Footnote to “Identity of Selves”

[1] A consequence of this is that it is in the nature of every mental state that it belongs to a single self: every mental state needs a subject, but there can only be one subject, so it is part of the essence of being a mental state that it can be instantiated by only one subject. This applies to selves existing in other galaxies too: they also must be identical to the selves that exist in our galaxy. There is actually just one self in the entire universe. For nothing differentiates one self from another no matter where it is (or where the body that houses it is). Once we abandoned the belief in many gods and replaced it with a belief in one God; we might similarly abandon the belief in many selves and replace it with a belief in one self (capitalized as Self).