 There is, for Vasubandhu, no acceptable explanation of conceptual constructs as real entities. His exclusive dichotomy (real &amp; causal vs. unreal &amp; conceptual) serves not only as a tool for refusing a separate self, but also as a method of denying apparent subject/object relations or apparent substance/quality relations, and translating them into linear, causal series. For instance, he says that objects of awareness do not exist as causally significant entities distinct from consciousness; rather, consciousness is caused by its apparent objects, from which it takes on a particular shape (ākāra). This is how Vasubandhu resolves some of the standard challenges to the no-self view, such as the question of how experience can exist without an experiencer. The answer is that any given awareness only appears to be made up of two parts, subject and object, a “cognizer” acting upon a cognitive object. In reality, any given moment of awareness consists in a full, constructed appearance of subject/object duality without there actually being any separate subject. The object is an aspect or shape of the consciousness itself. Similarly, when asked with regard to memory “who” remembers if not the self, Vasubandhu rejects the subject/object structure. What is really occurring is only a series of discrete elements in the continuum of aggregates, which arise successively, causally linked to one another. The reason I remember my past is because my aggregates now are the causal result of the past aggregates whose actions I remember. My consciousness today arises with the shape of my past aggregates imprinted upon it.