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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You wrote :

« You are what you are, neither a body nor a soul. While I have no evidence for the existence of souls, you need no evidence to know yourself (nor could any evidence help there) »
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You may be right, Yuyutsu, but I see no reason to believe that I am anything other than a mammal of the homo sapiens species, commonly known as human beings.

As biologists have established that no two human beings - not even monozygotic twins - are genetically identical, it seems that, like everybody else on this earth (whether past, present or, perhaps even, future) I am unique.

I am me and nobody else - and nobody else (for what little time is left for me to live) can be me. And because, as you rightly point out, neither you nor anybody else has any evidence of the existence of “souls”, I consider that I am limited to my physical body.

René Descartes did not live long enough to benefit from the scientific discoveries in the domain of genetics. His “cogito, ergo sum” was the best he could do with the meagre tools at his disposal at the time.

Apart from genetics, the best evidence I can find for my existence as an individual is the perception I have of myself (my self-awareness), through my multiple sense system and my ability to command my own thoughts and actions without, or despite of, any outside influence. In other words, my ability to exercise “free will” (or my degree of autonomy).

I understand that I inherited these faculties as a single, distinctive cog in the wheel of life as it turns in “perpetual motion”. The function I exercise as such is to nudge the wheel on to the next cog (my offspring) who relay it on to the next generation, and so on ...

(Continued ...)

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(Continued ...)

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As the wheel progresses, the cogs evolve. They become more efficient, gain in autonomy and last longer. Perhaps there will come a time when they are able to transform the wheel to their advantage, harnessing it with a conveyor belt in order to rotate supplementary life wheels in favourably locations elsewhere in the cosmos.

So, while I regard religion and deity as things of the past, no longer capable of providing a satisfactory explanation of anything, I do my best to understand the true nature of mankind, without concession nor illusion, and to trace his trajectory into the future, with the tools of today, as far as my imagination will allow – which, much to my regret, I must confess, has so far proven to be neither terribly inventive nor, for that matter, of any great vision.

That's life, I guess, and that's about the best I can do.

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Dear Banjo,

There is a difference between self-awareness and sense-perception. Whatever you perceive through your senses, you can tell that it exists and you can even tell that you are able to influence its movements, but you cannot tell that it is you. The same could be said about your car.

I assume that you once were a baby.
Then a toddler, then a small boy, then a big boy, then a youth, then a young adult, an adult, a mature adult, and an old man.

Throughout, that body has changed, that brain has also changed and science tells us that not a single atom remains in it for longer than 7 years.

If you were a body, then would it be the baby-body or the old-man body? I assume that you consider both to be the same you, you call them all "me", so which of them is the real "me"? Who is the one who once was not yet born, once was a baby, once was an old man and once will be dead?

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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« Whatever you perceive through your senses, you can tell that it exists and you can even tell that you are able to influence its movements, but you cannot tell that it is you »
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I certainly can, Yuyutsu.

When I feel pain, I know it’s me who feels the pain, not somebody else. When I am happy or angry or sad and lonely, I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever who it is who is happy or angry or sad and lonely. When I fall in love I know it’s me who falls in love, not somebody else. When I am ill I know it’s me who is ill, not somebody else.

When I play tennis, when I swim, when I was young and used to box, when I raced, when I won or lost, I knew who it was who won and who lost. Either it was me or it was somebody else. I still have my trophies. There is no doubt it was me who won them. My name is engraved on some of them with the title, the competition and the date. They were personal experiences I shall never forget. I alone had those experiences. Nobody else.

When I passed my scholarship examination at the end of primary school just before my fourteenth birthday and came top of my class, I was absolutely thrilled. I had never been top of my class before. I knew it was me and nobody else. My teacher and my class mates all knew it was me and nobody else. They congratulated me, nobody else.

When my brother died I knew that I was the person whose brother had died. It was not the brother of somebody else who died. I still have fond, personal memories of things we did together. Nobody else could possibly know of those personal experiences. Nobody else shared them with us. There were no witnesses. There were only the two of us. I am the only one who knows about them now.

(Continued ...)

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(Continued ...)

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There is only one person in this whole wide-world who has accumulated all those experiences - and many more - and who knows about them. That person is unique, with a unique identity, a unique genome, and that person is me.

I assure you, Yuyutsu, that I exist and that it is me who is writing this post and I am willing to bet that you exist too, even though, I imagine, that Yuyutsu is the pseudonym you use on OLO and not your real name, just as Banjo Paterson is my pseudonym and not my real name.

But each of us has a unique identity, a unique genome, with unique experiences, personalities, relationships, aspirations, etc.

The fact that we can communicate with each other as we do is tangible evidence of your existence and of mine. If we can communicate with somebody else, then that somebody else also exists . If he did not, we would not be able to communicate with him.

That is the way I see it, Yuyutsu.

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Dear Banjo,

Of course, nobody denies that you are you or that you are the one who experienced whatever your experiences were, but it seems that you misunderstood the grammar of my statement:

"Whatever you perceive through your senses, you can tell that it exists and you can even tell that you are able to influence its movements, but you cannot tell that it is you."

The specific perception I was referring to was of your homo sapiens mammal body whose movements you are able to influence (just as you also can influence the movements of your car). The last 'it', like the two earlier instances of 'it', refers to the objects of your sensual experience, in this case your body, rather than to the experiencer.

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Since you raised this issue:

«So, while I regard religion and deity as things of the past, no longer capable of providing a satisfactory explanation of anything»

But religion and deities were never meant to explain anything anyway - why should they? it's like saying: "now that we have cars, horses no longer write books". Horses were used to pull carts and deities were used as attractive, uplifting objects to pull our attention away from the mundane. Horses were never intended to write books just as religion and deities were never intended to explain anything.