Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle) / quote 26 of 138
Is my body essential to my identity
But is this body really essential to my identity? It seems at least possible to imagine that I might, like Gregor Samsa in the story by Kafka, wake up in a completely different body. But if the same body is not what makes me me, then what does make me me? What is the relation between my personal identity and my bodily identity? In addition to this or that particular experience, do I also have the experience of myself as a self? The dualist’s answer to these questions is swift. My body has nothing whatsoever to do with my identity. My identity consists entirely in the continuation of the same mental substance, the same soul, or res cogitans. Material objects may come and go and experiences may come and go, but my identity is guaranteed by the sameness of my mental substance, for I am identical with that substance.