- OK -- Once again, one last try...
- Effectively
defining the "self" to which I am trying to refer seems either especially difficult, or effectively impossible. I think that I have a better chance of isolating and identifying this self by denotation and analogy than I do by definition.
- The denotation: this is the self that those who fear death
perceive to be continuous during life, and which they
hope is continuous after death.
- The analogy: this self is analogous to the
disk of the DVD. It's the same
disk after recording as it was before recording. One difference is that this
self is what we call "mental."
- Some of us think that the lifetime continuation of this self is an illusion. We may also think that
mental is just another form of physical.
- If the lifetime continuation
is just an illusion, it is this illusion that I am referring to as the "self."