Why am I me? why are you "you"?

[Adi Shankara]

I know the scientific explanation, synapses in the brain, neurons and such etc.

But really: why am I not the conscious of someone else's neurons and synapses? why am I just who I am? why am I not a little girl in Cambodia, a prisoner in Cameroon, but a 19 year old in the USA?

who/what/which scientific process selected me to be "me"? why is my consciousness in this body and not that of another? why couldn't I choose?

these questions keep me up at night, well into the morning, but they do much to reinforce my belief that humanity trying to understand it's own existence and nature around it is laughably pathetic and meager in effort.

we are so...small.

[Pirate Utopian]

Like... this dude's all deep.

[Crux]

I AM CRUSHING YOUR HEAD!
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/sm/custom/mkbjhfoj.jpeg

[Nwoye]

we have a thread for this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/stonertalk-thread-iv-t135562/index.html)

[leftace53]

"years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." - Eugene V. Debs

[Il Medico]

dunno.

[Zanthorus]

Because linguistic convention is such that "me" is used to refer to oneself and "you" is used to refer to persons external to the speaker.

[Adi Shankara]

Because linguistic convention is such that "me" is used to refer to oneself and "you" is used to refer to persons external to the speaker.

-__- how cute

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

-__- how cute

If you will engage in existential bollocks, what did you expect? Unless your baked its not like your going to engage in a philisophical debate about something which is a moot point.

[Invincible Summer]

Because linguistic convention is such that "me" is used to refer to oneself and "you" is used to refer to persons external to the speaker.

Beat me to it.




But really: why am I not the conscious of someone else's neurons and synapses? why am I just who I am? why am I not a little girl in Cambodia, a prisoner in Cameroon, but a 19 year old in the USA?

who/what/which scientific process selected me to be "me"? why is my consciousness in this body and not that of another? why couldn't I choose?

Aren't you religious? Doesn't that mean that you were "created" to be "you?" Or does your religion have some sort of more complicated explanation for it (like I've noticed some Eastern religions do)?

I think most people who accept evolution and the Big Bang and all that just go "Because it was chance." and leave it there.

[ContrarianLemming]

I know the scientific explanation, synapses in the brain, neurons and such etc.

But really: why am I not the conscious of someone else's neurons and synapses? why am I just who I am? why am I not a little girl in Cambodia, a prisoner in Cameroon, but a 19 year old in the USA?

who/what/which scientific process selected me to be "me"? why is my consciousness in this body and not that of another? why couldn't I choose?

these questions keep me up at night, well into the morning, but they do much to reinforce my belief that humanity trying to understand it's own existence and nature around it is laughably pathetic and meager in effort.

we are so...small.

A wizerd does it.

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

A wizerd does it.

http://trollcats.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/bloodninja_cybersex_trollcat_i_put_on_my_robe_and_ wizard_hat.jpg

[Nwoye]

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kwzlgbdneb1qzekdio1_500.jpg

[AK]

I know the scientific explanation, synapses in the brain, neurons and such etc.

But really: why am I not the conscious of someone else's neurons and synapses? why am I just who I am? why am I not a little girl in Cambodia, a prisoner in Cameroon, but a 19 year old in the USA?

who/what/which scientific process selected me to be "me"? why is my consciousness in this body and not that of another? why couldn't I choose?

these questions keep me up at night, well into the morning, but they do much to reinforce my belief that humanity trying to understand it's own existence and nature around it is laughably pathetic and meager in effort.

we are so...small.
God did it.

[AK]

Oh and I'm going to be a dick and post this:
http://www.godlessbastard.com/images/Img161.jpg

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I know the scientific explanation, synapses in the brain, neurons and such etc.

But really: why am I not the conscious of someone else's neurons and synapses? why am I just who I am? why am I not a little girl in Cambodia, a prisoner in Cameroon, but a 19 year old in the USA?

This is really a pointless question. If you were not yourself but someone else, then you would still be wondering why you weren't a 19 year old in the USA. If you never existed at all then the question would be moot.


who/what/which scientific process selected me to be "me"?

Conception followed by birth and growing up.


why is my consciousness in this body and not that of another?

Because your consciousness is an emergent property of your brain.


why couldn't I choose?

Because reproduction doesn't work that way.


these questions keep me up at night, well into the morning, but they do much to reinforce my belief that humanity trying to understand it's own existence and nature around it is laughably pathetic and meager in effort.

No, we just need to learn to ask the right questions.


we are so...small.

Sure. But we have so much potential as a species if only we could realise it.

[ContrarianLemming]

Noxion i can't believe you answered it :p

[Gustav HK]

Thomas Sankara, your question is very interesting, and is also something that I have thought about.

Like why did my existance start in the second of April 1992, why do i not have an "I-feeling" as a person in fx the middle ages, or thousands of years in the future.

But you should probably discuss it in the philosophy section on Revleft.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I've often wondered about this myself. Why am I me? It sounds funny, but it always struck me as amazing that I was me.

Ultimately though its tautological. If "you" were someone else, then "you" would still be asking the same question. "You" are "you" because, well its a job that needed to be done and somebody had to do it. Its a matter of chance that it was "you".

Taking it a step further, how do you know that "you" actually are "you"? How do you connect your sense of self awareness with your personal identity? Could "you", "your" sense of self awareness, actually be mistaken about the self identity "you've" assumed? How do you reconcile your self awareness, your consciousness with who you think you are?
Where does "your" sense of selfhood come from?

Could you be mistaken about who "you" think "you" are? Could "you" actually not be "you" but be "someone" else and not know it?

It might hit also closer to the problem asking, "why do I happen to be alive?", or "why do I have consciousness?"

[Raúl Duke]

we have a thread for this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/stonertalk-thread-iv-t135562/index.html)

:thumbup1:

[gorillafuck]

NoXion won the thread.

[MarxSchmarx]

It's a funny question, there are people who immediately get what TS is getting at, and then there are the rest of you posting in this thread.

Figuring that this is in chitchat instead of philosophy I'm reluctant to offer a constructive perspective but here goes.

Basically the closest analogy I can think of is the problem of the present, that is, what it is about the immediacy of the present that strikes us, and why the "present" is 2010 instead of 2310. So my suggestion is start by reading and reasoning about that, because it is a more tractable philosophical problem, easily communicable, and then approach the question of the self afterwards and see where the solutions for the question of the present apply and where they don't.

[Adi Shankara]

This is really a pointless question. If you were not yourself but someone else, then you would still be wondering why you weren't a 19 year old in the USA. If you never existed at all then the question would be moot.




Conception followed by birth and growing up.




Because your consciousness is an emergent property of your brain.


completely missed the point, and answered it objectively, of which it's not an objective question. I know Why we have consciousness, what I don't know is why I have This consciousness, that manifests itself as "me" in "this" body. who/what/which process chooses where we are born, who are parents are? etc. etc.

tl;dr: why did I come out of non-existence into this world of conscious existence, and why did that consciousness manifest itself in this particular body and mind?

[Adi Shankara]

Oh and I'm going to be a dick and post this:
http://www.godlessbastard.com/images/Img161.jpg

I'm not a christian, nor am I dogmatic; in fact, very very little of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc. are dogmatic; they ask questions, but rarely give orders.

[Adi Shankara]

we have a thread for this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/stonertalk-thread-iv-t135562/index.html)

real cute, I ask a serious question in complete sobriety, and I get this as an answer.

I'll take it that I'm above your head completely. at least some people were intelligent enough to understand what I was asking, instead of having to resort to stoner jokes.

yes, it's chit-chat, I get that, but does that mean with chit-chat, out goes your mind and capability to think analytically too?

[AK]

I'm not a christian
Last I could recall, you were. This is a mindfuck :blink:

[Invincible Summer]

tl;dr: why did I come out of non-existence into this world of conscious existence, and why did that consciousness manifest itself in this particular body and mind?

Well... um... just...















... fuck you, man.

[Adi Shankara]

Last I could recall, you were. This is a mindfuck :blink:

nope, wasn't me. I am a borderline Hindu, undergoing some rites, but not completely 100% committed yet.

[AK]

I am a borderline Hindu
You make it sound like being religious is a mental condition.

...oh, wait.

[¿Que?]

Subjectivity? Well it's a social process too, man! **cough cough**

[Adi Shankara]

You make it sound like being religious is a mental condition.

...oh, wait.

:lol:

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

completely missed the point, and answered it objectively, of which it's not an objective question.

Then why did you bother asking it? Surely subjective questions have no right or wrong answer?


I know Why we have consciousness, what I don't know is why I have This consciousness, that manifests itself as "me" in "this" body. who/what/which process chooses where we are born, who are parents are? etc. etc.

tl;dr: why did I come out of non-existence into this world of conscious existence, and why did that consciousness manifest itself in this particular body and mind?

Because there was no "I" before you were born, and even for a little while afterwards you weren't really a fully-formed individual.

I think such questions have within them the intrinsic assumption of Cartesian dualism, the idea that mind is somehow seperate from body. The evidence we have suggests that such an assumption is completely unwarranted. Your personality is formed by chance (via the lottery of genetics) and experience. As for why you were born in the US rather than elsewhere, I would assume that is because your parents are/were residing in that part of the world at the time of your conception and birth.

[Nwoye]

real cute, I ask a serious question in complete sobriety, and I get this as an answer.

I'll take it that I'm above your head completely. at least some people were intelligent enough to understand what I was asking, instead of having to resort to stoner jokes.

yes, it's chit-chat, I get that, but does that mean with chit-chat, out goes your mind and capability to think analytically too?
it's not like I don't understand what you're talking about, it's just that it's not really a valid philosophical question. it's more something people talk about when they're stoned because it's vaguely trippy.

"hey man check this out, why aren't i someone else"
"woah man that's deep"

[LeninBalls]

this is a shitty thread

[Adi Shankara]

As for why you were born in the US rather than elsewhere, I would assume that is because your parents are/were residing in that part of the world at the time of your conception and birth.

I know that, but what scientific process assigned my being and conscious reality to them? why is it, my first breath of air was as the son of two russian immigrants, not two Cambodian ones? do you really think consciousness springs from nothing, we live for a while have experiences, and then go back to nothing?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I know that, but what scientific process assigned my being and conscious reality to them?

Biology. Barring some kind of neurological disorder, the development of consciousness and personality is a typical part of human development.

I really don't understand how that explanation is inadequate.


why is it, my first breath of air was as the son of two russian immigrants, not two Cambodian ones?

Because that's who your parents were, I presume.


do you really think consciousness springs from nothing, we live for a while have experiences, and then go back to nothing?

Consciousness doesn't "spring from nothing" it is something that typical humans manifest as they develop. It's a consequence of brain function, and once that function ceases, as it does in death, so does consciousness.

Yes, it can be intimidating to realise that one is just one more short-lived meat robot among many, all living in a thin film of habitability on a gigantic ball of iron and silicate which orbits an even bigger ball of fusing hydrogen and helium plasma, all of which sits in an incomprehensibly larger universe filled with billions upon billions of these balls of fusing plasma.

Personally, I find the best way to deal with it is to embrace it and see the wonder in it.

[Adi Shankara]

Biology. Barring some kind of neurological disorder, the development of consciousness and personality is a typical part of human development.

I really don't understand how that explanation is inadequate.



Because that's who your parents were, I presume.



Consciousness doesn't "spring from nothing" it is something that typical humans manifest as they develop. It's a consequence of brain function, and once that function ceases, as it does in death, so does consciousness.

Yes, it can be intimidating to realise that one is just one more short-lived meat robot among many, all living in a thin film of habitability on a gigantic ball of iron and silicate which orbits an even bigger ball of fusing hydrogen and helium plasma, all of which sits in an incomprehensibly larger universe filled with billions upon billions of these balls of fusing plasma.

Personally, I find the best way to deal with it is to embrace it and see the wonder in it.

I still don't think you get it, but I don't think you'd agree with it even if you have, so idk. if you say so though :D

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I still don't think you get it, but I don't think you'd agree with it even if you have, so idk. if you say so though :D

I'm not even sure that there is anything to "get". It's like you're asking why a particular rocky outcrop is shaped the way it is, and I start to explain the process of erosion to you, and then you say "but why is it shaped like that?", and I point out that's due to local conditions, and then you say "that's not good enough, there must be something else", but you completely fail to provide this "something else", this mechanism, aside from the one known to science, that shapes rocks (or people).