Who are you?

[Cosmo]

Hello people,

In light of my recent de-conversion (or switch to Atheism), a new question has arisen. Who am I? And consequently, who are you. I sense that this is going to be a very complex question to answer, so let me just share with you a bit of my incentive for asking such question. If there is no soul to define one self, then one is left with one's biology. The brain, the DNA, etc... However, I suspect, this is not enough. Let me give you the example of a friend of mine. He was raised in a conservative Indian family in Canada. Until the age of 18/20, he was chubby, had huge glasses, loved unhealthy food, and had a very, VERY different set of opinions/beliefs/moral code. Today, I am confident that he is a different person. And yet, I feel that he isn't. His DNA has changed (minor mutations here and there). His neuronal connections certainly have changed, but by how much? His conscience, his awareness has changed quite drastically over the course of several years. The cells in his skin, bones, tissues, have been completely replaced several times. Which really begs the question, if a person changes mentally and biologically so much, then what is a person? Why do I have the firm belief that I am the same even-though everything has changed about me, constantly, over the course of my life? If a person is an equation where each variable is a function of time, is there any constant in such equation? Are we just the sum over time of all the emotions we have felt, the people we influenced, or influenced us, the places, things we interacted with, etc...? Am I just my memories? Am I the sum of my old selves? Then this would mean that at every small time increment, the self dies, and a new one is born. Some type of "The King is dead! Long live the King" maybe? Can a person ever be experienced or sampled directly? Is a person just like so many other thing is the Universe? That is to say, it cannot be directly observed, but we know it's there by the way it influences the things around it? Or like a wave that we observe by the way it distorts the medium that carries it. That is a lot of questions folks, feel free to address only a subset of those, or better yet, please share with me your definition of what it means to be you.

Anyways, have a sip of that mental wine and tell me how it tastes.

[Davin]

I'm pretty sure there is no way to truly know another person, one may have an expansive knowledge of another, but never truly know them. Part of the problem is the inability to objectively communicate oneself to another and what I think is a bigger problem, that we're all constantly changing. Sure parts of us remain relatively constant for a long amount of time and maybe there are even parts of us that never change, however, most of us are changing most of us most of the time. That's just my speculation anyway.

[Cosmo]

I'm pretty sure there is no way to truly know another person

What about knowing oneself?

I think is a bigger problem, that we're all constantly changing

I agree, it is a problem, that is the root of my question.

Sure parts of us remain relatively constant for a long amount of time and maybe there are even parts of us that never change, however, most of us are changing most of us most of the time

Hence my question, if everything is changing all the time, where/how do you find yourself in the middle of that chaos?

[Davin]

I do not completely know myself so I don't know if it's possible. I also don't think it's very necessary to be able to pin down a definition/outline/description of a person (including myself), because I can't even think of a useful purpose for it. At least nothing useful to me, if I cared more about knowing myself or other people, I might look deeper. It seems the only reason to know oneself and/or other people is for predictions and/or manipulations, because I don't like to do either of those things, I don't have much interest in figuring out ways to accomplish them.

[fester30]

I don't ever completely know myself.  I surprise myself all the time in the more tolerant I am becoming.  I guess I'm mellowing out with age.  This was part of the circumstances that led to my deconversion.  While I know I am a very different person in some ways than I was 5 years ago, in other ways I'm EXACTLY the person I was then.  I have the same laugh, smile, the same eyes, the same memories growing up, and the same ability to love those closest to me.  The differences are that I have expanded my ability to love and accept love to include a lot more people, I have opened myself to many more points of view, and I'm a better husband.  Amazing how leaving god behind made me a better husband, and person for that matter.  I wasn't a bad husband at all, but now I'm much more appreciative of my wife.  I don't feel like we were somehow predestined to be together.  Now I understand it was completely and totally her independent choice to be with me and love me.  That makes it more special in my mind.

Edit: Oh, and I'm still long-winded as I always have been.  This is one of my shorter posts.

[Cosmo]

I also don't think it's very necessary to be able to pin down a definition/outline/description of a person (including myself)

I actually don't even believe that it is possible, the more I think about it. But I would add "At a given time" at the end of your statement.

Amazing how leaving god behind made me a better husband, and person for that matter. I wasn't a bad husband at all, but now I'm much more appreciative of my wife. I don't feel like we were somehow predestined to be together.

Man! That's funny you say that, I feel the same way with respect to my fiancee.

So it seems that you both think that "knowing" someone is impossible and/or irrelevant? Would you  be more inclined to say that a person is an ongoing process? Like something that is happening more that something that is. But then again, everything is a process, even at the atomic level, so that is not much of an answer.

Fester30, let me ask you this:
You used to be a believer, and no you no longer are. I assume that at some point in time, if you truly believed in God, you must have though that that belief was a quintessential part of who you were. And that thing is gone (you not longer believe in God). Let's take another example. You say that you have the same smile, laugh, eyes, memories, and ability to love those closest to you. What if you decide to undergo plastic surgery and you don't have the same smile/laugh, you start wearing contacts that change the color of your eyes. Let's take it further, you forget some of your childhood memories (by definition, since you forget about them, it's as if they had never existed, so you don't have a way of knowing that you just lost a memory). At this point, what is left of you? That was the nature of my question. At the time you wrote your response, you were confident that these things (smile, etc...) are inherent to who you are, just like, maybe you though that God was inherently part of who you were. And yet today, you not longer have that belief, and you still think of yourself as being the same, minus that belief.
For instance, take my grand parent's house. It changes all the  time, the paint, the blinds, the roof, they updated the foundations, the garden changes all the time, the pluming has been updated, and yet, somehow, it is still the same house. Of course I have memories of the place, but memories of how the place used to be. This is not the best example, because things like the location, and the overall shape of the house hasn't changed. However, a lot has changed, and for me, it still is the "same house".

Like for instance, I am sure all of you guys were in love with someone. Like deeply attached to one of your girlfriend, to the point that they were "a part of you". And yet today you are no longer with that person (it is an assumption actually, maybe you are). What I am trying to say is that I often see people be deeply attached to something (like religion, a house, a person) and feel that that thing is a part of their very being. And yet at a later point that thing is not around anymore, and after a while (like after a break-up) people carry on, despite the fact that they have just lost something that the used to think was inherent to who they are. Which for me begs the question, what is that thing that we call ourselves?

[Asmodean]

Simply put, I am the sum of my actions, values, ideas, emotions and environmental influence.

I am a human, obviously enough, a friend and a rival, a decent guy and a cold-hearted bastard, a co-worker, a guy next door, a lover without the love part, a synth player, an atheist, an interesting person and a predictable one, a weathervane and a rock... And a lot of other things.

I am what my life calls on me to be, just like everyone else I've ever met. Or rather, I am my own interpretation of that life's "calling" at any given time and in any given situation. So the best answer to who I am is, I suppose, "Right now, I am who you see. In a minute, I'll be who you'll see then"

[Twentythree]

I like the response posed by Asmodean “I am the sum of my actions, values, ideas, emotions and environmental influence”. But, I would simplify this to say that I am the sum of my genetic phenotypes coupled with all adaptive behavior learned throughout the course of a lifetime. See, in my opinion you are taking far too many conceptual liberties. You see, yourself is the self you were born with, your DNA or genes makes you predisposed to a certain type of structural behaviors, the most basic being breathing and eating. Thought in itself is a behavior, and the capacity to think, remember and use imagination as a tool of adaptation was given to us by our genes. So there are basically 2 selves, the gene self that supplied the programming framework for yourself. Culture then fills in all the rest. Another way to look at it is that the genes are a recipe for you, yourself, all your biological stuff. if you take that same recipe (same genes) and give it to a million bakers who all diligently follow the recipe you will get a million identical cakes. However, the bakers (Culture) can decorate that cake however they see fit, they can add frosting and icing and cut it into different pieces and put it back together in all sorts of strange and fascinating ways, but when you look back into it all you see is the same cake, the cake that was supposed to be made by following the recipe. Culture acts like this to us. No matter how much you think you know yourself try to imagine changing your environment. Think about moving to a very poor 3rd world country…what would you eat? What would you think about? Which memories would become important? Which memories or behaviors would become useless? All of your behavior including the way that you think and ultimately your beliefs (meaning system) would adapt to your current environment. Therefore you are the sum of your genetic phenotypes, and all adaptive behavior acquired throughout your lifetime.

[DeterminedJuliet]

Do I know exactly what/who I am?
No, not really.

Does it bother me? Nah.
As long as I get some kind of consistency in my reality, I'm good to go.

Making friends with uncertainty is the best thing I've ever done.

[Cosmo]

Thank you folks for the comments, they are very helpful.

[Hobbit]

I am the product of my actions, choices, thoughts, opinions and memories. All these are effected through my hands, feet, brain et cetera i.e. my biology. In any case the answer to your question will vary with my circumstance, or depending on at what point in my life I happen to be when asked. It would also depend on the context of the question itself. The first sentence is about as general as I can make my answer. I cant go into any more detail than that because those details are subject to change.

And the title of your thread just put that song in my head. Way to plant earworms.

[Cosmo]

Making friends with uncertainty is the best thing I've ever done.

Very true.... I am starting to realize how to fundamentally uncertain this Universe is.

And the title of your thread just put that song in my head. Way to plant earworms.

Anytime