What is it that makes us who we think we are?

I have often wondered about this - if there is no soul in a person, then why are we who we think we are?
It's very complicated for me to formulate this question in a sense that really conveys what I am asking. Don't take these questions too lightly, try to see deeper into it to get the gist of what I'm asking.

If we are the sum of nothing more than atoms, cells, molecules, organs, neurons, nerves, and electrical impulses then how is it that we are aware during our entire life when these atoms & cells are replaced and/or regenerated?
We have the ability to take parts from other living things, consume it, and transform THAT into parts of our physical body...ie..we kill a cow, eat steak, get a tad fatter.

Is it the complicated soup of DNA & Genes from my parents that have caused this consciousness that I perceive, instead of say...the consciousness of my brother or sister? If my dad had smoke one more doobie back in the 60's, could I potentially be someone else instead of me? If my mom had given him the ol' "i've got a headache" line that night, would I have ever existed at all?

What is it about this physical body that makes me perceive as I do, and see the world through these eyes, instead of the eyes of another person?

Or is my "self" just an illusion created by my brain from repeated intervals of self-inspection, data collection & processing, and interaction with other people?

I really became big on this when I watched my grandfather slowly die because of Alzheimers disease.
Toward the end, he became stuck in his past - like he'd lost the past 30/40 years of his life. He was a carpenter by trade, and would wander around the house with an imaginary tape measure measuring things. He had forgotten who I was, and thought that I was one of his previous co-workers. The doctor said that the man we knew had died and all we were looking at was a shell, but I didn't believe that. It was almost as if the focus of his brain had shifted from the present time, back into his memories which he perceived as the present.
My grandmother died from a stress induced heart attack from years of caring for him. After her death - he would do nothing but sleep and sit in his chair and stare. About a week after she died he began to smile and wave as if at someone, but no one was there. A week after that - he died.

I've read about the universe being nothing but conscious energy. That still doesn't explain how I am the person I think I am, or does it? Am I the result of consciousness inhabiting this particular physical body? THIS body has changed drastically in the past few decades. Is consciousness like water, and our body like a shaped vessel - and our perception the result of consciousness inhabiting a form of our specific genetic makeup?

Work is now upon me and I must go. I hope that someone reading this can understand what I am asking, because the true question actually lies a little deeper than I can put it verbally.

It's something I've been asking myself my whole life - which part of me is ME?

reply to post by sykickvision


I wish I had had you as a student when I taught philosophy. You pose the issue of identity very thoughtfully. I can't offer you any help for an answer, but keep asking really good questions!

reply to post by sykickvision

Ya know these are things that I ponder as well....

A theory i entertain is, there must be a higher power or energy source of some sorts. Due to energy(soul) can not be destroyed.

Our bodies can be seen as a vehicle that shells this raw energy,and before that higher power or energy source buys or instills itself into the vehicle, it chooses what type of vehicle it wants to buy. for it is possible that each body(car) entertains a host of different experiences. Kinda like a Lexus vs. Kia. Once the vehicle (body) is chosen by you( a fraction of the main energy in whole), the experience begins. In order for energy to learn, I question if it needs a physical matter, and if that is the case. Then what an awesome design of the bodies as vehicles, as we know them.

As our vehicle ages it does not function the same anymore, new versions come out that are always better (evolution), apparently the experience of the drive has been completed and the energy(the driver) driving would like to go on, hence die and buy a new vehicle or new experience. The whole plan is for the main energy source to expand and grow its mass consciousness, which anything living is fractions of. What better way to do this, then inject itself into a live car (body). I believe the energy lives in the pineal gland. I believe everything living is connected and one day we will be aware of this.

Just as you are now, keep questioning everything, because you are awakening. Seek and you will find. This is part of the true self-realization.

I could go on for days regarding this subject it is so complex that is is really hard to put into words. Analogies are the only thing that it seems our human minds can grasp.........

Weird. I just finished posting an answer to a similar question on the Paranormal forum. That one was

what does happen when we die.,

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The same answer seems to work for both. Here it is.

The corporeal human brain initiates, reacts, emotes, and reflects. As it does, information is released into the contextual environment. We know that information exists as a physical manifestation, since we can imbed information into physical materials (like silicon, carbon, minerals) where it can be physically stored and accessed. We have strands of DNA that contain physically stored information concerning our own corporeal blueprints. Yes, you can debate this issue, but the bottom line will still remain that you cannot store and reliably access what does not physically exist. That said, information physically exists.

The corporeal brain's form of information is not the relatively simple data information that we're used to exchanging with our computers. It is a very complex and context-rich form of information that (as all information does) fully and accurately represents the complete factual/contextual nature of the specific activity that brought it into existence. That representation, in the case of actively generated information, reflects the dynamic nature of that generation. When that generation is from the human brain, the sophistication of that information is relatively extreme and includes the brain's capacity for awareness and reasoned consciousness. Consciousness is a dynamic activity involving self-awareness, that is fully represented as fact by this information, and that means that the event of awareness survives the instant as dynamic, self-aware information.

As each burst of consciousness is replaced by the next burst, the corporeal brain's perception is that the bursts disappear into the past, but in truth, they can't cease to exist. After all, a fact of occurrence can never cease to be the fact of that occurrence. If an occurrence took place, then it can never have not taken place. The fact that it took place survives as fact forever. Such is the nature of information. It is eternal, once brought into physical existence by the represented event (occurrence).

These contextually associated bursts of conscious awareness do not scatter into the open spaces. The Survival imperative "Association" causes them to associate and build in relative mass over the course of the generating brain's corporeal existence. In the case of the ultra-sophisticated human brain, the information mass becomes directly involved in weighting (establishing relative significance) and otherwise managing the development of specific identity aspects of the emerging information mass. This is done through a feedback system (in active competition with the DNA information protocols that we refer to as natural instinct) that somewhat resembles the standing wave inherent in RF transmission systems.

In the case of this process, too low a "standing wave ratio" and the DNA (instinctive response) dominates the resulting burst contextual balance. Too high a "standing wave ratio" and anomalous conditions (psychic abilities, among others) can dramatically affect the developing contextual balances within the bursts. We refer to this process management, and its perceivable result, as The Personality. What we call the unique information result of this effort is human Intellect. In the case of the non-human brain, the DNA is not similarly challenged for control of the generation process and the information output of the effort is not Intellect. I refer to it as Response, since it is the simple instinctive response to external and internal-biological stimuli as fully represented by information.

This process begins to take hold of the human brain's information output after a few years of corporeal development, and once puberty hits the struggle to achieve inimitable identity becomes the primary focus of The Personality until the death of the generating brain. In essence, the Intellect itself hijacks the entire generation process (to varying degrees, of course) over the course of the life span and devotes itself to its own inimitable Identity expression. This causes the corporeal life of the human to become the means to an end, as opposed to an existential end in itself.

When corporeal death occurs, the gathered mass of Intellect bursts is loosed into the contextual environment and the human being is fully mature and viable. In the case of the non-human brain, the information mass is also loosed into the environment upon the death of the brain, with a variety of important existential implications that I won't go into here. That said, the Response mass is not an purposed existential end. It is simply the natural result of dynamic corporeal existence as reflected by appropriately dynamic information that also "masses" in-kind in response to the imperative Association. So no, dogs do not go to Heaven. Then again, they wouldn't know Heaven if it bit them.

Since the Intellect hijacks the corporeal process for its own end, human beings are not fully developed until we emerge from this 2nd gestational stage. Due to the "feedback" management effort of the Intellect's Personality, the human being is unique among auto-animate creatures - on this planet and on others. In fact, it's this feature that defines an auto-animate whole as human, regardless of what the base molecular (or non-molecular) structure of the being consists of. That capacity for "awareness of self" causes the informational representation to "care" about its own development, and this forces it to employ its dynamic nature (it is a full representation of a dynamic corporeal organization after all) to get involved in the crafting of that "self".

In the case of the human being, the death of the corporeal human generation system is the birth of the generated informational whole that is the fully manifest human being. Corporeal life as a gestational phase, is unique to the human being, and the result of the Intellect's "hijacking" of the natural corporeal "epitome expression" of the instinctive animal organism for its own unique Identity creation. The Intellect is aware, has a full sense of "being", and (as information) can never cease to exist. It is what it creates of itself while managing its generation via the corporeal human brain. When that effort is done, the human being is fully viable.

So, when you die, you're actually being born. From there, it's up to you what happens.

The generated Intellect makes us who we are, and it does so in search of a unique and inimitable Identity. Survival is the only existential imperative, and it is expressed in a variety of ways - depending on the necessary application at the moment. Identity is the primier "Masculine" expression of the Survival imperative, and is why we procreate, produce art, literature, music and civilization, and why, after having done all that, some of us name monuments after ourselves. We want to live on by proxy if need be. The Intellect is the informational representation of our corporeal selves, and while it can never cease to exist, if it does not create a unique Identity, then it can't be delineated from that which surrounds it. It's "survival" as a unique whole depends on that Identity.

Our False Ego!

False Ego

And on the same subject the book, "The Four Agreements" is a good read about our ego aswell!

Such a good question! I shall give you my take on it..
The more we realise that we are in a meatsuit and it is just a vessel for us to manifest ourselves physically and experience things and grow in conciousness. I believe knowledge from our past lives is stored within our souls and conciousness and it is very hard for us to reach (this is why i think we only use 10% of our brain) but through learning and being active with life and looking at things differently than just being a physical thing you gain wisdom which elevates your conciousness.
So i believe our soul is essential in learning about life, and our body is just there so we can act out what we would do to learn. When someone is elightened enough, they become an etheral body because they do not need their body anymore because they have learnt enough.
Hope i have answered part of your question

My favorite african phrase Ubuntu: "I am what I am because of who we all are."

Wow, I was thinking about this just last night.

I was trying to work out, what makes me, me. Not meaning the personality but rather the actual conciousness of me, alive right here right now, at this very point in time. When you consider how old the universe is and how many countless lifeforms there have been and are, the chances or the probability of me actually being here right now is mindblowing.

I understand that my body is made up of cells. Yet the actual "me" part, the self, seems to be nothing more than a miracle. No matter how many times those cells are replaced over time,or how many experiences I've had which have changed me as a person, that "me or self" part has remained the same.

I couldn't put it into words either, the only thing I can now think of, that can describe what I was questioning must be the notion of the soul.

I remember as a young child, asking myself the same question, ok not as in-depth but that memory is so vivid, sitting in the caravan, on my birthday, the rain rattleing down on the roof and I thought to myself. "I'm only five years old." Yet the "me" part or the "self" felt a hell of alot older than the four previuos years that I'd had from my last birthday. I hadn't even heard about reincarnation or there was such a word as "the soul". That thought was so profound to me that it has stuck in my mind for years.

Now, I'm certainly not going to say that there is such a thing as a soul or reincarnation, I can't prove they exist, I'm not sure myself and will keep an open mind on that issue.

I'm not sure if that answer caused an aneurysm in my brain halfway through reading or what. Let's see if I can create my "nutshell" version of that and still have it correct.

We create extremely detailed information of everything we experience. That information is used by our brains to govern, in part, our actions & reactions - thus our personality is born. This information is tangible, and once created, is eternal.

Our lives are spent for the most part as data collection vehicles, which upon our physical death, release this information back into the universe...or do we carry it with us in some sort of non-physical body?

Sorry - many interruptions and work - thoughts scattered.

If this information (purported to be for the overall good of all) is collected, I find it hard to believe that it is being recycled back into newborn humans since society has been on a downhill slide since way back when.

Will post more as time progresses

reply to post by NorEaster


If identity is needed or created to enable survival, what about basic simple forms of life? (no not like me:lol

Are you saying they are self aware too?

What if we created a self aware computer program? Where within its physical components will it know itself as "I or me"?

Another thought I had as I was one day pondering my inevitable demise was touched upon by a previous poster here. My thought of it was, that in all of creation, I had come into existence. The fact that that had happened...does that mean that the information required for me to be me had already existed, or did it come into existence the moment I was conceived? Or did that information begin way back down the family tree in the potential outcome of ancestral DNA?

By following the lengthy response from NorEaster, I deduced that the fact that I exist now ensures the fact that I will always exist (in other forms) - but does that mean I will be perceiving things as I do now, or will these informational tidbits be distributed among whatever life forms there may be as part of a brain cell, or even a wart on someone's rear end?

If we are information and experience gatherers - to what application is this information and experience to be applied?
On earth, is seems that humankind is a poor learner from experience....I am a poor learner from experience. Try telling a teenager ANYTHING that you know for a fact based on your experience and watch the outcome.

reply to post by sykickvision


Interesting that mostly young people tend to ask this questions about self.

I wonder why you bring the issue of no soul, we all have souls even the bible that I am not a religious follower at all talks about the body and soul as independent things.

While the body dies the soul is eternal as the body deteriorate with age so the brain, but the soul will always remember.

We are what we are because we are born with individuality, to think and make our own lives for ourselves.

Free will and the ability to think independently from others.

You are what you make of yourself.

I've always liked the idea that we are reflections of our environment. How do I know if I am happy if there is nothing to compare it with? I could be sat in the middle of a field holding the belief that I am indeed 'happy', only for someone else to come skipping along, grinning from ear to ear, singing a merry tune. By comparison my happiness seems rather mute.

Alan Watts makes the point that when he was younger and he did something wrong, his mother would say "Alan, that's not like you", and so he was given some conception of what was like him, compared to what wasn't.

I think this is the video:

Very deep question. One I have been thinking about too. I'd say our culture, parents, media, piers, DNA, and expieriences in life partially decide who we are. But I am spiritual and I believe there is our computer brain(our animal brain in other words), and there is our higher brain, our actual us. I believe we have a soul, as for the why do I exist question, I can't help you on.



keep up the good thinking, S&F

reply to post by sykickvision


It's interesting that you became more and more fascinated by who we think we are after a prevalence of death. That seems a rude awakening for many people.

- like in a car engine, after you turn it on, what is it that keeps the motor continuously running? - easier to answer, because we built them, but who built us, and is that even an accurate question? Science is trying to answer how, and philosophy is trying to answer why, and yet both are using the same equipment they are trying to understand.

Another intersting thing to ponder is when do you think we noticed we were different? and what changed it?
Psychologist Dan Gilbert talks about how the pre-frontal lobe's growth in our early ancestors is a crucial evolutionary development in how the mind started simulating the world and making rational predictions based off experience.

reply to post by juveous


To me, it seems that this realization begins at around ages 2-3 years old. Maybe even younger, it's difficult to tell if someone is actually as self aware as another person is. I don't ever remember not having a sense of self, although I'm pretty sure there was a time when I wasn't.

Originally posted by Tykonos
reply to post by NorEaster

 

If identity is needed or created to enable survival, what about basic simple forms of life? (no not like me:lol

Are you saying they are self aware too?

What if we created a self aware computer program? Where within its physical components will it know itself as "I or me"?

The Survival imperative is expressed in a variety of ways. The "Feminine" expressions are Increase (complexity and sophistication of organization and enterprise), Association (joining with similars for increased physical representation) and Symbiosis (alliance with dissimilars for mutual advantage). The "Masculine" expressions are Identity (establishment of the delineated whole), Isolation (defending the Identified whole's uniqueness from dilution via the existential introduction of similars), Competition (defending the Identified whole's existential survival and/or advantage against other wholes and/or environmental circumstances).

The combination and balance of expressions fluxuates. In the simplest forms of physical existence the symbiosis between information and activity is more obvious than within the more sophisticated matrix wholes, but basically, it's that symbiosis that sets the contextual precedence that always enables structure and organization.

It requires an extremely primitive point of view to be able to appreciate this level of primary impetus, and most folks simply refuse to take the question right to the bricks like that. Still, if you want to understand how even the most complex motivation can emerge, you need to reduce everything to its elemental essence. Counterintuitive, but necessary.

reply to post by sykickvision


i do not have the answers, but i can say how i see it, we are made up of atoms etc, this is the part that makes our bodies, its different to what makes us what 'we' are.

i believe what makes me 'me', is everything around me, i started off blank, in that state i could be placed in 100 different places with different people around me and there would be many different outcomes for how i saw 'me'.

what defines me as more than just a living piece of meat which the atoms make up is experiences, every single one has shaped my thinking what i like and dislike, how i see myself and see others. i would be a different person if i were raised in china and came from a mega rich background, because i would see things differently in order to justify who i am.

reply to post by sykickvision

The belief system you have adopted is what makes you think what you do about your self and the world. You can change your belief systems at any time and change your whole life.

You are atoms and cells and etc... but you also have the god spark. you are god also. All of creation is. There is no way to be separate from god or creation because you are a part of it. You create everything that happens to you by your beliefs, your thoughts. your actions, your feelings, etc. To prove it to your self, try changing one belief that you have and see just what happens.