers) but also back up those claims with evidence. We’re here and listening! Thank you for this piece. Saving and sharing. 🙏
Thank you for the references! After reading Baum’s paper, I see that he makes a critical error. He said, “No agency means no self,” but what he really claims is that no self means no agency, and this is simply not true. He has thrown agency out with the no (separate) self bath water.
I completely agree that there is no separate self, but the existence of a separate self is not required for a person to have agency - that is, to be able to control one’s perceptions via their behavior. All behavior doesn’t just “naturally occur” due to causes and conditions. While causes and conditions certainly are not separate from behavior, human beings have the capacity to choose otherwise - we are conscious agents. Baum confuses correlation with causation, and so does Skinner.
Are you familiar with Perceptual Control Theory, developed by William Powers? I highly recommend his work as an alternative, non-dual understanding of behavior that doesn’t deny agency and is also fully in alignment with the notion of no separate self.
In denying the existence of a separate self, why go further and deny the existence of agency? A separate self is not needed for the existence of agency. No need to throw out agency with the separate self bath water.
Thanks for blowing my mind. If I had a mind, which apparently I don't. Or if I was an 'I' which apparently I'm not. Sorry--that didn't sound as snarky in my head. Fascinating read.
The conversation about self can go on forever. Shoonya isn’t an answer in it—it’s what’s left when there’s no one needing an answer. Just what’s here, before thought moves.
Neha, beautiful. 'Before thought moves' - that's it. Prior to all the sophisticated arguments, all the philosophical positions, all the need to be right. Just this.
Lovely 🩷♥️
What a wonderful article. Thank you so much for sharing it!
Have you read The Law of Three by Cynthia Bourgeault. The collector, the sufferer, and the performer leading to the collapse is how she describes the affirming, denying, and the reconciliation lead to a new entity.
Enjoyed the article immensely. My wife and I are still discussing its implications. Thanks again
Kurt, thank you for the kind words and for sharing that connection. I haven't read The Law of Three, but your description of the collector, sufferer, and performer leading to collapse sounds fascinating - and remarkably aligned with what I was pointing to about the phantom's mechanisms.
The fact that you and your wife are still discussing the implications tells me the article hit something real. That's exactly what it's meant to do - not provide answers but point to what's already the case when the seeker dissolves.
I'll definitely look into Bourgeault's work. Thank you for the recommendation and for engaging so thoughtfully with the piece.
Wow. ❤️🙏
With respect. None of this is actually how a sense of self forms or functions within a human being. The sense of self isn’t a thing or an entity in your head somewhere. The self is a process and there are many levels to it as we know through cognitive science. And at the most basic level it is a reflexive awareness/knowing if the beings existence. If you didn’t have that you would fail the mirror identity test as some animals (not all) do. To say your without a self is either a lie or some form of depersonalisation.
It’s also worth mentioning that eastern traditions disagree profoundly about the self (most Hindus believe in the atman) and you can’t solve that by saying “but I have experiential insight” that’s what everyone in essentially every religious tradition says about their claims.
If you’re going to talk about identity and the self, at least underhand what it is first, not from a religious perspective. But what we know to be true about identity in cognitive science and psychology. Or even other phenomenological approaches like the German introspectionists.
I used to be a non duality teacher btw, and practiced Mahayana Buddhism. I was shaping my experience to conform to the no self view, not discovering some truth about the nature of the mind
David, thanks for engaging, your comment reveals something important. You describe yourself as a 'former non-duality teacher' - but there's no such thing. You can't be a former truth-realized being any more than you can be a former adult or forget how to ride a bicycle once you actually know.
What you're describing is the collapse of a spiritual identity - the recognition that you were teaching concepts rather than pointing from direct seeing. That's not the same as having been a genuine teacher and then stepping away.
The irony is that your critique about 'shaping experience to conform to belief' is exactly what happens when someone mistakes intellectual understanding for recognition, builds an identity around it, then has that identity collapse.
I'm not interested in credentials or former positions. I'm pointing to what's looking through your eyes right now. The one who would have been a teacher, former or otherwise - where is it?
Your first point is just a non duality talking point, there is no actually substance or evidence for that claim. Your claiming a radical submersion in the experiential side of this. “truth realised being” is something you have made up and have constructed in your experience and which has been reinforced by probably countless teachers and religious systems. You can’t claim that, and it’s what most religious extremists say. Keep that in mind.
What are you teaching that’s not a concept? Or in some subtle way smuggled hidden axioms or conceptual structures into your view and experience of the world? Such a thing does not exists because meaning and conceptual structures are baked into perception at a foundational level even into the unconscious. It’s a circle you can never ever escape. Can you point out any non dual or Buddhist pointing or practice that does not come with hidden conceptual meanings or assumptions? You’re interpreting your experience through a massive non dual/religious conceptual lens and calling it the truth of things without even realising it.
“The irony is that your critique about 'shaping experience to conform to belief' is exactly what happens when someone mistakes intellectual understanding for recognition, builds an identity around it, then has that identity collapse.” This is just another extremely common non dual talking point. What you call recognition was arrived at by looking at the mind in a pre moulded and directed way, and those pointings are conceptual in nature and shaped your experience in a certain direction . I’m not sure if you can coherently deny that?
I'm not interested in credentials or former positions. I'm pointing to what's looking through your eyes right now. The one who would have been a teacher, former or otherwise - where is it?
There’s no “thing” looking through my eyes. That’s not what the self is! The self is a a whole system fluid process and at the very basis it is simple self reflexivity without which experience wouldn’t even be possible at all. Again, you’re speaking with me now because you have self reflexivity at the basis of your cognition. To deny that is on a whole other level of absurd. It’s just not possible
Man, this might sound condescending, but it really isn't – it's like an adult trying to explain something to a child who's acting, playing, and really beginning to believe they're an adult. Which can be both amusing and hard to watch for the actual adult.
You're demanding conceptual proof of what's beyond concepts, scientific evidence for what's prior to science, external validation for what's self-evident. You're using the mind to understand what's prior to mind – like trying to see your own eyes.
This entire exchange has become a perfect demonstration of what I was pointing to in the article. You say 'truth-realized being' is made up, that all recognition is constructed, that self-reflexivity is irreducible. But who is making these claims? What's aware of self-reflexivity? What's aware of the concepts you're using to argue against concepts?
You're absolutely right that meaning and conceptual structures are baked into perception. But what's aware of perception? What's aware of the baking? This isn't about eliminating self-reflexivity or denying cognitive processes – it's about recognizing what's aware of them.
You can keep building more sophisticated arguments, appealing to more authorities, demanding more proof. But what's aware of the building, the appealing, the demanding? What's looking through your eyes right now as you read this? Not the eyes, not the brain processing the words, not the self-reflexive process, but what's aware of all of that.
You want me to prove water is wet using fire. It's an impossible task by design, and you know it. The investigation I'm pointing to doesn't conflict with neuroscience – it's prior to it. The authority for this isn't external – it's what's undeniably present right now.
This isn't a debate to be won or lost. It's what you already are. Everything else is just the phantom defending its territory through increasingly sophisticated arguments – which is exactly what this exchange demonstrates. Cheers! 🎭
Brother, your going around in circles saying the same thing pretending as though the debate about the nature of the self hasn’t been argued about for thousands of years in Hindu and Buddhists circles (across hundreds of different schools) your claim that it’s just self obvious is completely nonsensical. You are basically claiming to have solved one of the biggest phenomenological questions ever asked.
What do you say to a Hindu meditator who experientially has discovered the very obvious fact that there is a self? An atman? Your claim to hold the truth on this experientially is a form of extremism with absolutely no basis. And the arguments I’m making are not even complex, this is basic cognitive science. (Which you were trying to do in your original post by explaining how a self forms)
How can you experience anything that’s beyond concepts? In order for memory to function, there has to be concepts like past and future, and at the very least a conceptual foundation for distinction itself as well as many others. Without these memory wouldn’t function. To say you’re expecting something without concepts isn’t true! Because you would be dead or have no memory of experiencing such a thing. Again, perception and conceptual structures are axiomatic, you can’t get under them! Or experience life without them. Your stuck in a circle you cannot escape from no matter how hard you try.
You keep repeating, who’s making these claims, this is undeniable right now what you already are. This is just what every non dual YouTuber says.
And who’s aware of perception? A Hindu would say awareness! Cod science would say that’s not how it works because awareness and perception are intertwined. Again, you keep dismissing my point that the self isn’t a thing behind your eyes, it’s a complex process we don’t actually know fully. It’s mysterious.
My final point is a David Bentley Hart quote.
“The metaphysical primacy of the one over the many is what allows for thought at all. The essential continuity of the self is what permits any intentional consciousness to be more than a mere atomic moment in a random flux of disconnected points of view. You can’t have intentionality without a self to which the intention is ascribed, any more than you can have a thought without a thinker. And you can’t have a series of mental states, each apprehending the next, without there being a single subject of apprehension that persists throughout. Otherwise, it’s just an illusory linkage conjured out of nothing, by nothing, and for nothing.
One often hears that the self is simply a series of mental acts held together by contingent associations—perhaps, say, a long narrative we fabricate about ourselves to explain away the illusion of an enduring subject of experience. But, then, who is doing the fabricating? What is the unity of that narrative for, and who is it addressed to? If the self is simply a delusion of some impersonal neural system, who or what is being deluded? An illusion of consciousness must be a consciousness of that illusion.”
David, thank you. This exchange has become a perfect demonstration of what I was pointing to in the article.
You've shown exactly how the phantom defends itself – through increasingly sophisticated arguments, appeals to authority, emotional investment in being right, and missing the obvious in favor of the complex.
You say I'm claiming to have solved 'one of the biggest phenomenological questions ever asked.' But I'm not solving anything or claiming anything. I'm pointing to what's undeniably present right now – what's aware of your questions, your arguments, your David Bentley Hart quotes.
Hart's argument about the necessity of continuous selfhood for intentional consciousness is like saying 'You need eyes to see, therefore there's no one looking through the eyes.' He's talking about the functional necessity of selfhood – which I don't deny. I'm pointing to what's aware of that function.
What's aware of your need to be right? What's aware of your emotional investment in this debate? What's aware of the very sophisticated arguments you're using to avoid looking directly?
This conversation is complete. Your responses have been more educational than any answer I could give.
Well considering your arguments mostly consist of subtle attacks on my way of thinking and on my personal psychology rather than the substance of what I’m saying says a lot more about your intentions.
You’re not saying anything. You keep referring back to “your just proving how the phantom self works, look everyone see!!!” That is a typical way fundamentalists like yourself appeal to audiences and it’s manipulative and dangerous. Which is why I’m pressing you so hard. And which is why I plan on making future posts about your content, because it’s dangerously misleading people.
To say you’re not solving or claiming anything is absolutely shocking! You can’t just keep saying “it’s undeniably present right now” that only things that’s undeniably present right now is that fact that you exist, and that there is knowingness present. Everything else you’re saying is riddled with assumptions and subtle ways of attending to the mind that are based off pre assumed axioms and concepts. I’m not even providing sophisticated arguments which is the funny thing.
You keep asking what’s aware what’s aware, what’s aware? Awareness is aware. It’s that simple! A very simple self reflexive awareness is aware of my crushing need to be right, as well as yours.
“Your responses have been more educational than any answer I could give.” - This is manipulation and attempt to one up me, which is childish. Respond to the substance of my writing rather than what you’re projecting on to me.
I stumbled onto this article (and your stack, subscribed!) through Joan Tollifson, whom a friend encouraged me to spend more time with when discussing nondualism, our different spiritual paths leading us to non dual experiences through Vedanta/Hindu orientation (mine) vs Zen Buddhism (theirs), etc. Anyway, your post resonated with me, and I will be following and passing it along. I liked the archetypes analogy as a way to parse the functions of dualistic clinging. Also liked many quotes herein, especially that paragraph toward the end that started with “What remains is not emptiness or void….”
I also thought your replies to David Mc Donald were calm and kind, considering the mildly hostile undertones. Psychologists whose approaches are rooted in dualism, like that of cognitive psychology, are very attached to their views, regardless of whether one approaches from a spiritual or scientific lens. Monism is an underlying philosophical assumption of radical behaviorism, the philosophy based on the science of behavior analysis, a subdiscipline of psychology that preceded and gave rise to cognitive psych . Radical behaviorism and nondualism have lots in common. One of my colleagues and mentors has, for years, been developing a behavioral interpretation of self that is very much in line with the things you said here and, I think, could compliment it nicely. “We” are our conditioned experience, essentially. There’s nothing but that experience. And there certainly isn’t a homunculus self driving the bus. The sense of self is constructed complexly, through our language (English makes “I” the center and cause), and our countless interactions and interlocking behavioral contingencies. Obviously too much to get into in a comment section. Just saying, not all psychologists are cognitive dualists. There’s a subdiscipline of psychology, the only one rooted in natural science, that would not only agree with you (and other nondualism teachers) but also back up those claims with evidence. We’re here and listening! Thank you for this piece. Saving and sharing. 🙏
I doubt those non-dual psychologists are denying human agency, though. Thomas is.
Glad you asked. Two papers explain it better than I could in a comments section.
Baum, W. M. (1995). BF Skinner Memorial Address: 1995: Radical behaviorism and the concept of agency. Behaviorology, 3, 93-106. https://www.academia.edu/download/90066638/cite.055.009520220822-1-1eve1pm.pdf
Moore... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5002400/
Thank you for the references! After reading Baum’s paper, I see that he makes a critical error. He said, “No agency means no self,” but what he really claims is that no self means no agency, and this is simply not true. He has thrown agency out with the no (separate) self bath water.
I completely agree that there is no separate self, but the existence of a separate self is not required for a person to have agency - that is, to be able to control one’s perceptions via their behavior. All behavior doesn’t just “naturally occur” due to causes and conditions. While causes and conditions certainly are not separate from behavior, human beings have the capacity to choose otherwise - we are conscious agents. Baum confuses correlation with causation, and so does Skinner.
Are you familiar with Perceptual Control Theory, developed by William Powers? I highly recommend his work as an alternative, non-dual understanding of behavior that doesn’t deny agency and is also fully in alignment with the notion of no separate self.
I’ve also written an article you may find of interest: https://open.substack.com/pub/aaronlessin/p/no-self-no-problem?r=oevw8&utm_medium=ios
In denying the existence of a separate self, why go further and deny the existence of agency? A separate self is not needed for the existence of agency. No need to throw out agency with the separate self bath water.
Thanks for blowing my mind. If I had a mind, which apparently I don't. Or if I was an 'I' which apparently I'm not. Sorry--that didn't sound as snarky in my head. Fascinating read.