Self = Identity

Finn’s proposal

By Bodhangkur

1. Conceptual Fit: “Self” as the Abstract of “Identity”

If we ask what operations are cognized as self, the answer is:

Everything that marks or sustains the identity of the emergent.

Identity is not a static essence; it is the pattern of stability across change.
Thus:

· Every perception that is tagged “mine,”

· Every action that originates “here,”

· Every feeling that belongs “to this pattern,”

· Every memory that anchors continuity,

—all of these are cognized because they reaffirm the boundary and coherence of identity.

Therefore:

Self = the abstraction of identity’s manifestations.

Or more directly:

Self = identity as experienced from inside.

This is clean, non-metaphysical, and avoids any reified ego.

2. Procedural Fit (Finn’s Procedure Monism)

Under Procedure Monism, an emergent is a token of a procedure, and every token is known only as its identity-stabilising behaviour.

Thus:

· Actions = identity defending itself

· Choices = identity resolving its instability

· Perceptions = identity mapping the surround relative to itself

· Pain = identity under threat

· Pleasure = identity recovering coherence

· Agency = identity generating corrective change

Therefore the operations you called “known” are:

Identity-events.

In Finn’s own structural vocabulary:

Self = the operational persistence of identity
and
What is cognized = identity maintaining itself.

Thus the word identity is not only a synonym; it is the more primary term.

Self is what identity feels like from the first-person point of enactment.

3. Minimal Fit (Occam-sharp)

Identity = what holds.

Self = the experience of what holds.

Or:

Self is identity cognized.

Or even more minimal, as a Finn-style minim:

“Self = identity in operation.”

4. Finn’s proposal

“Self” is the abstraction of “identity.”

Once “identity” is understood as procedural stability,
the self is simply:

that stability becoming aware of itself through its own operations.

Transposition to early Buddhism

Self = Identity =Atta

1. The Core Move: Re-defining atta as “identity”

In early Buddhism, atta never meant a soul in the later Hindu sense.
Its earliest range includes:

· self, person

· core, substance

· owner, controller

· the abiding, dependable centre of the aggregates

If we transpose atta to mean identity, understood procedurally (as the emergent coherence of differential outputs), the doctrinal structure becomes not only clearer but internally more coherent.

This yields:

atta = the supposition of an abiding identity-pattern

anatta = the discovery that no such abiding identity-pattern exists

This is precisely what you propose, and it aligns with the earliest discourses.

2. Early Buddhist Analysis of the Five Aggregates as Identity-Processes

Buddhism deconstructs the person into the aggregates of:

1. form (rūpa)

2. sensation (vedanā)

3. perception (saññā)

4. formations / volitions (saṅkhārā)

5. consciousness (viññāṇa)

These are not substances but operations.

If atta = identity, then identity = the emergent coherence of these processes.

And:

· these processes are impermanent (anicca)

· therefore their coherence is unstable

· therefore the identity they produce is not abiding

· therefore the idea of an abiding identity (atta) is mistaken

· therefore the emergent identity is anatta

Thus anatta becomes:

anatta = no identity that can endure as identity.

Not “no self,” but no stable identity-entity behind the activities.

Since, as Finn proposes: Identity (indeed address), as compound or aggregate of differential outputs, must constantly change and differentiate to remain cognisable, identity does not abide; hence it is anattā.

This mirrors the Buddha's own structure.

3. The Crucial Procedural Insight

In Finn’s Procedure Monism, identity is:

· a pattern of differential outputs,

· maintained by continuous updating,

· dependent on change to remain identifiable,

· extinguished entirely at disintegration (“Off is Off”).

This maps onto early Buddhism flawlessly:

· the aggregates arise and cease → the identity-pattern arises and ceases

· continuity is only a moment-to-moment re-instantiation

· identity is a token of ongoing causal processes

· there is no core behind the flux

· identity = flux recognized as one pattern

· yet the flux itself offers no ground for permanence

Therefore identity is:

· recognisable → because of short-term coherence

· unstable → because coherence is produced by change

· non-abiding → because what maintains it is itself impermanent

· non-controlling → because it is conditioned by causes outside its boundary

Thus:

Identity is cognised; identity exists as process; identity does not persist.

This is the exact meaning of anattā.

4. Early Buddhist Textual (or conceptual) Parallels

The Buddha repeatedly teaches:

· “What is impermanent is suffering.
What is impermanent and suffering is not-self.”

In your model:

· What is impermanent = the identity-process

· What suffers = the identity defended against dissolution

· What is not-self = that identity does not abide as itself

In the Anatta-lakkhana Sutta:

· “Form is not-self; if it were, it would not lead to affliction and one could command: ‘Let my form be thus.’”

Translated into your vocabulary:

· Identity is not self-governing; it cannot stabilise itself

· A real self would control its differentiations

· But identity is driven by differential outputs responding to conditions

· Therefore identity is heteronomous, not autonomous

· Therefore identity = anattā

This is not a negation of identity; it is the denial of abiding identity.

5. The Buddhist and Finnian View Converge

Buddhist:

Identity exists only as moment-to-moment conditioned arising.
Therefore it is impermanent.
Therefore it is unsatisfactory.
Therefore it is not-self (not abiding identity).

Finn:

Identity exists only as a token of differential operations.
It requires constant change to remain identifiable.
Its stability is provisional and locally maintained.
It extinguishes without residue.
Therefore it is non-abiding identity.

These are structurally identical.

6. The Minim (Finn + Buddha)

Identity changes to remain identity; therefore it does not abide.

This non-abiding is anattā.

Or even sharper:

Identity is flux recognised; flux cannot abide; hence no abiding self.

Or Finn-style:

Self = identity-in-operation.

But identity-in-operation cannot endure as identity.
Hence self is anattā.

7. Ultimate Insight

There is still identity, but only as process, never as possessor, essence, or owner.

Thus your transposition is accurate:

Anattā does not deny identity.

It denies its permanence.

Home