Object self

Object self names the endoself from the outside, by what the membrane does rather than by where the anima comes from. The two terms describe one condition, and the pairing is useful because each highlights something the other does not. Endoself points at supply, a predator who can only exist through acquisition of secondary anima. Object self points at boundary, a membrane difficult to penetrate or create connections through, which is what makes the self object-like rather than network-like. The contrast is with the interaction self, the true self composed of networks of interactions. Where a self is constituted by its connections, closing the membrane does not protect it but replaces it with something else. Marsh describes the result precisely. The object self is left with no perception of who they are outside of what is reflected back at them, a reflection increasingly created and controlled by themselves, so effort that would formerly have gone into relationships goes into managing the reflection instead. That is why the condition is self-sealing. Consumption of secondary anima creates a form that consumes instead of connecting, and life energy which would expand outward is inverted and used to overpower and consume anima sources. The mortality claim follows from the same structure. An interaction self persists because its interactions remain in the spacetime where they occurred, and an object self has fewer of those and depends on a reflection that ends, which is why Marsh calls the endoself mortal and the exoself immortal.

Self-objectification theory in psychology, following Fredrickson and Roberts, studies people adopting an observer's view of themselves and links it to measurable harms, which is very close to Marsh's description of a self perceiving itself only through reflection. Narcissism research describes the dependence on external validation and the fragility underneath it. Sartre's being-for-others and Cooley's looking-glass self both concern the self constituted through being seen. Marsh's account differs by making the reflection self-produced in the developed case, since the object self increasingly creates and controls the reflection it depends on, which is a closed loop rather than a dependence on other people.