What about the self as everything that arises in all the aggregates? I don't want to spoil the punch line, but Nagarjuna refutes this as well:
If the self were the aggregates,
It would be something that arises and ceases.
If the self were something other than the aggregates,
It would not have the aggregates' characteristics.
If we are convinced that the aggregates constantly arise and cease, then the self couldn't be the aggregates. We experience the self as something continuous that doesn't arise and cease. Since the aggregates speak to everything in conditioned experience, the self couldn't be outside of the aggregates. Clearly, the potency of this argument will be driven by the depth to which we are convinced that the aggregates account for everything and indeed arise and cease.
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