Well, as I said, I think just all comes down to how you define 'the self'.
If you define it as your personality, and your personality completely changes after the accident...then what you defined as 'the self' has gone and therefore you lost your 'self' and so in that sense 'you' did indeed 'die'.
However, if you define your 'self' as your body plus your mind (or rather, as a materialist - the part of your body that is your brain and contains all your personality, and not just your personality/brain), then by that definiton your 'self' didn't die, just the part of your 'self' (the part of 'you') that was your personality died.
Untill you clearly define what you mean by 'self', I don't see how the question can be answered. And once you've defined it, I expect the answer would be something like the above.
Thoughts?
EvF
If you define it as your personality, and your personality completely changes after the accident...then what you defined as 'the self' has gone and therefore you lost your 'self' and so in that sense 'you' did indeed 'die'.
However, if you define your 'self' as your body plus your mind (or rather, as a materialist - the part of your body that is your brain and contains all your personality, and not just your personality/brain), then by that definiton your 'self' didn't die, just the part of your 'self' (the part of 'you') that was your personality died.
Untill you clearly define what you mean by 'self', I don't see how the question can be answered. And once you've defined it, I expect the answer would be something like the above.
Thoughts?
EvF
