Pickled Fish, Dead Greeks, and Memories

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One of my earliest memories, at least the most coherent and striking, is of me sitting on a red leather couch, my grandfather next to me, the two of us eating pickled herring from a glass dish resting between us. I was probably between three and four at the time. Hence my love of herring and couches. But, was that really me?

Every cell in my body at the moment I write this is different from the cells of that young boy eating herring with his grandpa. New brain, heart, lungs, skin, and bone. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus stated most famously that “Πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει” (Everything flows and nothing stays). This is certainly true as far as our physical bodies go, cells dying as new ones are born to replace them, but are memories physical, part of something we might term ‘soul,’ or something all together different?

Heraclitus is quoted by Plato in the Cratylus as stating we can never step into the same river twice, for the river is different, and so are we. I’m pretty sure that Heraclitus means we are temperamentally or metaphysically different here, but the concept applies to our existence at the cellular level as well. So, how do we have these memories of the distant past? My hippocampus is continually providing my brain with replacements for the cells it sloughs off. Are electrical impulses and protein combinations the complete answer, and if so, then who am I? More importantly, who are you?

Part of your personal definition must be composed of physical descriptors. Your appearance makes you visible to the eyes and your unique vocal qualities make you recognizable to the ears. But in a short amount of time, the very make-up of your physical existence will be gone, replaced by a sort of copy. But you will still be you. You will have no knowledge of your continual rebirth.

Religions and certain philosophies have given us the idea of a ‘soul’ and eternal divine nature that is not made up of physical matter. Yet even if there is a soul (and I highly doubt it exists in the dress in which it is manifested by the big monotheistic religions of our day), that does not answer the question of who you are. To disregard the physical, one then must disregard the aspects of your behavior governed by the physical, unless this behavior somehow makes an imprint on the ephemeral. Is this the case? Are you your soul and soul alone? If not, what are you when your soul remains but our physical being changes?

Other religions and philosophies turn away from the idea of an eternal aspect, putting death has the final chapter on human life. While this is certainly my own view, it does not entirely answer the question of me for me. Of course, I am perfectly fine with unanswered questions and mystery, so long as it is the type of mystery worth investigating, as opposed to the type that is supposed to keep the questioner in a state of ignorance. But sill, who am I. What is it exactly that makes me me?

And what makes you you?