Who Am I?

The self as a conference of difference perceived as now.

Caption: The March of Self - In homage to Rudolph Zallinger's 1965 'The March of Progress'. Courtesy of Nano Banana.

Introduction

What if the most intimate fact of your existence—your sense of self—is built on a fundamental misconception? We narrate our lives as a story unfolding across time, assuming a stable 'I' that journeys from past to future. But a groundbreaking model of time itself is pulling the rug out from under this timeline. The Conference of Difference (CoD) model reveals past and future not as real dimensions, but as a conference of difference, perceived as present-moment activities, of recollection and prediction. If time is a compelling illusion, what becomes of the self that seems to inhabit it? This article argues that the self cannot be a substance enduring through time. Instead, building on the CoD model, we will explore a radical redefinition: the self is the ongoing activity of the conference of difference perceived as 'now'—the dynamic process of generating a coherent 'I' by binding together recalled snapshots and projected possibilities. This resolves classical paradoxes by grounding identity not in persistence, but in the conference of difference we preceive as now.^[1]

Classical positions and their temporal baggage

Philosophy's long struggle with personal identity has often been a hidden struggle with the nature of time.

The ancient and medieval concept of the Substantialist Soul posits an immutable essence that persists unchanged from childhood to old age.^[2] Its critical weakness is its silent assumption: time as a passive container. The CoD model dismantles this container by revealing both spatiality and temporality to be abstractions of reality and thus non-existent in and of themselves.^[3]

The Enlightenment, through John Locke, offered a more psychological take. Lockean Psychological Continuity tethers identity to the chain of memory linking your present consciousness to past experiences. This feels intuitive, but it relies on a direct link to a real, accessible past. The CoD model challenges this at its root. You do not reach back to touch a past event; you reconstruct a narrative of it in the conference of difference that you perceive to be 'now'.^[4]

The Bundle Theory of David Hume delivered a radical blow, deconstructing the self into a 'bundle of perceptions' in constant flux. This gets us closer by focusing on immediate impressions. Yet, it often still implies a sequential flow of these perceptions. The CoD model radicalizes this: the bundle is not strewn across time, but bound together in the conference of difference perceived as 'now'. The coherence is achieved in the CoD perceived as 'now', not an historical legacy.

The most sophisticated modern version, the Narrative Self, posits that we are the stories we tell about ourselves. The CoD model agrees that the self is a construction, but rejects the idea that this story needs an existent timeline to unfold upon. Instead, the timeline is part of the construction—a tool the mind uses to structure its sense of a continuous self. The CoD model insists the narrative is generated entirely in the present, using 'time' as its primary literary device—a set of concepts and recollections—not an existent reality. The story is told now, not across time.

Current flashpoints reframed

When viewed through the CoD lens, modern philosophical puzzles about identity reveal their outdated temporal assumptions.

The thought exercise often referred to as the Problem of Fission is frequently cited as a profound challenge to psychological continuity theories. In this highly contrived scenario, a person (Alex) undergoes a procedure where the brain is divided, and each hemisphere is transplanted, resulting in two people (Lefty and Righty), each possessing full psychological continuity with the original Alex. The question follows: which one is the real Alex? The psychological approach seems to affirm both—creating a logical contradiction.

The CoD model sidesteps this entire mess by rejecting the premise that there is a single 'Alex' to be found at the end. It states that the unique, unified conference of difference that was Alex has ceased, and two new, distinct conferences of difference have begun, each with a valid (but newly forged) perception of being the continuation of the prior pattern—Alex. The question 'Which one is really Alex?' is revealed as meaningless, like asking which fork of a river is really the original stream.

The tension between the intuition of a singular, authentic self and the evidence of internal multiplicity arises from searching for a single, unified entity over time. The CoD model resolves this by seeing the self as a complex conference of difference that can host multiple, even contradictory, recollection-prediction patterns simultaneously. The conflict is not between past and future selves, but between different narrative strands vying for attention in the CoD perceived as the present.

Even the role of the body is transformed. It is not a vessel traveling through time. Instead, it is the primary, physical locus of the conference of difference perceived as 'now'—the site where recollection (e.g., cellular memory, scars) and prediction (e.g., physiological anticipation) are most intensely integrated and manifested. In this light, the body and the self are not two things, but an interdependently realizing conference of difference.

The CoD model: the self as a conference of difference

This model, directly informed by the ontological framework of the Gospel of Being, offers a positive theory of the self. The Gospel's process primative of existence is not a distant abstraction but a universally observable reality:

All existence is a conference of difference, a ‘condition of bearing together’ transforming the ‘condition of bearing apart’.^[5]

A chair is a conference of difference of wood, nails, and cloth. A mind is a conference of difference of sensations, thoughts, and memories. An electron is a conference of difference of mass, charge, and spin—a stable knot of properties emerging from the dynamic interplay of quantum fields. In the same way, the self is not an entity in the CoD model; it is the conference of difference creating what is sensed as a stable 'I'.

The self as conference of difference

The sense of self manifests in the conference of difference we perceive as 'now'. In the CoD sensed as 'now' we weave together our recollections of past, sometimes linking them together to inform the next action towards some anticipated future.

This sense of temporal binding is an illusion but crucial to structuring (patterning) our sense of existence. You are not recalling your past; you are compiling some version of it via the conference of difference you sense as the 'present'.^[6]

No time-traveling ego

The profound feeling of a continuous 'I' is not evidence of a persisting substance. It is the phenomenological quality of a conference of difference that successfully maintains a coherent narrative from one moment to the next. The 'I' is a 'rumor of coherence' within the conference of difference perceived as the 'present' not a passenger moving through it. ^[7]

Identity as fidelity to a pattern

Consequently, personal identity is not sameness over time, but the fidelity of the conference of difference perceived as 'now' to a specific, sustained pattern of self-construction. Your character is your characteristic way of binding. Profound change—through growth, trauma, or grace—is the CoD altering its core relationship to its recollections and predictions, adopting a new binding pattern.

Death as the end of a binding pattern

From this vantage, biological death is not the end of a timeline of self, but the decoherence of the intrinsic construction of self. The unique conference of difference that generated the 'rumor of coherence' perceived as 'I' dissolves.

Yet, a different kind of persistence remains. The pattern of that former CoD does not vanish; it is released to participate in new conferences of difference. Our feats, our art, our acts of care, our ideas—and most directly, the memories others hold of us—become stable and woven into the ongoing conference of difference of others. In this way, we achieve a form of immortality: not as a continuing 'I,' but as a sustained pattern within the boundless, interwoven conference of difference that constitutes the world. This reflects the Gospel of Being's vision where a being is 'a voice transforming from one chorus to another'.^[8] Thus existence is always transformed not annihilated.

Convergence and divergence

The CoD model enters a fertile dialogue with other theories, converging on key insights but diverging on the fundamental ground of a linear timeline.

Convergence with Constructivist Theories

The model finds strong agreement with bundle and narrative theories, embracing the core insight that the self is constructed, not given. It affirms that identity is a process of synthesis and storytelling.

Divergence on the Stage of Construction

The radical divergence lies in the removal of an existent timeline. For CoD, the bundle is bound in the CoD we call 'now'; the narrative unfolds in the CoD we call 'now'. The materials it uses (‘past,’ ‘future’) are present-moment tools and constructs, not existent dimensions. This provides a cleaner ontological account of coherence without needing to invoke a linear container of time.

The Ship of Theseus Through the Lens of the CoD

This clarifies classic puzzles like the Ship of Theseus. The paradox asks: if all the planks of a ship are replaced, is it the same ship? The CoD model reframes this entirely. It is not about a single entity enduring through change, but about the fidelity of the conference of difference to a specific binding pattern.

The 'ship' is the ongoing conference of difference (the planks, their arrangement, their function, their history-as-recollected-now). As planks are replaced, the conference maintains a high degree of pattern fidelity. We perceive it as the 'same' ship because the CoD works to bind the current planks to the narrative of being 'The Ship of Theseus'. If the old planks are reassembled, that creates a new conference that also binds itself to that same narrative, creating a conflict of claims not in the past, but in the CoD sensed as 'present'. The CoD model dissolves the metaphysical problem into a question of narrative binding and pattern recognition within the conference of difference perceived as 'now'.

Alignment and Advance on the Metaphysical Challenge

The alignment with the Buddhist concept of Anattā (No-Self) and modern skeptical views like those of Daniel Dennett, who describes the self as a 'center of narrative gravity', is profound. All three views decisively deny a permanent, unchanging self (a soul or a Cartesian ego) and see the sense of 'I' as an interdependent, conventional construct.

However, the CoD model offers a crucial advance. While these views often stop at deconstruction, the CoD model, informed by the Gospel of Being, provides a positive ontological description of the constructing process—the 'narrative synthesis' of the conference of difference. It answers the question, 'If it's not a self, what is it?' by pointing to the process primative that is the conference of difference itself.

What Matters in Survival? An Ethical Corollary

This reframing triggers a profound shift in the fundamental question, mirroring one in modern philosophy. We stop asking, 'Will the very same self persist?'—a question of numerical identity that the CoD model reveals as incoherent. Instead, the CoD asks the more fundamental question: 'What is it that we actually care about preserving when we think about our survival?'

The CoD model's answer shifts the goal of survival from persistence of the 'I' to its legacy of its ethic: 'character'. What matters is not the endurance of the metaphysical 'I,' but the sculpting of a coherent and enduring pattern that informs the conference of difference of others—a 'character' forged through our actions, works and relationships. Hence, our 'immortality' lies not in the enduring 'I' but that which we contribute to the CoD of others.

Conclusion

When a pattern is etched deeply into the world, it ceases to be a mere memory and becomes an active ethical force within the ongoing conference of difference. Every being leaves a legacy—a lesson in 'character,' for good or ill. The pattern of Jesus endures as a template for compassion and sacrifice, actively bound by billions who ask, 'What would Jesus do?'. Conversely, the pattern of Hitler endures as a template for bigotry and cruelty, a dark lesson in 'what not to be.' In this framework, the only true death for a pattern is oblivion—to be so thoroughly un-bound from all other CoDs that its name is never spoken again and its example ceases to inform. Our ultimate responsibility, therefore, is to consciously sculpt an ethic: 'character' capable of enduring as a positive force in the boundless conference of difference beyond the 'I'.^[9]

The Gospel of Being

by John Mackay

A rigorous yet readable exploration of how existence functions—and how that relates to you.

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