What, really, am I? What makes me me? What makes you you? What is a feeling of being? What is it to be sentient?
I've written a short piece titled 'What am I?' in my page of Jottings. The subject seems to me important enough to have its own dedicated page. Do other people think of these concepts similarly to me? Do many other people think of these concepts at all? They seem to me to be very important concepts, fundamental concepts. "Know yourself", "An unexamined life is not worth living". Perhaps a related question is, is a human being fundamentally different from other species in how we think of ourselves and how they think of themselves? My own feeling is that we differ mainly in degree. "I think therefore I am"... But what am I?
Contact: David K. Clarke – © |
IntroductionThe piece below is a copy of what I have written on 'What am I' in Jottings.
Further conceptsWhat is a feeling of being? We all feel that we are an entity, a conscious thing that is separate from those around us, that has needs and wants and ambitions and emotional attachements and free will. (Whether we truly have free will is another question, but we feel we have free will.)You and I are each just one of eight billion people on the Earth. The Earth is one of the smaller planets that circle a very ordinary star (the Sun), which is one of about 100 billion of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is just one of about a trillion (a million million) galaxies in the observable universe. Yet to ourselves, we feel that we have some sort of special importance! (And perhaps humanity does have some special importance, perhaps we humans are the only organisms in the universe that have any concept of the universe?) What is a sentient being? At what level of evolution did sentience begin? Does life have a meaning? I was nothing before I was born. I will be nothing after I die - except for what I leave behind me, my works and the memories people have of me.
If I am my consciousness, my conscious self, how does that fit with the subconscious processes in my body? I've written something on this in The curious situation of the limited degree of conscious control we have over our bodily functions.
Do you or I have a purpose?First one has to put aside the delusion that there is some sort of God or gods whose instructions we need to abide by. Rather than go into the question here I'll refer you to my pages on religion, superstition, pseudoscience and other false beliefs and the demonstrable absurdity of the immortal soul, afterlife, reincarnation foolishness.From the point of view of organic evolution it can be said that our purpose is to pass on our genes to the next generation.
We can all choose to have a purpose in life, perhaps to contribute positively to our community and society, or perhaps just to look after ourselves and our family (we can be selfish or altruistic).
If we are our thoughts then does recording our thoughts provide some form of immortality?If my musings on 'What am I' above really defines what I am then do my thoughts, as recorded on these pages, constitute some sort of immortality?If these Internet pages are still available after I die then people will be able to read much of what concerned me, my concepts of right and wrong, what needed to be done, what wasn't being done but should be done, and so on.
How long the Internet will continue to exist is a very open question. (See The likely coming collapse of modern society: the probable catastrophic failure of the global civilisation). |
What am I? A mind that has hopes of a better world.
Graphic produced mid 2014 |
|---|
|
Similar, simple but true, statements are combined with turbine images on another page.
I believe that one of the best things I've done in my life is to spread the truth about wind power and dispel many of the lies - so encouraging more action on reducing climate changing emissions. I have lived in Mid North South Australia much of my life. |
Intelligence, rationality, gullibility?I started writing this page a day after Donald Trump was elected, for the second time, as the president of the most militarily powerful nation on Earth. Trump is a habitual liar, a man devoid of ethical standards, a mysoginist, a totally self-centred man and a convicted criminal. Yet more people voted for him than voted for the alternate candidate, Kamalla Harris. This would have to make a thinking person wonder obout 'life, the Universe and everything'. What does the Trump election victory say about human thought, human rationality human gullibility? About human intelligence? |
|
|
References/related pagesRelated pages on external sites...Philosophy Now; contains several interpretations of the questionRelated subjects and pages on this site...
On my Jottings page...
On other pages on this site... The absurdity of the concept of an immortal soul The ethical and practical aspects of abortion Milestones in the development of human society |
|
|
IndexOn this page...Intelligence, rationality?Introduction Further concepts Immortality? Do I have a purpose? References/related pages |