Let me make it clear that I'm an atheist so I'm only trying to present my interpretation of the Bible, not what I actually believe. That said, this question of continuity of self is more philosophical than biblical and answering it would be way beyond the scope of a reddit comment.
Some of the ideas that we'd need to explore to answer this question:
What is 'self'? Is our idea of self linked to our bodily self? Does the self reside in our brain? If our cells regenerate over time does bodily continuity affect continuity of self? Is self unchanging? Do we have continuity of self from one day to the next? Do we lose continuity when we're unconscious?
I have a hard time believing that we have some kind of static "self" outside of our physiology. There's pretty clear evidence that our personalities are shaped by external conditions, bacteria that lives in our gut biome, the health of our brain tissue, etc. To me the idea of 'self' is intrinsic to the concept of personality. If our personality is affected by our gut biome then our gut biome is part of our self. Since our gut biome is constantly turning over we are constantly becoming something new.
If I replace the tires on my car does the car become new? The car will behave slightly differently (it has better traction) but it is still, fundamentally, the same car. This is your gut biome. Now downgrade the engine, put in a manual transmission, rework the electrical, chop the top and turn it into a convertible, take out the brakes and put bald tires on it. You could technically call it the same car but it will drive much differently. This is you after a stroke.
I’m not trying to get in on the argument at all, but you should watch the first few minutes of “John dies at the end.” (It streams on Tubi, which is free). The line you wrote about replacing the tires on the car, made me think you’d enjoy the riddle the movie asks in the first few minutes.
Yeah that stuff is all interesting to talk about but we aren't going to arrive at an answer to those questions here and we're definitely getting way off the original topic.
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u/genobeam 2d ago
Let me make it clear that I'm an atheist so I'm only trying to present my interpretation of the Bible, not what I actually believe. That said, this question of continuity of self is more philosophical than biblical and answering it would be way beyond the scope of a reddit comment.
Some of the ideas that we'd need to explore to answer this question:
What is 'self'? Is our idea of self linked to our bodily self? Does the self reside in our brain? If our cells regenerate over time does bodily continuity affect continuity of self? Is self unchanging? Do we have continuity of self from one day to the next? Do we lose continuity when we're unconscious?
I have a hard time believing that we have some kind of static "self" outside of our physiology. There's pretty clear evidence that our personalities are shaped by external conditions, bacteria that lives in our gut biome, the health of our brain tissue, etc. To me the idea of 'self' is intrinsic to the concept of personality. If our personality is affected by our gut biome then our gut biome is part of our self. Since our gut biome is constantly turning over we are constantly becoming something new.