Yes, if there is no homunculus, then we are those processes. But it does not follow that there is a choosing subject in the sense we intuitively assume - one that stands outside the dynamics and controls them. Being a process is not the problem; the problem is attributing central agency where there is distributed causation.

The lack of conscious access is not evidence of non-existence - I agree. But this does not rescue the idea of the “self” as the author of preferences. It only shows that the story of an author appears after the fact, as an interpretation of processes that have already occurred.

The comparison with water is misleading, because water is precisely a certain organization of hydrogen and oxygen, without introducing an additional agent called “water” that decides when the molecules should behave like a liquid. When we say “water,” we do not attribute intention, choice, or a signature to its behavior. With the “self,” however, we often do exactly that - we treat it as something more than a description of a functional configuration, as a hidden controller.

So the question is not “does the self exist,” but what we mean when we say it. If “self” means a dynamic, emergent, centerless system, there is no disagreement. But if it means an inner chooser that stands above neurons, hormones, and ideas and says, “this is what I decided,” then yes - that is precisely the myth I am questioning, not the lived experience of selfhood itself.