1. Who am I Online?
A View from Buddhism
Soraj Hongladarom
Department of Philosophy
Chulalongkorn University
hsoraj@chula.ac.th

2. Outline

Current situation regarding the social
networking websites – their differences
and their powers – the Thai cases.

Problem of identity – of ’online’ identity –
’avatars’

The Buddhist View

Doctrine of ”Non-Self” (anātman)

’Pragmatic’ Conception of Identity

How this is related to the problem of
online identity

3. Social Networking
Sites

What differentiates social networking sites such as
Facebook and others from earlier versions of
websites is perhaps the ability for average users to
post information and to share the information
among networks of their ”friends.”

The phenomenon makes it really easy for a person
to construct her own personality or even ’identity’
which may or may not match the personality (or
identity) of the original person.

Originally Facebook is used for connecting real
friends, but now the use has changed a lot.

5. Constructing Identities

Uses of ’avatars’

In Thailand, many opt to use pseudonyms
in their FB profiles – my guess is that the
use is more prevalent than in the West.

Examples – ”เฮลั่น สนันทุ่ง” (Laughing Out
่
Loud Across the Field); ”มังกร ที่ราบสูง”
(Dragon from the Plateau) ”ไม่ผกไม่งอก ใส่
ั
ผักมาไม่กินค่ะ” (No veggie, no beansprouts.
Won’t eat it if you put the veggie.); ”ราหู”
(Rahu) ”Red Heart;” ”Red Cyber Red”

Some put in their real names but use all
sorts of pictures as their profile picts.

6. Avatars

Some avatars are just fun ways to
connect to friends, some of whom are
already known to the person, but some
are not.

Some are put to protect the person from
the stringent law against freedom of
expression in Thailand (but this is seldom
successful as authorities have a way to
identify the person behind the avatar).

7. Avatars

Those who use their real names tend to
be well known personalities, and they use
their STS accounts to promote what they
are doing.

The uses of pseudonyms and other ways
of obscuring real identities are not new in
Thailand. In many cases the pseudonyms
become better known than the person
herself.

8. Avatars

It might be helpful to look back at the origin of
avatars.

An avatar (lit. ”coming down”) is a incarnation
of a god in the body of a mortal being. This is
not exactly the same as when Zeus morphs
himself into an animal, or when the Christian
God becomes incarnated as Jesus.

When a god needs to intervene in human
affairs, he takes up a body of a mortal being so
that he can participate directly in the human
world.

9. Avatars

Thus an avatar is a projection of the identity of
the god. It’s a way for a god to be able to ’work
directly’ in another world.

If we believe that there is a separation between
this real world and the ’cyberworld’ of the
Internet, then we are sending our ’avatars’ into
the latter.

This of course has created a lot of
complications, not least of which is the legal
one of identity theft and protection of online
privacy.

10. An Avatar of Vishnu

Whenever righteousness
wanes and unrighteousness
increases I send myself forth.

In order to protect the good
and punish the wicked,

In order to make a firm
foundation for righteousness,

I come into being age after
age.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
/Avatar)

11. Metaphysics of Avatars

The existence of avatar is problematizing the
identity (-ies) of the person (-s) involved.

On the one hand, the scripture says that Vishnu
has ten major avatars – Are they all distinct?
How do we count here? What is the basis we
use for counting?

But then these questions are also there for us
who are not gods, because we also send
avatars all over the place.

12. Metaphysics of Avatars

So the basis for the identity of an avatar is that the
identity of the person (or the god) is infused in the
avatar.

But for the avatar to be an avatar, there needs to
be something else that makes up the identity of the
avatar.

So the basis is twofold.

In the case of an online identity where a strict
identity is intended (such as in online banking), the
basis of identity of the avatar consists of those
factors that are accepted to be directly related to
the person.

13. 
But where there is a looser
connection, the person can play
around with his creations more freely.

But what does this tell us?

One can also play around with one’s
”offline” identity.

14. The Buddhist
Perspective

Unlike Hinduism, Buddhism is a ’non-
theistic’ religion in that it does not
put gods in a central place.

The central doctrine in Buddhism is
the Doctrine of Emptiness.

Closely related to that is the Doctrine
of Non-Self.

15. The Buddhist
Perspective

According to Buddhism, what is known as ’the
self’ is made up of various factors.

In the same way as the car is made up of
various parts without which the car is non-
existent, so is our selves and our identities.

The Doctrine of Emptiness is that you can
analyze things this way with no end – there is
no thing such that it exists absolutely on its own
without depending on any other things.

This is the same with our normal conception of
the self.

16. Buddhism, Locke and
Kant

Hence, strictly speaking, there is no problem of
personal identity in Buddhism, because there is
ultimately no such thing as a person. This does not
mean that the person is denied, but what is
recognized as a person is always made up of
various factors.

According to Kant’s there’s the ”Transcendental
Unity of Apperception” which must be there in
order for there to be genuine knowledge. But it
does not have any basis in empirical reality.

There’s a strand of Buddhist philosophy that
mentions something like Kant’s TUA.

17. “Kant is providing a notion of a
sensorimotorily enmeshed,
dynamically coupled, agent that
interacts with its, necessarily
changing, world” (Susan Stuart 2008,
p. 261).
The TUA itself interacts with the
outside world.

18. Buddhism and Online
Identity

So the difference between Hinduism and Buddhism
is that the former believes in absolute existence of
the gods – it is the gods who create their own
avatars. But in Buddhism it’s the same either way.
Even the gods themselves are ”empty of their
inherent existence.”

In a way the gods are their own avatars.

And as we are sending avatars, we are our own
avatars too.

19. Buddhism and Online
Identity

Kant’s analysis of the self works just as well in
the online phenomenon. There must be a
”transcendental unity of apperception” that
binds up the episodes of empirical online self
identities into one coherent whole.

If subjectivity is possible online (agency of
avatar), then it is this subjectivity, this self
consciousness, that points to the
transcendental unity if there is to be a coherent
conception of online self.

20. Problem

One problem arising from this notion concerns
agency – the avatars can’t do things on their
own, but they need the person behind them to
do the work (Look at this as a puppet show.)

But Vishnu’s avatars are not puppets; they are
fully autonomous beings.

It might be a bit difficult to imagine our online
avatars doing things on their own
autonomously, but perhaps this is already
happening!

21. 
And then are we really the ones who do things
on our own?

If we believe so (which we should), then the
problem of agency of the avatar is answered by
pointing out that the agency in the avatars is
the same as our own agency. When we direct
our avatars in an online world, it is we ourselves
who do so. But this actually mean we and the
avatars are in a sense one and the same.

22. Problem

Another problem perhaps concerns the notion
of an avatar as a manifestion. Rama is a
manifestation of Vishnu, but if we are avatars,
who (or what) are we avatars of?

In the end I think we need to come to terms
with the idea that we are our own avatars. The
direction of manifestion points back to
ourselves.

As our real world identities are made up of
various factors, many of which are social (how
others view us, etc.), we are our own avatars,
and in the online world things just are the same
as in the ”real” world outside.

23. Practical Implications

Realizing that there is no hard and fast,
metaphysically objective line between the
”real” person and her avatars, one is aware that
identity is constructed through and through.
Thus in matters such as privacy and legal status
of online identity, the connection is more a
matter or ”how much” we feel that we need to
protect our online persona for what purposes at
hand rather than searching for some kind of
objective basis.

24. Thank you!
http://www.facebook.com/soraj