Topics Mind

Question I read an article in <i>Scientific American</i> magazine discussing the existence of parts of the brain that regulate awareness of the self. Part of the article examined the damage or destruction of these neurological pathways through diseases like Alzheimer's. If it can be scientifically shown that the self ceases to exist in some Alzheimer's patients, what is left that walks, talks, thinks, and remembers? Is it a new self or a non-self or something totally different?

Accepted:
November 1, 2005

Comments

This is a good but difficult question. The answer, I think, depends upon what you mean by a "self". (Many people, including those who believe in immaterial, unified, and potentially disembodied "souls" would not agree that the notion of a "self" is open to several different, but equally useful characterizations.) If we require for the existence of a "self" the type of cognitive integration and global powers of rational understanding and planning that sadly break down in such patients, then, when the break down has gone too far, there remains no self in this sense. Nevertheless, there remains, of course, a body with all sorts of sophisticated abilities (to walk, to speak, etc.); and for all that I've said, there may remain a soul.