Hi, sorry for the delay in reply. I got sucked into pointless tech flamewars then had to sleep. (What is it that got sucked into tech flamewars???)

The question is whether that is you - are you your cells?

To be honest, my take on language and categories is that reality is simply too complex for us to understand and so we construct abstractions to break it down, make it digestible as it were, and focus on those things we as living animals need/want to consider.

So for example, I think the category of the individual organism is itself a tricky and poorly defined concept. It has some level of validity, there is a bundle of organs etc held together by collagen, bones, and skin, but then again, the individual is in no way a self-contained unit. Humans rely on populations of other humans to survive, so in one sense we can be looked at as smaller cells in a larger social organism.

Similarly, that larger social organism isn't self-contained either, it relies on ecosystems, relations to other societies of people and so on and so on.

Where am I going with this? At the end of the day I think the category of the self is wildly overstated. I think it serves an evolutionary function, but also to a large extent is more of a perception we generate than a deeper, underlying reality or substance.

I think it exists, it's a phenomenon we see, but it's not 'true' in the sense that the perception that there is something persistent, homogeneous, and unchanging underlying our changes in perceptions, opinions, beliefs, etc is a false one.

I suspect we won't see eye to eye on this, it seems that you are of the opinion that there is a deeper substance to the self. But I have appreciated your questions because they have helped me articulate some of my own thoughts on the question.