> Consider the absurdity of the question “who am I?”, uttered by an amnesiac In that context, that question would just mean "what was my life like prior to los

> Consider the absurdity of the question “who am I?”, uttered by an amnesiac In that context, that question would just mean "what was my life like prior to losing my memories?", wouldn't it? So in this instance, the missing non-trivial knowledge is their long-term memory, not a problem with understanding the definition of "I". > For example, there are some philosophers of mathematics who would try to argue that all mathematical facts are tautologous. You are trying to do something similar with facts of personal identity. I'm not arguing that the subjective experience of personal identity is tautologous, I'm arguing that it's a chemical reaction (EDIT: and that the underlying objective truth is tautologous). Any feeling about the intuitive concept of "myself" having some kind of esoteric component above the physical matter (which I also share, don't be mistaken) would, presumably, also be given voice to by a computer simulation of your brain. That would be your brain being caught red-handed in the act of lying to itself about how special it is. And if this turns out not to be the case, then we have rock solid evidence that something is indeed missing from our simulation, which gives us an opportunity to measure that something, which in turn makes that something physical. > Your linguistic analysis of 'I' doesn't work if understood in purely physical terms. Lots of people are speaking at any given moment, but I don't refer to all of them if I say 'I'. Valid point. Refinement: in any speech, "I" refers to the person making that speech.