Emmanuelle M.

Hermosilla August 20, 2019

Beyond Identity: A Critique Paper

Beyond Identity is an expository essay that talks about the scientific basis for

the existence of the soul. This article was published by an anonymous author on

April 20, 2019 in a website namely academichelp.net. According to this essay, the

unique personality every person has even in circumstances where one loses his or

her memory and other illnesses; the feeling old people get when they realized that

their character is eternal rather than bound by age; and, the unavoidable subjective

experiences that makes a person who he or she currently is are the scientific

evidences that there is truly a soul existing beyond our physical selves. This article is

well-written, however, the credibility is questionable, which isn’t that much of a

problem since the topic is philosophical.

In the article, Beyond Identity, the anonymous author started with an idea

where humans usually think of themselves as their body, mind, emotions, and only

often, their soul. The author, then, stated that there is now a scientific basis for the

existence of soul, and the author gave three supporting ideas. The first basis is that

there is a consistency of our personality despite neuroplasticity, an ability of the brain

to change continuously due to certain factors for example, an illness. This idea was

formed from a book, The Perpetual Now: A Story of Amnesia, Memory, and Love,

written by a science journalist, Michael Lemonick. In this book, the journalist tells the

story of Lonni Sue, an artist who suffered brain damage, and because of that she

was unable to recall her memories. Once Lemonick got to know her, he discovered

that she didn’t lose herself when she lost her memories, in fact, she retained her

personality. The second basis is the feeling or sense of self that human get that they
are not a certain age. Human’s sense of self tend to lean on the subjective feeling of

who they are in essence instead of on their age. This idea was explained by Cate

Montana, an author of the book, “Proof of the Soul”. According to her, the

phenomenon wherein people realize that their body is already old but their essence

hasn’t aged a day. This means that humans both have a physical identity and an

identity defined by our character. The third basis is composed from the fact that the

perception of every person varies because of past experiences. The reason why we

have a subjective experience still remains a mystery. It was written in “Does the Soul

Exist? Evidence Says ‘Yes’”, an article in Psychology Today, that the problem of the

soul lies in understanding the nature of self, and although the current scientific

paradigm is based on the belief that the world has an objective observer-

independent existence, real experiences suggests the opposite. The author then

briefly concluded his essay.

The topic of the article is the existence of soul and the scientific evidences

behind it. The purpose of the article is to explain and agree to the idea that each one

of us has a soul. The article was published on a website and it doesn’t really suggest

a particular kind of readership. Some of the words and terms used aren’t that known

to everyone, but the author was able to clearly explain some of the scientific terms

used. Even though the author of the article is anonymous and we can’t really identify

the authority that he/she has over the subject area, he/she was able to cite some

sources that are reliable and somewhat relatable for a specific group of people.

The author was able to write a good introduction for the topic because he/she

was able to catch the attention of the reader and at the same time mentioned the

article’s thesis; a very well structured body since it contains the further elaborated

supporting statements of the bases of the article’s thesis; and, lastly, a brief
conclusion to summarize his/her ideas. In writing the supporting statements, he/she

develop examples by citing a book that contains a story and articles providing

information about experiments and personal anecdotes to provide evidences for

his/her supporting ideas. The author also used an objective and formal voice in

writing the essay. However, the author did cite articles that use a personal and

subjective voice. The long sentences with thorough explanation on the topic and

citation on various scientific sources suggested a reasonable, authoritative, and

objective voice.

Despite all that, I still disagree with the author’s ideas. This is because I think

that the supporting ideas and sources cited containing “scientific evidence” aren’t

enough to conclude that his/her assumption is valid. I don’t recommend this work as

a credible research source because some of the sources cited were a bit personal

and contradicts the essay being a scientific one.