“To put the question another way, is the brain all there is to us, a fantastically clever machine that creates a mind, which in turn creates an illusory sense of an independent self, which then collapses when the brain itself starts to die? Or is there such a thing as a separate selfhood, a secret core of self which I imagine as a glossy pearl, existing separately and staying safe from the most violent assaults on the body and of the body?”
Book:Where Memories Go