We’re All Ghosts Haunting Our Bodies
Why the conscious self is estranged from the physical universe
- “When this body contained a spirit, a kingdom for it was too small a bound; but now two paces of the vilest earth is room enough.” — William Shakespeare, “Henry IV Part 1”
The most precious thing we know of, our conscious self, is literally nowhere to be found. This isn’t because we don’t exist; instead, we’re not things at all so we can’t be pinpointed in space or time.
True, our self is generated somehow by our brain, and our brain is a thing, so it exists here and now. But the brain is also the most mysterious of vaults, locking its mind behind the impenetrable screen that philosophers call the veil of “qualia.”
The aging self has been compared to a bottle of wine, in that each grows for years in a sealed container. But the analogy is limited because you could pour one bottle’s contents into another bottle, whereas this can’t be done as fully with minds.
Sure, we can use language to communicate, so we can have an inkling of what someone else is thinking or feeling. But no one can experience someone else’s mental states firsthand.
