So far, the vast majority of thinking about what we are as persons has been an attempt at
description. I think we now have a fairly comprehensive understanding of what we are. You and I are
what our bodies and brains do. There is no pearl sitting at the core of our selves, we are rather
bundles of psychosomatic activity, albeit highly organised and remarkably stable ones. We are not
illusions but we are not what we most obviously appear to be either. The picture may not be entirely
complete and some questions remain, but more than two millennia of philosophy, a century of modern
psychology and fifty years of neuroscience have given us a clear enough picture of what it means to
be a person.
description. I think we now have a fairly comprehensive understanding of what we are. You and I are
what our bodies and brains do. There is no pearl sitting at the core of our selves, we are rather
bundles of psychosomatic activity, albeit highly organised and remarkably stable ones. We are not
illusions but we are not what we most obviously appear to be either. The picture may not be entirely
complete and some questions remain, but more than two millennia of philosophy, a century of modern
psychology and fifty years of neuroscience have given us a clear enough picture of what it means to
be a person.
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