I'm not debating the argument that people unable to breathe / have a beating heart are required to be on life support, everyone's going to die one day.
I don't believe you can slowly come into existence without one time having to not exist at all, so at what stage do you think you came into existence inside a specific human body?
I believe that if a baby was born and raised in isolation, it would never "come into existence" the way you're talking about.
Although ethics prevent us from testing this hypothesis through experimention using an actual human subject, I don't think you'd find many psychologists, psychiatrists, or behavioralists who would disagree with this hypothesis.
It is also borne out by rare historical cases of "feral children", children who have survived being abandoned or lost in the wild, as well as by a girl named "Genie", discovered in California in 1970, who had spent her entire life confined in one room, tied to a chair, isolated from all human contact.
Feral Children: case studies
Genie: confined child
These children (or adolescents, or adults) are truly feral; they have no understanding of themselves as human beings, or in relation to other human beings, and no capacity to understand these things; they have no language, and no (or extremely limited) capacity to develop language. Although scientists have had great interest in these cases and made every attempt to rehabilitate, teach, or train these subjects, they've had no real success; it seems there's a window of opportunity for developing human cognitive functioning (this would be before about age five), and for these unfortunate children, that opportunity had passed. Despite their best efforts, scientists were
never able to teach them to talk, or to perform even the most basic human functions.
They had better luck teaching them to walk: Genie couldn't walk at all, when found (she'd been tied to a chair all her life) and she ultimately learned to walk, haltingly; feral children like the French Victor d'Aveyron or the Indian "wolf girls" Amala and Kamala walked on all fours, and although taught to walk on two legs, they were never comfortable that way, and continued to revert to their old ways of walking whenever they got the chance.
What I'm saying is, there is a developmental window of time when the brain is receptive to learning speech, and to the development of a "Self", the development of an understanding of oneself as a human, and in relation to other humans; if that opportunity is missed for whatever reason, a "Self" cannot really be inserted later.
These unfortunate children were animals. They could not be "taught" or "trained" to behave or to
think as humans any more successfully than animals can. Animals can be taught to perform tricks, to wear clothes, in some cases to walk upright... but they cannot be taught to be
people, any more than these children could.
So, yeah. Although scientists will never intentionally raise a human child in isolation in order to study the effects of isolation on the human psyche (it would be unethical and inhumane), it is clear to me that the human psyche
does develop, incrementally, over a period of years; it is largely formed by three years of age and is cemented by about age five.
Even beyond that, however, our understanding of ourselves- our concept of what it means to be a member of a gender, a race, an ethnicity, a family, a culture, a community, etc- continues to evolve and expand.
Our self-identity is not really "finished" until we are in our teens, and even in adulthood events can continue to shape and change it.
This is what I mean by "personhood". I mean "self". Psyche. Ego. id. Whatever.
The frontal lobe of the brain controls a number of advanced cognitive functions, as well as motor control. The anterior or prefrontal area is involved in impulse control, judgement, language, memory, motor function, problem solving, sexual behaviour, socialization and spontaneity. Frontal lobes assist in planning, coordinating, controlling and executing behaviour.
Our "self" is contained in our brain.
It is possible (although not particularly ethical) to surgically
remove a person's "self", while leaving their body technically alive.
All of this convinces me that one's "Self" is merely a construct; it is
not any sort of objective entity, and therefore it will- cannot possibly- not survive the death of one's corporeal body.
Although in some cases, which I have already outlined (accidents, Alzheimer's, etc), the physical body can survive the "death" of the Self, of the capacity for cognitive functioning and conscious awareness of oneself and one's surroundings.
