Is there anything existing within or beyond the human body or mind that can be called I? If so, exactly where is I located?

Paul Bloom, a developmental psychologist at Yale, has evidence that human beings are "natural dualists," who believe that minds are distinct from, and can exist separately from, their bodies. He's just published a book about his findings, called Descartes' Baby . In addition to the scientific data he adduces, he points out that human beings universally tell stories about life after physical death, reincarnation, possession, and transmogrification (like Kafka's "Metamorphosis"). I'm not convinced by his research that we are dualists -- I think it's consistent with his data to conclude that we are functionalists -- that is, that we believe that psychology is an abstract feature of bodies. For one thing, most of these folk tales are equivocal about the physicality of the person: so even if it's stipulated that someone survives the death of their body, stories usually go on to attribute physical attributes to the "soul" -- souls are said to be located in particular places, they are...