Tucked away in the middle of Julian Baggini’s interesting reflections on accepting how complex life can be, provoked by the animated film Inside Out (A cartoon to help us find ourselves, 28 July), is the profoundly contentious philosophical proposition that the self has nothing permanent or unchanging at its core. I don’t necessarily buy into the concept of the soul; but my sensation of “me” (passive) is very clearly and permanently present, thus late in life. And I (active) experience deep alarm – a kind of moral vertigo – at the proposition that my deepest moral and practical understanding (same difference really) and aspirations stand to be robbed of all coherence – and of all possibility of “progress” (yes, think Pilgrim’s) – by by-definition-circumstantial change in, for, and over which there is by definition no “I” to have any agency, responsibility or control.
Phillip Goodall
Norwich
• Never mind this upstart cartoon Inside Out, let’s raise a cheer for The Numskulls, apparently still going strong.
Alan Entwistle
Buckhurst Hill, Essex
