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I'm also stuck on the same thing. Why am I me and not someone or something else? I feel like most are just going to laugh at this question as completely obvious

I'm also stuck on the same thing. Why am I me and not someone or something else? I feel like most are just going to laugh at this question as completely obvious, but for me it's almost a deep sense of angst and awe. It used to keep me up at night.

evrimoztamur 3y ago
I suppose I am at the beginning of asking this question out loud, and it has brought on some interesting discussions with my friends and family. Although nobody has a clear answer on this subject (globally it seems, not only in the local one I'm exploring), the variety of answers and debates it has led to has been very exciting. On the other hand, I am a bit disappointed that none has been able to bring anything more insightful than I could find via exploring the possibilities by digging around on Wikipedia. In fact, one question that I had been wondering, which is, at what point does an analogous conscious experience appear in terms of the quantum to human scale of complexity, has been asked already in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F by Thomas Nagel. I still wonder what it is like to be a planarian, or a fly on the wall of a board meeting (audio fidelity must suck).
- cnity 3y ago
  If you haven't read any Douglas Hofstadter, do so at the earliest opportunity.
  - bowsamic 3y ago
    GEB is on my shelf, I read the long prologue, I will dig in once I'm a little further through the Silmarillion!
  - evrimoztamur 3y ago
    Sleeping on my copy of Eternal Golden Braid, and I really shouldn’t…
    - cnity 3y ago
      Based on your thoughts above, you'll definitely enjoy it!
medstrom 3y ago
I know this won't feel satisfactory, but there's nobody else and nothing else that you could be. Not even in principle. Your consciousness is an unique product of your brain's labor. Think of it not from the perspective of your consciousness (as if it could up and change bodies), but of your body. What other consciousness could "this body" have? No other than you.
phito 3y ago
It's also the question I always end up getting stuck on !
foldr 3y ago
It's a fascinating question, and I've long thought that it's the simplest one-sentence argument against physicalism. It's a fact that I am who I am (in the non-tautologous sense you allude to), but a complete physical description of the universe would presumably not include this fact.
- bsza 3y ago
  It is the simplest one-sentence argument for physicalism! If consciousness is a purely physical phenomenon, then it should be no surprise that everyone with a healthy brain has one, including you. If it isn’t, then what supernatural event caused it to appear specifically in you?
  - bowsamic 3y ago
    Matter isn’t like that though. Consciousness is unique in being a phenomenon that is totally singular and unique. There are no phenomena in the physical world that aren’t considered as part of a wider collection of other physical phenomena. Eg this atom in relation to that. There is no this and that subject, there is only One. Not even getting into the fact that mental states are already non physical
    - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
      ""Consciousness is unique in being a phenomenon that is totally singular and unique"" I think the problem with the argument is that you are giving way too much credit to consciousness. You are giving an opinion on its uniqueness from the point of view of a Conscious entity that itself hasn't grasped it's own Consciousness. The really exciting part of all the latest AI tech, you can prove 'state of a neural net' is the 'state of experiencing the phenomena'. For Brains. They can now do an MRI on a brain, and re-construct what image it is thinking about. So, State of Neurons = Phenomenal Experiences. The Phenomena you are saying is not physical, is really the physical state of the brains neurons.
      - bowsamic 3y ago

evrimoztamur 3y ago

I suppose I am at the beginning of asking this question out loud, and it has brought on some interesting discussions with my friends and family. Although nobody has a clear answer on this subject (globally it seems, not only in the local one I'm exploring), the variety of answers and debates it has led to has been very exciting. On the other hand, I am a bit disappointed that none has been able to bring anything more insightful than I could find via exploring the possibilities by digging around on Wikipedia. In fact, one question that I had been wondering, which is, at what point does an analogous conscious experience appear in terms of the quantum to human scale of complexity, has been asked already in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F by Thomas Nagel. I still wonder what it is like to be a planarian, or a fly on the wall of a board meeting (audio fidelity must suck).

cnity 3y ago
If you haven't read any Douglas Hofstadter, do so at the earliest opportunity.
- bowsamic 3y ago
  GEB is on my shelf, I read the long prologue, I will dig in once I'm a little further through the Silmarillion!
- evrimoztamur 3y ago
  Sleeping on my copy of Eternal Golden Braid, and I really shouldn’t…
  - cnity 3y ago
    Based on your thoughts above, you'll definitely enjoy it!

medstrom 3y ago

I know this won't feel satisfactory, but there's nobody else and nothing else that you could be. Not even in principle. Your consciousness is an unique product of your brain's labor. Think of it not from the perspective of your consciousness (as if it could up and change bodies), but of your body. What other consciousness could "this body" have? No other than you.

phito 3y ago

It's also the question I always end up getting stuck on !

foldr 3y ago

It's a fascinating question, and I've long thought that it's the simplest one-sentence argument against physicalism. It's a fact that I am who I am (in the non-tautologous sense you allude to), but a complete physical description of the universe would presumably not include this fact.

bsza 3y ago
It is the simplest one-sentence argument for physicalism! If consciousness is a purely physical phenomenon, then it should be no surprise that everyone with a healthy brain has one, including you. If it isn’t, then what supernatural event caused it to appear specifically in you?
- bowsamic 3y ago
  Matter isn’t like that though. Consciousness is unique in being a phenomenon that is totally singular and unique. There are no phenomena in the physical world that aren’t considered as part of a wider collection of other physical phenomena. Eg this atom in relation to that. There is no this and that subject, there is only One. Not even getting into the fact that mental states are already non physical
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    ""Consciousness is unique in being a phenomenon that is totally singular and unique"" I think the problem with the argument is that you are giving way too much credit to consciousness. You are giving an opinion on its uniqueness from the point of view of a Conscious entity that itself hasn't grasped it's own Consciousness. The really exciting part of all the latest AI tech, you can prove 'state of a neural net' is the 'state of experiencing the phenomena'. For Brains. They can now do an MRI on a brain, and re-construct what image it is thinking about. So, State of Neurons = Phenomenal Experiences. The Phenomena you are saying is not physical, is really the physical state of the brains neurons.
    - bowsamic 3y ago