Writing a script for one’s future self demonstrates the absence of a coherent identity.

Evidence

But in Nolan’s worlds, it is not only that we deceive ourselves; it is also that we are deceived about having a self. There is no separating identity from fiction. In Memento, Lenny literally writes (on) himself, but the very fact that he can write a script for future versions of himself is a horrifying demonstration of his lack of any coherent identity – a revelation that his Sisyphian quest both exemplifies and is in flight from. Inception leaves us with the possibility that Cobb’s quest and apparent rediscovery of his children could be a version of the same kind of loop: a Purgatorio to Memento’s Inferno. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 520

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in hauntology and self-deception; also parallels Ambedkar/Dewey material on fixed scripts versus lived experience. — connects to: The for-itself lacks a for-itself, not an in-itself, in its project of self-identification — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 373; Authenticity as full self-identity is impossible because iterability makes self-presence unattainable in principle — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 767; The for-itself is defined by self-withdrawal rather than self-identity — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1145

Broader Connections

• The for-itself lacks a for-itself, not an in-itself, in its project of self-identification #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 373
• Authenticity as full self-identity is impossible because iterability makes self-presence unattainable in principle #corroborates (0.85) — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 767
• The for-itself is defined by self-withdrawal rather than self-identity #corroborates (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1145