Quotes: Why I cannot find myself

You are composed of many things. Not one of them contains your essence. Not one can survive without the rest. It can take very little to ruin your brain and ruin you. None of your parts is your identity. You are just a pile of parts working together. “A ‘person’ is not a biological category, but a functional one” (page 118, The Ego Trick, Julian Baggini, Granta, London, 2011).

“The self is what is having – thoughts and perceptions – it is not itself a perception. Gilbert Ryle calls the ‘systematic elusiveness of I is simply a result of the impossibility of being both subject and object at the same time. The I cannot catch itself for the same kind of reason that the hunter cannot be its own prey” (ibid, page 121).

Comment: You cannot sense or find your soul.  It is madder to assume you have one than that you do not.