> "You" are the mind/conscious self, a separate construct in the physical brain Sam Harris has a lengthy discussion about this separation in "Waking Up: A Guid

> "You" are the mind/conscious self, a separate construct in the physical brain Sam Harris has a lengthy discussion about this separation in "Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion" where he looks at what we've learned from patients who've undergone a corpus callosum surgery. The TL;DR of that surgery is that it's done on people with severe seizures to sever the two hemispheres of the brain to minimize the seizures. But it also tends to (gross over-simplification incoming) create two distinct personalities in the same person, so Harris looks at essentially what gets doubled as elements that cannot be part of the self. A lot of the rest of the book also deals with the nature of self as revealed through meditative practice and drug use. It's a somewhat tedious read, but it's really fascinating stuff.