agreed
I think memory, and body are definitely the most important keys to the self.
Even if you have a problem where your memory keeps getting skewed up bad all the time, so you remember being in the store yesterday one moment, and the next you remember yesterday you were a soldier in the southeast camping in the rain, as long as you have a memory, true or false, at one moment, you can define your “self” based on that.
And if you wake up with no memory, you’d really have no way of thinking what your personality is. It just works out in the present or is based on your past memories. In this case, you look down at your hands and legs and torso, and you realize…that’s me. self.
To the onlooker, I’d think a body is important for them to sort of have a reference for your “self”. And it’s all about their memory of you that makes your “self” to them.
I’d say we are all perpetually walking down a path of time, walking backwards. All we can see is the past. All we can be in is the present but we can never quite see the present. We can look down at our body and see ourselves walking. And we can never see the what’s ahead.
I’m more and more inclined to believe that we can never truly uncover what ‘me’ is.
For me it is a bit like a Rolf Harris drawing, where he starts with a series of lines, and as he draws more it becomes apparent what the picture is. However unlike Rolf’s drawings, for us, the beginnings of the picture fade and dissapear. No one could assert they can fully remember and visualise all that has happened to them in their life. Some memories persist, but even these are falliable. Indeed all we can see in the drawing of ‘me’ is the current perceptions. By the time the drawing is complete, we have no idea what the beginning was like. We can never experience the whole picture.
Is personal identity then, a trap we fall into from a very early age, from which we cannot escape? Indeed the mind as it develops asserts the existence of ‘me’, to explain the similarity of its experiences.
Can personal identity be innate? Are we born with a sense of ‘me’? I can’t see how we can be.
We accept the false notion and the world is explained in terms of continued identity, for to not accept it, would involve re-wiring of the mind, that may not even be possible.
A “self” is a construct, just as a “thing” is a construct. Things and selves don’t in fact exist in isolation, and they never persist. Things and selves don’t have essences, we impute their essences.
The self persists through time in a series of memories along with whatever current perception that exists at the time.
( Although memories change over time oddly enough where they do not remain the same upon the original time of obtaining them.)
Xunzian once convinced me a long time ago, that the ‘self’ is our relationships, and it is through our relationships that we persist through time.
why ? why would the self be solely based on relationships
The question is… why would you care to define “self” if not for the sake of others?
explain further
The self does persist through time but it is also in a constant state of flux or motion
That is to say that it is never the same at any two points in time for nothing truly is
When the self dies then it is no more a conscious entity although it may survive in part within the memories of others
But any memory of a self is not the same as the actual self as such so is therefore less real than the being it relates to
The self is three fold: concept, image, role.
Most people see themself as someone distinct from others, some run away from such distinction and get involved in group activity as much as possible and after all that develop a concept of who they are on basis of how they see themselves, then use a mirroring technique to show everyone that they are acting in accordance to other’s view of them, so that they can see them being active in promoting this image of acting as such.
Nothing else remains but some memory of how to go through this routine, and if it is unique in some sense and has a mind of lasting effect, others will try it.
The soul, that, which comes about because of the eternal vibrations evoking both sight and sound, does so in all combinations both gross and subtle, and are probably akin in being prone to the gravitational forces, that prescribe cognitive arrangements, from indistinguishable to unique formations.
That these persist through time, is probable proof positive through the various studies that have been done on unexplained phenomenon, that include both philosophical and psychological demonstration .
It is arguable , therefore that such are proof of the validity of the supposition implicit in the theme of this forum.
The soul self persists infinitely.
Aquinas calls it the wendyus actus essendi, and it is that which gives to the essence of a Wendy, its existence.
The soul 
That unfalsifiable nebulous hand-wavey concept that seems just so convenient when you’re introduced to it as a child until you think about it for just a minute 
The self equally defies all precise definition - so engrained in our grammar that “selves” don’t stop to consider how any source of thoughts infinitely retreats from the possibility of being thought about - to the point of impossibility.
What this guy says makes far too much sense after a minute of thinking past its seeming counter-intuitiveness:
And then what Mad Man P quips about valuing “the self” being only for the sake of others - that hits the nail on the head.
Like all words and concepts, they develop socially, and only within a social context. There’s no need to think in words if not to communicate them to others, so without others they don’t develop. It’s only with an audience that the need arises to distinguish the communicator from the recipient, and thus “selves” arise functionally rather than ontologically.
Except.
If, it returns, again,
And again through this and other universes, on basis of accumulated world experience, as apparently a new field?
But appearances are so full of misgivings, and ingmfinite genetic mutation down the ages can make a difference, as it is equally valid to say: how can an apparently unique being arise out of the mass oh creation-of an intangible indifference that appears to narrow the gap between a final and human through the functional deconstruction that begs it’s own question? ( to be or not…)
If all things are considered, this question should sedate all cynics who are waiting for AI to self replicate, and godlike offer the key to this problem, but then, the only proof of autonomous identity will hang on simulation. That ‘they’ will think may be a general description , transcending space time.
Experientialism actually solves the mystery of the self.
Given what I said about “any source of thoughts infinitely retreats from the possibility of being thought about - to the point of impossibility”, the ontological existence of the subject undoes itself, giving way only to the absolute existence of the object, unsplit: better known as Continuous Experience. The artificial dissection of Continuous Experience into subject (self) and object (other) gives rise only to “functional existence” for the purposes of utility - founded on a fundamental error like all discrete experiences. Self is merely “useful”, even if in truth it does not exist - any existence attributed to it is purely for practical purposes as with all discrete experiences.
So the thread’s question, as with all questions, is answered by first clarifying within what flavour of experience the question is intended to be framed. Continuous or discrete?
In the context of the former, the answer is an absolute “no”, and in the context of the latter, the answer is a relative “yes”.
Silhuette said,
“Given what I said about “any source of thoughts infinitely retreats from the possibility of being thought about - to the point of impossibility”, the ontological existence of the subject undoes itself, giving way only to the absolute existence of the object, unsplit: better known as Continuous Experience. The artificial dissection of Continuous Experience into subject (self) and object (other) gives rise only to “functional existence” for the purposes of utility - founded on a fundamental error like all discrete experiences. Self is merely “useful”, even if in truth it does not exist - any existence attributed to it is purely for practical purposes as with all discrete experiences.”
{Utility for what>whom? That does not lead to a reduction to absurdum.
And neither to the supposition of absolute transference of matter into energy.
Teleology is stumped by cosmological fallacy, in the case.of black holes transferring matter .at the Schwartzchild limit, it is spewed back and not totally transferred.
At the metaphysical level the same may react , in principally a like manner of not demonstrating another type of effect, and that too makes sense in light of the latest finding in anthropic principals of quantum physics .
I will try to dig up the latest research done on that.
Why should methodology differ quantum/epistologocal assumptions?
Above and below limits similar effects should be observed. In cosmology, and quantum physics , not only is increasing capacity of observation change the object.of observation, but that object may not even exist. Light coming from thousands of light years away, are as in an uncertain position as the smallest of particles observed, and there is some unobserved equivalency between them
Heretofore, a constant was assigned to the consistency of the velocity of light, but that has changed as well.}
{ Functional variables change as well, with the use of required specificity
The self persists but its shape changes – even when a person dies. Schopenhauer’s corpse is Schopenhauer’s corpse, it’s not a corpse that belongs to someone else, or even worse, to noone.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
The question is answered by answering the following question:
What’s the meaning of the term “Ship of Theseus”?
Obviously, it has to be the ship sailed by the hero Theseus but to what extent? This is answered by the meaning of the term “Ship of Theseus” (the existing one or the extended one) and nothing else.
If the term “Ship of Theseus” refers to a ship sailed by Theseus at some specific point in time, e.g. on the first day of the year 800 BC at 13:00AM precisely, then what Theseus sailed a millisecond earlier as well as a millisecond later is not the ship of Theseus. But that’s not what the term means, right?
The problem is either that we don’t know what the term “Ship of Theseus” means or that the meaning of the term is not closed (i.e. that for certain things it is not yet determined whether they can be represented by that term or not.)
Relevant ILP thread:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=185979
The physical self, as Magnus says, is a hammer->new-shaft->new-head->same hammer…? problem, ie. strictly materially no, symbolically, as in ‘this is my body’, yes.
The more ethereal ‘self’ hmm. Perhaps yes, as a recurrent theme embedded in a piece of music. However, anaesthesia. That’s a real stop button. Utterly lost time, as compared to the awareness of time passed during sleep upon awakening. However as we do regain consciousness aware that we are still ourselves and no other, something must have persisted throughout that dead time. Scary conclusion, our ‘self’ and our ‘consciousness’ are not the same thing.
The venerable impenitent says “are you the same as you were 5 years ago…?” And yes, parts of us are. Values, loves, likes etc. There is continuity.