anatta

I was asked this question on Quora recently:

Is the self an illusion or an emergent phenomenon? I’ve read people who use neuroscience to argue for one, the other, or both simultaneously.

Here’s how I responded.

No one knows what the self is. Least of all my fellow neuroscientists! 😉

Personally, I think the idea that the self is an illusion is meaningless. I suspect it’s just a (highly misleading) shorthand for saying that people’s notions of a permanent, unchanging self are incorrect. In other words, it means that the self is not an eternal soul with permanent, intrinsic, essential properties. Instead it is a process that changes on various timescales.