I discovered a label to use for the way I view consciousness and self and it is called “Bundle Theory“! For Western Society, a Scottish philosopher from the 1700s came up with the idea. This is the idea that there is phenomena and then there is the interpolation of phenomena by other phenomena with the ability to frame such phenomena as being differential due to the brain’s ability to retain memories. The observer creates the perception of the observed. This process is what we call “self”. A sense of self is the direct result of our brain’s ability to place events sequentially (which is called Personal Identity Theory and is part of Bundle Theory).

Bundle Theory is what made Ghost in the Shell, The Matrix and several other Japanese animes interesting to me. It digs right at the heart of what we think we know about experience, suffering and happiness. It shows consciousness, “reality” and the self as being what it truly is: an perception of experience. In other words, there is no ego. Mind is a process that recalls and compares any stimulus against  memory then interpolates a stimulus/thing/experience as being good, bad or indifferent based upon previous memories of the same experience thus providing the context for the experience of “self”. This is how suffering arises. This is also how happiness arises. In some ways, I think Bundle Theory is physiological equivalent to quantum theory.

Bundle Theory rejects the notion of self as well as the notion of non-self. It rejects the idea of an abiding self; rather, it states that “self” is an experience that is recreated, moment by moment.  It also rejects the idea a soul. In fact, there is the classroom discussion tool whereby the teacher asks the class:

If we had a perfect machine that never made mistakes and that could scan the entirety of you body (each body cell down to each brain cell), destroy the body and then recreate the body in a location thousands of miles away, would you do it? Yes, your physical body at the starting point would be killed, but the new one is recreated with each an every memory of you… if fact, it would be you. You would remember stepping into the transportation machine and arriving at a new place. If you feel some resistance to the idea, but are also a SciFi fan, you would probably feel better about it if I said that I was explaining the transportation machine from Star Trek. Your body is scanned, memorized, destroyed and then reassembled somewhere else.

If you are not a fan of Bundle Theory, you would feel incredibly wrong about this process because you would wonder what would happen to your soul or non-corporal essence.

Of course, I’m so totally biased.  Once western Bundle theorist were exposed to Zen in the 50s, they found out that their theory was just Buddhism LOL!