self-mutilating skepticism

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Dec 18, 2007

Stumbled upon in Bertrand Russell's What I Believe, 1925.

A drop of water is not immortal; it can be resolved into oxygen and hydrogen. If, therefore, a drop of water were to maintain that it had a quality of aqueousness which would survive its dissolution we should be inclined to be sceptical.

Oddly reasoned. I'm not sure how a rain-drop would go about projecting and communicating awareness of perduring self-consciousness in the form of a criticizable truth claim. But if it did, I'd be open to considering the claim as true.