A Subjective and Objective Denial of the Self

The self poses philosophical problems and distorts our view of reality.

It feels as though we’re subjects experiencing an objective world. This is the feeling ‘I’ at the centre of our being: that which experiences the world, our thoughts, our bodies, and so on. The self affects the world and is affected by the world, but it is not the world.

However, our subjective experience and the objective facts of science and materialism leave no space for a self separate from the rest of the world – at least not in the way we imagine. 

In this article, I’ll explain how both subjective and objective facts challenge our most fundamental assumption: that we’re separate selves experiencing an objective world.

The article is informed by Jay Garfield’s conversation with Sam Harris in the Waking Up app, which you should listen to if you want to learn more.

An objective denial of the self

From a purely scientific or materialist perspective, the idea of a self separate from the rest of the physical universe makes no sense. 

In physics, there’s just the physical universe, of which we’re another expression. We’re materially inseparable from the physical world, exchanging matter and energy with it all the time. The boundary between us and the physical world is fluid, and the atoms and molecules that make up our bodies are in constant exchange with the external world.

Consciousness and the experience of feeling like a self may emerge from prior material conditions, but they’re not separate from the world in the way that subject-object dualism makes them feel.

From an objective standpoint, the self is not fundamentally separate from the rest of the objective world.

Interdependence or dependent origination

In Buddhism, this idea of non-separateness and interconnection is most pronounced in the teachings of interdependence and dependent origination.

All things that arise do so as a result of prior causes, and are inseparable from the rest of the world.

Related teachings like anatta (non-self) and sunyata (emptiness) state that, as all phenomena depend on other phenomena, they have no intrinsic existence or ‘self’.

It’s easy to see how this functions at the level of physics or biology, but we’re also inseparably embedded in a social and cultural matrix. We emerge out of this world as artefacts of it – not separate entities experiencing it objectively.

Ultimately, what we experience as a self isn’t separate from the rest of the world. We’re biological organisms in a causally determined universe, and failing to recognise this alienates us.

A subjective denial of the self

The self is often considered the pure subject: that which knows the world objectively but is separate from it.

From the purely subjective view, the fact that you’re aware of physical or mental phenomena means that they must be objects. If there’s a subject-object duality, anything experienced must belong on the object side.

But when you meditate or bring attention to your subjective experience, you recognise that the feeling of being a self is just another object in awareness. If it wasn’t an object, you’d never know it was there, for it has to be an object for it to be experienced.

That which is aware – the subject – must be prior to the feeling of being a self and not implicated in it. When the object disappears, the feeling of being a self disappears.

Everything, including the feeling of being a self, appears in a condition that’s aware. This condition doesn’t feel like a self because it’s inherently formless, and to feel like a self it must have a form.

Meditation is the practice of recognising the inherent selflessness of your subjectivity – the key insight of Buddhist and nondual teachings.