Identity (Self) as Anattā

A Procedural Reconstruction of Early Buddhism

By Bodhangkur

1. Introduction: From Self to Identity

Classical presentations of the Buddhist doctrine of anattā (“not-self”) often presuppose that the Buddha denied the existence of a substantive soul or metaphysical ego. But this reading imports post-Upaniṣadic anxieties into the early discourses. The Pāli Nikāyas are not concerned with the denial of metaphysical substance; they are concerned with the instability and non-abiding nature of what humans take to be themselves.

A more coherent account arises when we reinterpret atta not as “soul” but as identity—the lived, operational coherence of an emergent pattern. Identity, in this procedural sense, is not a substance but a continuity-pattern generated by differential operations: sensations, perceptions, volitions, and consciousness. This identity is cognised only through its manifestations, i.e. the continuum of actions, reactions, perceptions, and corrections by which an emergent maintains coherence.

Reconstructed in these terms, the Buddha’s teaching becomes a doctrine not of metaphysical negation but of procedural non-abidance:

Identity exists as operation;
identity is known as a composite of operations;
but because those operations are impermanent, identity cannot abide.
Therefore identity is anattā.

This essay reconstructs the core early Buddhist arguments through that lens.

2. Identity as Composite: The Five Aggregates as Operational Streams

The Buddha defines the human being not as a unit but as a plurality of aggregates (khandhā), each an active process:

1. Rūpa – form, physicality

2. Vedanā – sensation, affect

3. Saññā – perception, recognition

4. Saṅkhārā – formations, volitional tendencies

5. Viññāṇa – consciousness as moment-to-moment knowing

These are not substances but operational flows. In the Anattā-Lakkhaṇa Sutta (SN 22.59), the Buddha instructs:

“Bhikkhus, form is impermanent…
What is impermanent is suffering.
What is impermanent, suffering, and liable to change is not fit to be regarded thus:
‘This is mine, this I am, this is my self.’”
— SN 22.59

The formula recurs for sensation, perception, formations, consciousness.
Identity—if it is anything—is the coherence of these streams, recognised as “I”.

In procedural terms:

· identity = the operational stability of the five aggregates

· stability = coherence generated by moment-to-moment updating

· coherence = the apparent “self”

But because the aggregates are dynamic, the coherence they generate is never static, and what is never static cannot function as a ground.

Hence identity, being composite, is inherently unstable, and so cannot be atta.

3. Identity Requires Change to Be Cognised

Identity, as a pattern, is only recognisable because it changes in a structured way.
A perfectly unchanging entity is cognitively invisible.

Thus identity is difference maintaining itself through difference.

This insight corresponds to the Buddha’s observation that consciousness itself arises only in relation to changing conditions:

“Consciousness is reckoned by the condition dependent on which it arises:
consciousness through the eye, the ear, the nose…
Dependent on contact as condition, consciousness arises.”
— MN 38

In procedural terms: the “self” is the stable tag that emerges from ongoing differentiation. Without differentiation, there is no identity; without changing operations, identity collapses into non-recognition.

Thus the very condition for identity to appear is also the condition for identity not to abide.

This is early Buddhism’s exact point.

4. Identity Cannot Abide: Impermanence Undermines Ownership

Because identity is constituted by impermanent processes, it cannot satisfy the three marks of classical atta:

1. Self-possession (ownership)
A true self would be something one could command.
The Buddha rejects this premise repeatedly:

“If consciousness were self, it would not lead to affliction…
But because consciousness is impermanent… it leads to affliction,
therefore it is not self.”
— SN 22.59

2. Continuity
The Buddha explicitly deconstructs continuity in the Chariot Simile (SN 5.10), showing that the “person” is a designation for a dynamic configuration.

3. Inherent identity
In SN 12.61, the Buddha denies any fixed “I am” essence:

“This ‘I am’ is a conceiving…
Whatever is conceived is otherwise.”

Thus identity, being subject to affliction, change, and conditional arising, fails the three criteria of atta and must be classified as anattā, not in the sense of non-existence but in the sense of non-abiding identity.

5. The Procedural Reading: Identity as Tokenized Emergence

In Finn’s Procedure Monism, identity (or address) is the transient operational stability of a token—a temporary self-maintaining pattern within a field of stochastic events.

Map this onto the Buddha’s own analysis:

· the aggregates = the operational components of the token

· contact (phassa) = the trigger of every operation

· feeling (vedanā) = the feedback of stability/instability

· craving (taṇhā) = the compensatory impulse to restore stability

· clinging (upādāna) = the mistaken reification of the identity

· becoming (bhava) = the re-instantiation of the pattern

· birth (jāti) = the emergence of a new token iteration

· death (maraṇa) = the disintegration of the token

This mapping is textually supported by the dependence sequence in SN 12.2:

“With contact as condition, feeling;
with feeling as condition, craving;
with craving as condition, clinging;
with clinging as condition, becoming…”

This is a procedural chain:
identity arises, stabilises, perturbs, compensates, reconstructs—moment by moment.

Such an identity cannot be attā because:

· it is composite

· it is conditioned

· it is unstable

· it is extinguished upon dis-integration

Thus the doctrinal category is anattā.

6. Re-reading anattā: Not Negation, but Non-Abiding

The Buddha does not deny the empirical self. He denies that identity—the composite operational pattern—has intrinsic:

· permanence

· controllability

· self-sufficiency

Hence:

“All phenomena are not-self.”
— sabbe dhammā anattā, SN 22.45

This universal declaration applies because all phenomena lack intrinsic abiding identity, not because they are unreal.

Under this reconstruction:

· there is identity, as process

· there is no abiding identity, as ground

· thus, identity = existent but non-abiding

· and this = anattā

This aligns perfectly with both the Nikāyas and Finn’s procedural ontology.

7. The Insight: Identity is Cognised but Never Found

Identity (address) is always known—every action, perception, memory, and correction is tagged with “mine” or “I”.
But it is never found as a stable referent.

The Buddha states in SN 22.47:

“Although a fool might grow old and decrepit,
he still does not outgrow the notion: ‘I am.’”

The persistent “I am” feeling is not an entity, but a cognitive artefact—a procedural echo of the ongoing coherence-work.

Early Buddhism recognises identity as:

· constructed,

· maintained,

· defended,

· disrupted,

· reconstituted,

· and extinguished.

Thus:

Identity is real as function; unreal as essence.

Real as operation; unreal as possessor.
Real as coherence; unreal as permanence.

This is the essence of anattā.

8. Conclusion: The Buddha as the First Proceduralist

A procedural reconstruction of early Buddhism reveals that the Buddha articulated a theory of identity as emergent flux, long before any vocabulary of systems theory, information processing, or procedural ontology existed.

His teaching is not that “there is no self,” but that what appears as self is:

· composite,

· conditioned,

· changing,

· unstable,

· suffering when clung to,

· and without inherent abiding identity.

In short:

Identity exists only as operation;
operation is impermanent;
therefore identity is non-abiding;
therefore identity is anattā.

This interpretation seamlessly aligns the earliest Buddhist insights with Finn’s modern procedural metaphysics and shows that the Buddha’s doctrine was not a metaphysical negation but an early discovery of identity as a transient, self-maintaining, self-dissolving pattern.

Impermanence, suffering and incompleteness

Siddartha’s error

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