Who Am I After This?
What exactly is a person? Is it a mind, a body, a memory, a pattern? Is it something solid—or something we keep reassembling each day without noticing? Philosophers have offered different answers. Some say a person is the continuity of experience over time. Some say it’s a single mental state, moment by moment. Some tie it to memory. Others root it in brain function—a network of cells doing what cells do. And some suggest there may be no unified self at all, just a shifting chorus of parts that take turns speaking as “I.” I used to read these theories with detached interest. But last week, I had an accident—and now, part of my brain is gone. Now, I’m not just thinking about them—I’m living inside them.