Correct. Two stones can different from each other, and the causes acting on them might be different from each other. This doesn’t mean that the stones have a Self. You are saying difference is the key factor- but it isn’t.
We are all able to imagine thing- this doesn’t mean those imaginations are real. We are able to remember incidents from this life- but research shows these ‘memories’ aren’t actually accurate- they are fabrications ie ‘new’ creations from the old information, which aren’t even accurate. However this doesn’t prevent us from thinking they are accurate …as they are all we know to be true. Now past life memories - the Buddha was asked about this and he told the Bhikkhu that they are fabrications (sankhara- sutta?)- we experience them now as a new fabrication. The mere fact of being able to bring up information from the past only means that there is a flow of what I would call information or data.
Even now, in the process of perception there are data filtered through the aggregates that arise one after the next, causally. When seeing arises at the eye and fades away, consciousness arises at the eye and fades away, contact arises at at the eye and fades away, feelings arise and fade away, perception arises and fades away, intentions arise and fade away. However the initial information of the vision that arose at the eye doesn’t fade but gets passed from one factor to the next. We identify with this process as ‘I am seeing’. No I or Seer was required for this process however. No agency is required- it is automatic. ie cause and effect.
Even now there is no lasting aggregate. Therefore how can there be self even in this life (much less in past life)?
with metta
Matheesha