The Most Important Issue

body severed from you over the last ten years were to be gathered together, then another human being—identical to yourself could be constructed. If you are a hundred years old, then ten ‘yous’ could be formed which, despite their exact similarity to you in appearance, would be no more than inanimate lumps of flesh, for ‘you’ do not dwell within them. ‘You’ have abandoned these old bodies and moulded yourself into a new frame. So the saga of construction and destruction is constantly being enacted within ‘you’ without any evident change occurring. That entity which you call yourself remains as it was. If you had entered into a contract with someone ten years ago, you would continue to admit that ‘you’ committed yourself in this manner, although your previous frame is now non-existent. Neither the hands, which signed the contract papers, nor the tongue which testified to it, are any longer attached to your body. Nevertheless ‘you’ still exist, and ‘you’ acknowledge the fact that this ten-year old contract was your own and continue