What is the mind / soul? What is its nature? (3)

What are you as a human? (part 6)

There’s a classic comedy sketch from ‘Only Fools and Horses’ in which Trigger holds up a broom and boasts that he’s been using this same broom for 20 years and it’s still going strong. He later tells that he’s replaced the handle 14 times, and the head 17 times, but it’s still the same broom he’s been using through all that time. The audience laughs because of course it’s not the same broom at all, its 2 parts have been changed repeatedly, and there’s nothing left of the original.  

It’s a great sketch and one that’s funny because its based on a truth that we know intuitively - to do with an entity’s ‘identity persistence over time’.

Think about the broom in the sketch and apply your intuition to something a bit more complex – a machine with a lot more parts. Take for instance a fridge. If you gradually replace the parts of the fridge – the door, the transistors, the shelves, the thermostat – every single part of the fridge over a period of time, do you still have the same fridge at the end of it? No. If anyone doubts this, all you’ve got to do is to imagine the original parts (that were replaced) being reassembled together in a separate room, and you quickly realise that the fridge with the replacement parts isn’t the same as the original.        

Continue thinking about this now in application to you as a human being. If you replaced every part of you with replacement parts over a period of time, would that person still be you at the end of that process? Actually, the science tells us that over a period of 7 years, every one of the cells in your body are replaced, as the former cells die, and new ones replace them, so if we are just a collection of parts, a set of atoms, then we are not the same person we were 8 years ago. But yet we intuitively know that you are the same person as you were 8 years ago, that that picture of you in your primary school photo is the you sitting here reading this post today, despite every single part of you having changed since that photo was taken. How can that be?             A handful of philosophers have tried to argue that actually you are not the same person through time, but really, you are a different person - at every instant of time that occurs. Intuitively, we know that that’s not right; the you who promised something 15 years ago is still bound to that commitment, you don’t make a vow one day which is nullified the next because you’re a different person that day. Or if you commit a crime, the fear of prosecution remains with you over time; you don’t think ‘that person did that crime back then, but I’m a different me now, and the person who will go to jail in 2 months time is a different person too’. No, we intuitively know that we are the same (identical) person as we were in the school photograph, and will still be that same person in old age (though hopefully growing in life experience and character through those years).   

Relatedly, whilst some use facial or personality recognition as an indicator of it being you over time, both of those are insufficient criteria – you might have a face-lift making you physically unrecognisable, or contract a brain debilitating disease that means you can’t remember anything of the past, but you are still you, the same being as you were as a child. No, with every physical part of you changing every 7 years, the best explanation for the persistence of your identity through time is that you have a core self, an essence, that is immaterial and so doesn’t change parts through time – you have a soul that underlies or ‘sub-stands’ (from where we get the word ‘substance’) all the on-going physical change of matter in your body. It is the soul that is the essential you, an immaterial / spirit substance that grounds your identity persistence over time. Whilst potentially growing or decreasing in beliefs and desires – therefore developing a character, the substance of the soul remains the same, meaning you remain you throughout your life.

Now with describing the soul as the essential you, it’s important to clarify, that ordinarily, as seen above, the normal, natural conditions and circumstances in which the soul exists is in intimate relation to the brain and body. However, if it is only the soul that remains constant, when all the neurons in the brain die and are replaced over 7 years (indeed, when all the cells in your body are replaced), then it would seem logically possible that your soul could exist without a body. It is conceivable that a soul could exist disembodied, even if this were not it’s natural or preferred condition. This brings up a range of issues which further posts might explore and alludes to some of the implications of (the existence of) the soul. But as this post draws to a close, a person’s identity persistence over time gives another reason / basis for thinking that the essential you is an immaterial soul. Along with our unity of consciousness (see previous post), our identity persistence over time makes best sense if you in your core and essence (or core and centre of consciousness) - are a spirit / immaterial soul.