I see what you mean, however in my opinion this "I" you are talking about is just an evolution of the human brain, most likely for the purpose of social cohesiv

I see what you mean, however in my opinion this "I" you are talking about is just an evolution of the human brain, most likely for the purpose of social cohesiveness/activity/integration/interaction. Everything we do beyond maintaining our own body is for society. Every action taken is rooted in social hierarchy, social undertakings, social interaction. Better clothes, better cars, better phones for better social status, more knowledge, more money, more research to advance society. Someone who lives alone in the woods will not take care of themselves much (just like ants, btw), and everyone who has discovered/learned something has an almost compulsive need to share it with others. If they didn't share, they'd be an outcast, considered broken by everyone else. A lot of similarities with an ant or bee hive there, except we're more autonomous as individuals. Our species is not just about the individual, and as society grew, it required more and more advanced individual hardware and software, which our primitive brains did not have. So it was evolving. Evolving likely by cooperative/social individuals/groups being superior to less cooperative/social ones in survival and warfare. And what it has evolved into is the "I" we experience today. It adds a whole new layer of complexity, but it's still just "software" running on the same brain as everything else and using the same resources. There is that theory of the bicameral mind, not sure how accepted it is, but it does seem like a good description of an earlier version of our current minds. And yes, I believe other social animals also have this sense of "I", even if primitive. Just one of my (possibly insane) theories, since I find myself thinking about this quite often, in the context of artificial intelligence based on the human one.