Enduring Self Essay

Is there an enduring self? My answer to this question would be yes. It is my belief that the enduring self is our mind or brain. No matter the location of a mind, or how its state may become degraded, the mind is still itself in essence, and it is the culmination of who we are and our body is the vessel by which we express the enduring self.

In Dennett’s piece, Where Am I, he ponders who he is and arrives at the answer that he is wherever he thinks that he is. With this answer, after a mishap separates his connection between his brain and his body, he believes that he, at some point has merely become a brain in a vat. Once his connection is lost with his body, he perceives that he is now only his brain, which is currently floating in a vat. As he thinks that this is where he is, his perceptions follow. I believe that at this point we reach the

The counter argument would be that if the mind is the collection of memories that makes our personality who we are then we aren’t ourselves when we can’t recall these memories. My response to that is that whether we adapt in a positive way, or through deterioration, our mind is still the same mind, just in an altered state. For instance, if I crashed my car, the appearance may be different but the scraps of metal that remain are still my car, just in a different state. If I have a glass and it falls of a table and shatters, it is still a glass. Now the glass is just broken. No matter the state, or degradation that occurs, our mind is still our mind, in any and every state of change. As individuals claim to grow and change continually, this occurs simultaneously and as a result of the changes that take place within the mind. Without the brain sending signals and impulses and directing hormonal changes, none of the changes that we see resulting in our physical body or vessel would