I apologise if that turn of phrase “shadows of our former selves” misdirected you. I’m not using is in a greco-roman way simply as a turn of phrase to indicate that the soul, while the most important part, is not the only part of me.
Regarding unity, lets go back to the difference between living and dead. If i promised to sell you a horse and I sold you a dead horse, you wouldn’t say oh thank you you would complain. We understand intuitively the difference between a horse and the corpse of a horse! Something happens to stop you calling it properly speaking a horse.
The same is true in the unity of body and soul. If I loose my limbs, I am still recognisable as a living entity and as such as me, if i loose my body through death, properly speaking if you don’t see me but my corpse. You would not treat my corpse the same way as you would treat the living me. In addition while still alive if you were to punch me in the shoulder for example, you punch me you don’t simply damage my property. This for me underlines the unity of body and soul I spoke of previously. This is not simply an english language thing although this was the example i used first as I was not sure of your first language.
Cell replacement does not affect such a unity as just as loosing a limb does not affect who I am as a unity neither. The soul as form of the matter of my body is unchanging spite what happens to the matter itself up to the point the body is no longer in the form of my body, of me, where in the unity is sundered. That it why i say the soulis the most important bit.
