Do un-self-conscious selves exist?
Let us assume that selves exist, and let us begin with the assumption that everything has a self. Let us call it a soul to begin with.
Firstly is a chair with a soul any different from a chair without a soul? They are to all appearances the same. Indeed we cannot ever see if they have a soul. It may be that some future scientific investigation discovers evidence of the soul; that is irrelevant here, we are only talking about what is apparent to us today.
Take a chair with a soul. Does it know that it has a soul? No. Only I know that it has a soul. So we say that it has a soul-for-me.
We can now question the meaning of a soul-for-me since there is no evidence for it. It is unknowable and is purely an imaginary thing for now.
While souls are not known from the outside as souls-for-me, the are more commonly accepted as souls known from the inside.
A human with a soul is different from the table: not because we can see their soul but because we believe that they know their own soul; they know they have a soul. They are, in contrast to the table, a soul-for-itself.
Souls-for-me are completely doubtable; souls-for-themselves are the essence of the soul idea. It is these souls that we call selves. The relationship between a self and itself is central to the self idea. You cannot really have a self/soul existing by itself (like the table) without also including the idea that it knows of itself. Essentially if it doesn't know of itself then who does! Self-consciousness is thus an important feature of selves.
A Self must know that it is a self-knowing self (a loop)
If a self knows of itself then what does it know? Does it know itself as a material object like a table? If so we have the problem of an unconscious self above. The self must know itself as a thing-which-knows-itself, i.e. must see itself as different from a table whose self is not knowable. In other words a self-for-itself must know that it is a self-for-itself.
The creation of a self
At some point in the past let us say that a self doesn't exist. This means that at some point it must have been created. At the point of creation it is not enough to create a soul that doesn't know that it is a soul. This is the table problem again. The condition is that it must be a soul that knows that it is a soul. Yet it can't be a soul that knows itself until it is a soul-that-knows-itself that it can know! That is to say the condition for being a soul/self is not simply that one exists as a table exists because then it makes no difference if we are a soul or not (there is no external difference between having, and not having, a soul). Having a soul is all about the difference in the internal (private) state. Having a soul means that we know we have a soul. That is the human experience that all these ideas are born from and seek to describe. Yet if having a soul means at the same time that we know we have a soul then to create a soul is not just creating an ordinary thing with external features (like a table). It is to create something without external features and with the central internal feature being that it knows itself. It must know itself in other words to be itself. At the point of creation, before it is itself, how can it know itself and thus become itself?
The idea of a soul/self implies Eternalism and existence without creation. It is interesting that while the argument above seems quite involved and complicated these features of souls (self aware and eternal) are central to the common uninvestigated concept of them.
No mention of the SRH! The SRH would make the above discussion pointless since nothing can relate to itself anyway - but that has been avoided.
A being that exists by virtue that it knows itself (the definition of a soul/self) is hard to picture. The original version of the above argument went differently: from notes last night...
A self must be created - that is the rub because a self (or a belief that something has a self) is by definition the relationship with itself because a relationship with anything else is just plain old thinghood. Something being created, just a plain old anything being created doesn't make a self. It is only a self when we believe that it relates to itself. Yet how can we know if it relates to itself? Only it can know - that is the belief. And if a self must relate to itself then what was it before it related to itself? Does a self relate to anything which relates to itself or must a self relate to anything which is already a self? Surely it is the latter otherwise it is just ordinary thinghood relating. (Start argument by staying that there exists things and selves and relating to a thing is ordinary, while relating to a self is the key to self). So if a self must relate to itself as a self already, then at the creation of a self the relation to itself and itself must be created at the same time i.e. if not created then not exist!
Can a self exist without knowing itself? or knowing that it is a self? i.e. the other exists for-me but not for-itself but is self-existing without me?
"self" is really a symbol for the relationship-between where it relates between that relation and itself... yet isn't this a fudge since it is non-constructive and an infinite regress.
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Realise that the essence of the point here is the difference between having a self and being a self. Other people we speculate may or may not have a self/soul while I AM a soul. It is not a question of analysing data or thoughts as if they belonged to another person but the very nature of these things at all - which I guess leads to the Tat Tvam Asi where one realises that the theatre or sphere of the World (Brahman) is actually our own Soul (Atman) and vice-versa in that the phenomena and experiences that we have are those of our Soul so the existence of these things which we normally call the World is also evidence of our Soul. BUT one must be careful because this path (as expressed here) doesn't rid us of ego. Seeing ourselves and the world as one we may still claim the world as Ours - e.g. still thinking of my perceptions or my thoughts or my wisdom or my clear thinking and understanding - but if we get the Tat Tvam Asi right who do those perceptions, thoughts, wisdoms belong to other than themselves and the world? "Other" people don't "have" souls any more then that I "am" a soul. They are not (at root) flesh and bone, perception or thought any more than I am. There is only One.
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