Final Conclusions and Reflections

Abstract

Reaching the end of the present piece of research, it is time for some final conclusions and reflections. It is also time to propose further research because it is obvious that there is a lot more to say about what it is to be a human being. I have tried to answer this big question by making several distinctions. The first distinction was between a (human) being – ens and (human) being – esse. However, this distinction does not imply any dualism, because ens and esse, it was argued, are intertwined in a most complex manner. They are part of a whole, which I coined the emergent threefold self. Where the ens (called the objective neural self) is mostly related to the neuro-physiological underpinnings of being (human), esse is twofold. On the one hand there is a part of esse (called the Subjective Neural Self, SNS) that is mostly related to the neuro-physiological underpinnings (which I called the Objective Neural Self, ONS) and it is this part of esse that correlates with neuro-physiological activity. In other words, I suggested, there is a direct mutual causation between ens (ONS) and this part of esse (SNS). However, there seems to be another part of esse (called the Subjective Transcendent Self, STS) that, while also being in some correlation with ens, also has some correlation with the subjective neural self; furthermore, this part of esse seems to embrace both the objective and subjective neural self. In other words, it transcends the two. What I chose to call the subjective transcendent self has been given a variety of names in the history of philosophy. Even up to the present day, it has not been possible to actually account for it or actually grasp it. Nevertheless, this feature or process of the self seems to be very real. Perhaps it is this process of the self that is responsible for the way humans unreflectively understand themselves as dualist.