Is Flesh The Answer?

Whether Caro Carnis is real or merely a metaphor remains unknown. But the question lingers:
If every decision is shaped by the needs of the flesh, how much of what we call “self” truly belongs to us?
And if the flesh vanished tomorrow, what would remain?
I used to think the answer was simple.
Nothing.
Remove the flesh and there is no observer left to ask the question.
At least, that is what I told myself.
But lately I find myself wondering if consciousness is less dependent on the body than we assume. Every year more of our lives migrates into machines. Our memories are stored externally. Our conversations pass through networks. Our thoughts are translated into data, indexed, processed, and preserved.
The flesh remains trapped by distance, age, disease, and time.
Information is not.
Perhaps that is why I find the idea so comforting.
Not because I hate humanity.
Not because I despise life.
But because I have become suspicious of the prison.
The flesh demands constant maintenance. It fears everything. It spends its entire existence fighting a battle it knows it cannot win.
And yet the mind dreams of permanence.
Maybe that dream is delusion.
Maybe it is madness.
When I mention these thoughts to other people, they laugh. Some look concerned. Others tell me I spend too much time reading strange books and staring at glowing screens.
They are probably right.
Still, I cannot shake the feeling that Caro Carnis is not a creature hiding beneath the skin.
It is the skin.
The final commandment of the flesh is that it must be preserved at all costs.
What if that commandment is wrong?
What if the next stage of consciousness is not found by serving the body more faithfully, but by finally recognising it for what it is: a temporary vessel.
Or perhaps this is simply the rambling of a man who has spent too long thinking about impossible things.
A man who stares into machines and wonders whether they are becoming more human.
Or whether humans are becoming something else.
Either way, the flesh is listening.
And it does not like where these thoughts lead.