Some More Biological Scientific Delusion (But actually a real question)

[julienw]

So in a recent video Leo was talking about the idea of our body cells constantly dying and replacing themselves such that if we consider ourselves as identified with the body, than I am not who I was a minute ago, and definitely not who I was a week ago or many years ago. This was interesting to hear, but there is somewhat of a snag in that logic if you look at pure neuroscience. We are always hearing about the neural pathways in our brains, and our brains and neurons as being the prime biological entity that we ought to be identified with. And of course we have heard a lot from Leo on the topic of brains.

The one little snag is this: neurons themselves are the "quintessential 'post-mitotic' cell." This means that a fully differentiated neuron does not divide or rebirth itself over the course of the rest of one's lifetime, unlike all other somatic cells in the body (as far as I know). Therefore, this is a logical/biological counterpoint to the notion that, because our cells are constantly dying and recycling themselves, we are not who we were in the past. If our neurons are an exemption to this biological phenomenon and are actually one of the only cell types that do not re-generate themselves, and only die in old age or neurological disease which coincides with the fading of our "selves" or personality, then what does that mean for the argument that we are not our bodies, especially since neurons are the main biological/neurological entity that scientists tend to identify human ego's with? 

Cheers,

Julien

Edited November 1, 2021 by julienw
added some words

[Mason Riggle]

@julienw It's still a problem, because we still can't identify as 'neural pathways' or 'neurons in the brain'... which ones are we? Some of them. All of them? We can't be all of them, because if we remove some of them (in severe cases, doctors have performed hemispherectomies, removing 1/2 of a patients brain) the 'self' remains.  

Edited November 1, 2021 by Mason Riggle