Is the human self nonexistent?

And in this you abuse - in my view - the notion of a "soul". One's soul is, in my view, by definition the sole - and, indeed, core - self of a person. Again, you're of course entitled to your view. It just doesn't make sense to me, and I can't participate in any discussions predicated upon it other than to indicate my disagreement with that premise.

As I recently mentioned, there is the primary genetical reason (along with the unpredictable effects of environmental differences) why the different incarnations making up a soul would be expected to have rather different personalities, different selves. This means that if the soul is an amalgam of all the previous human lives incorporated into it, then the resultant soul personality would logically be expected to be very different from that of the current human incarnation. I realize that here I am redefining the soul from what you expect, but this seems to logically follow from the evidence. Your notion of what is the soul is the one most commonly held to, but maybe this isn't really the case.

[Ninshub]

I'm probably a bit all over the place as I don't have a fixed view about these complex matters (to say the least!).

But there's this too. Nbtruthman brought up PMH Atwater's book about children NDEs in another thread, which is something that's been on my mind for a while. Specifically in reference to extremely young children who had NDEs and where the outlook inside the NDE is distinctly adult, and not at all suited, as far as I can see, to a child's developed sense of self at that time.

Here are two examples on page 69. (My edition of the book is the one from 2003 that was renamed The New Children and Near-Death Experiences, publishers Bear & Company in Rochester, Vermont).

Janet had an NDE at age 9 months. And the statement from her that is included (from obviously older!) is "I felt so homesick afterwards. I regretted being in the flesh again, cut off from the Voice of God/Source of Guidance. I oscillated between period of great elation and creativity and deep suicidal depression as a teenager."

And then there's (on the same page) P. Ann who had an NDE at 3 months. "Being sent back into this mess of a family has often felt like a betrayal. Being loved and welcomed briefly on the other side and then returned into a loveless world was sometimes more than I could bear, especially because I could not seem to kill myself and I wanted to."

A few pages before, the author goes into detail about another person, Carroll Gray, who had several NDEs, the first one in the womb, where she could what was going on in the family when it happened, and at 2 and a half told her parents what happened.

PMH writes:

Throughout Carroll Gray's story, regardless of her age at the time, we can recognize the workings of a decidedly mature mind that is stunningly accurate in what it perceives. This oddity was displayed by every child experiencer I ever had sessions with, irrespective of age. It's as if consciousness can function quite apart from personality, and, in so doing, is aware of other agendas - perhaps the mission of the soul. (p. 67)

I can't see a different way of understanding this than PMH does. Obviously there's a discontinuity, at some level, between what the consciousness of the "self" in the NDE is having, and what the child's "self" is able to mentalize, or have constructed by that age. It would be hard to think that both are having the same "stream of consciousness" at that precise moment.

So this seems to argue strongly for at least levels of consciousness, and something discontinuous. I don't know if you want to call it the same "self", but there appears to be a distinction between what we could distinguish as the soul and the personality, or something like that.

I don't know how Laird or Titus Rivas' conceptions of the self are able to deal with this data.

[Ninshub]

Your notion of what is the soul is the one most commonly held to, but maybe this isn't really the case.

Or you could distinguish, like some authors do, between the immediate discarnate soul still tied to the personality and an oversoul or higher self or spirit, however one labels it.

[Laird]

As I recently mentioned, there is the primary genetical reason (along with the unpredictable effects of environmental differences) why the different incarnations making up a soul would be expected to have rather different personalities, different selves. This means that if the soul is an amalgam of all the previous human lives incorporated into it, then the resultant soul personality would logically be expected to be very different from that of the current human incarnation. I realize that here I am redefining the soul from what you expect, but this seems to logically follow from the evidence. Your notion of what is the soul is the one most commonly held to, but maybe this isn't really the case.

Emphasis added. Here you conflate "personality" with "self". Why? The self (at radical, base, core - pure subjectivity) is clearly different from any personality which is overlaid upon it.

I'm probably a bit all over the place as I don't have a fixed view about these complex matters (to say the least!).

But there's this too. Nbtruthman brought up PMH Atwater's book about children NDEs in another thread, which is something that's been on my mind for a while. Specifically in reference to extremely young children who had NDEs and where the outlook inside the NDE is distinctly adult, and not at all suited, as far as I can see, to a child's developed sense of self at that time.

Here are two examples on page 69. (My edition of the book is the one from 2003 that was renamed The New Children and Near-Death Experiences, publishers Bear & Company in Rochester, Vermont).

Janet had an NDE at age 9 months. And the statement from her that is included (from obviously older!) is "I felt so homesick afterwards. I regretted being in the flesh again, cut off from the Voice of God/Source of Guidance. I oscillated between period of great elation and creativity and deep suicidal depression as a teenager."

And then there's (on the same page) P. Ann who had an NDE at 3 months. "Being sent back into this mess of a family has often felt like a betrayal. Being loved and welcomed briefly on the other side and then returned into a loveless world was sometimes more than I could bear, especially because I could not seem to kill myself and I wanted to."

A few pages before, the author goes into detail about another person, Carroll Gray, who had several NDEs, the first one in the womb, where she could what was going on in the family when it happened, and at 2 and a half told her parents what happened.

PMH writes:


I can't see a different way of understanding this than PMH does. Obviously there's a discontinuity, at some level, between what the consciousness of the "self" in the NDE is having, and what the child's "self" is able to mentalize, or have constructed by that age. It would be hard to think that both are having the same "stream of consciousness" at that precise moment.

So this seems to argue strongly for at least levels of consciousness, and something discontinuous. I don't know if you want to call it the same "self", but there appears to be a distinction between what we could distinguish as the soul and the personality, or something like that.

I don't know how Laird or Titus Rivas' conceptions of the self are able to deal with this data.

My guess is that whatever method was used to get accounts of these NDEs of supposedly very young children, or even of infants, it involved memory processes very subject to subconscious confabulation influenced by suggestion, much later when the child may have even been a young adult. An infant of 9 months old won't be able to speak much, certainly not coherent accounts of NDEs - so the investigators must have depended on information apparently remembered when the child was much older and influenced by parents and other adults. I guess I'm skeptical in this case.

[Laird]

Obviously there's a discontinuity, at some level, between what the consciousness of the "self" in the NDE is having, and what the child's "self" is able to mentalize, or have constructed by that age. It would be hard to think that both are having the same "stream of consciousness" at that precise moment.

I disagree. I think you're arbitrarily splitting up a singular self, being the child/baby/foetus having an NDE. Young humans are, in my experience, incredibly aware. In any case, it's plausible enough that during the NDE, the child/baby/foetus is gifted with enhanced conscious and cognitive capacities - just as, generally, NDErs are gifted with all sorts of good stuff, including, at times, or so they claim, full and omniscient understanding of the entire workings of the universe. Talk about what a self is not able to mentalise or have constructed by that age! God's own understanding!

Or you could distinguish, like some authors do, between the immediate discarnate soul still tied to the personality and an oversoul or higher self or spirit, however one labels it.

That precisely seems to narrow down to the issue, which appears to be partly one of semantics. The "immediate discarnate soul still tied to the personality" is I think what I  term the human self of the person, whereas the "oversoul" or higher spirit of the person is what I have been using the term "soul" to denote. Clearly distinguishing the one from the other, as clearly being different sorts of being, (which I do), is where we seem to differ. It seems to me that as long as the human personality still exists as a being, these are two simultaneously existing separate beings.

My guess is that whatever method was used to get accounts of these NDEs of supposedly very young children, or even of infants, it involved memory processes very subject to subconscious confabulation influenced by suggestion, much later when the child may have even been a young adult. An infant of 9 months old won't be able to speak much, certainly not coherent accounts of NDEs - so the investigators must have depended on information apparently remembered when the child was much older and influenced by parents and other adults. I guess I'm skeptical in this case.

Not really sorry if this one pops some bubbles, but P.M.H. Atwater is not the "authority" of much. She toots her own horn, and has for a long time. That certainly doesn't make her any authority, at best she has simply been at NDE's for a long time. 
Unless she supplies the scientific methods for the baby NDE's, or young children, and how they were attained, it fits with her numerology and astrology woo woo, and not anything that I would be in support of following. I would "assume" she did her own hypnosis on them, in her own way.

She created and incorporated Inner Forum, Idaho's first metaphysical non-profit organization, edited the Inner Forum magazine, and launched the Northwest's first speaker's bureau on metaphysical topics. She helped to initiate and produce Idaho's first conference on The Arts and Governor's Bi-Annual Awards for the Arts. Since 1966, she has been an active investigator and researcher of psychic phenomena and altered states of consciousness, was a hypnotist for six years, taught practical numerology for several decades, and became a member of the American Federation of Astrologers. 
Atwater is one of the original researchers in the field of near-death studies, having begun her work in 1978 (shortly after moving to Virginia), and is a pioneer in subjects like near-death experiences, the after effects of spiritual experiences, transformations of consciousness, reality shifts, future memory, and modern generations of children and how they differ from previous generations. Atwater did free-lance assignments for many periodicals nationwide, including Sunset magazine. She wrote the column "Coming Back" for the Vital Signs magazine 1981 - 1985. She earned her Letters of the Humanities (L.H.D.) doctorate from the International College of Spiritual and Psychic Studies in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 19, 1992; and was awarded an honorary Ph.D. in Therapeutic Counseling in March 2005, from Medicina Alternativa Institute, The Open International University for Complementary Medicines, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Also in 2005, the International Association for Near-death Studies (IANDS) presented her with an Outstanding Service Award and the National Association of Transpersonal Hypnotherapists awarded her a Lifetime Achievement Award. She has been a Prayer Chaplain since 2004.

Then we see she has a net worth of about $3 million from writing books.
International college of what? Is this even accredited, and why did she go that route when she could afford real schooling?
Oh, I see, the "intuitives" made their own school and are giving out doctorate degrees. Guess we need to get in line for that.
It just underlines that she went her own way, wrote her own books, and called herself her own authority, while being propped up by "fake" universities that are usually just pay as you go, the McDonalds of schooling. All the while cashing in on woo woo.
Marilyn, who founded and runs this International College of Spiritual and Psychic Studies, is available for individual readings, consultations, spirit messages, and clairvoyance. I picture her in some costume in a tent.

If anyone thinks these comments are out of line, or not true, please prove me wrong or say so.

Emphasis added. Here you conflate "personality" with "self". Why? The self (at radical, base, core - pure subjectivity) is clearly different from any personality which is overlaid upon it.

Because I consider that the only meaningful human "self" is a complex center of consciousness having unique individuated personality characteristics and memories. The "self of pure subjectivity" is indeed fundamentally different - it is generic and applies to any and all human selves, but it therefore is not as a practical matter meaningful in any human way. And it may not qualify as really a "being" at all in any meaningful way.

[Laird]

Because I consider that the only meaningful human "self" is a complex center of consciousness having unique individuated personality characteristics and memories. The "self of pure subjectivity" is indeed fundamentally different - it is generic and applies to any and all human selves, but it therefore is not as a practical matter meaningful in any human way. And it may not qualify as really a "being" at all in any meaningful way.

I couldn't disagree more. That to which I referred as the "pure subjectivity" at the core of selfhood is the true self of any given being, and is in no way a generic self. It is that which qualifies us as beings.

Every self as pure subjectivity looks out on reality from a different subjective perspective than every other self, and this is why the self as, at core, pure subjectivity, is not generic, but individuated.