Why are you, you?

[TeaFan]

I find this very difficult to explain but I often wonder why am I me? Why am I, as opposed to someone else, experiencing subjective awareness in this body? Why am I even experiencing the awareness within this mind and body at all? Sure, I still may be here regardless, but why am I the consciousness inside my brain and not somebody else's consciousness?

 

 

How do you know that you are not someone else? Serious question.

[spooky3]

How do you know that you are not someone else? Serious question.

 

I used to ask if we were actually just an atom in a blood cell within someone else's body. Then, because the universe is expanding, have we be blown to smithereens!

[benlin910]

It is a part of your body.

 

 

I also think so.

[Cyclone]

We are unique but probably not equal in our rights.

For example an intelligent person will have more right to a university education than a less intelligent one based on their ability.

A person with natural ability in an area will have more right to certain things than one without the natural ability.

Which leads us into the field of different people have different natural abilities.

George Best explained his exceptional skill at football came from his excellent sense of balance, this gave him the right to play at the highest level.

 

What right does natural ability confer? More success, probably, right though, I don't think so.

George Best didn't have a right to play football, he had an ability which he utilised.

The only rights are ones that we give ourselves, the universe doesn't come with a set of things that all humans will be provided with. In a fair society, the rights are allocated equally, even if the utilisation of those rights is sometimes related to ability.

[Cyclone]

How do you think you chose from a set?

 

Say, go out find a twig, snap it into three and decide which is the longest... or something?

 

Measurements might be done by something analogous to (but not truly) a binary tree. You will be able to find other binary equivalent decisions, but I wasn't trying to prove that they don't exist, merely that not all our decisions are so simple.

How do I choose what to write in reply to you, it isn't from a simple choice of two options is it! There are millions of different replies I could have made.

[spooky3]

Measurements might be done by something analogous to (but not truly) a binary tree. You will be able to find other binary equivalent decisions, but I wasn't trying to prove that they don't exist, merely that not all our decisions are so simple.

How do I choose what to write in reply to you, it isn't from a simple choice of two options is it! There are millions of different replies I could have made.

 

I know what you mean, but it always comes down to comparing things, even multi input logic chips boil down to binary gates, we are no more technologically advanced.

[quisquose]

I am often puzzled at why people find the idea of reincarnation in any way comforting.

 

Even if I was to accept, purely for the purpose of discussion, that it is true, that I have lived before and will live again, then I also have to accept that since I have no memory of my previous existence then that person was not actually me.

 

Being reincarnated into a new life, devoid of all the memories of your previous life, is simply the same as being dead, and another totally different person being born.

 

I would find no more comfort in that idea, even if I believed it, than accepting the most likely outcome.

 

[epiphany]

I am often puzzled at why people find the idea of reincarnation in any way comforting.

 

Even if I was to accept, purely for the purpose of discussion, that it is true, that I have lived before and will live again, then I also have to accept that since I have no memory of my previous existence then that person was not actually me.

 

Being reincarnated into a new life, devoid of all the memories of your previous life, is simply the same as being dead, and another totally different person being born.

 

I would find no more comfort in that idea, even if I believed it, than accepting the most likely outcome.

 

 

Exactly. Well put.

 

Also, it baffles me when people say something like "I'd rather be alive than dead". If you were dead you wouldn't be able to reflect on the fact you weren't alive and therefore wouldn't miss it. It's only because you're alive that you care about being alive in the first place.

 

If someone could snap their fingers and make it so the entire human race had never come into existence, why would staying alive necessarily be the first choice? There is no more objective value in existence vs non-existence.

[purdyamos]

How do you know that you are not someone else? Serious question.

 

This year, I found out I actually was!

[Cyclone]

Exactly. Well put.

 

Also, it baffles me when people say something like "I'd rather be alive than dead". If you were dead you wouldn't be able to reflect on the fact you weren't alive and therefore wouldn't miss it. It's only because you're alive that you care about being alive in the first place.

 

If someone could snap their fingers and make it so the entire human race had never come into existence, why would staying alive necessarily be the first choice? There is no more objective value in existence vs non-existence.

 

You answered this yourself already. When alive we tend to place value on staying that way.