09 POST Who are you? Who is I, who is me, or, really, who is myself?

Am I really conscious of who I am to the degree I can tell who you are?  Our understanding of the brain and subsequent language to describe it is to day inadequate.  We know about Mirror cells in the brain that let us mimic others, even their emotions.  This gives us empathy, lets us know how they feel and subsequently how our actions affect them.

But who are you, really?  No, no, don't do this to me.  Don't make me answer that question.  I am beside myself wondering who I am, so the heck with you, that's even a harder question, who you are.  How can I figure out who you are if I can not figure out who I am.

Its an age old question that philosophers struggle with, psychologists battle with, psychiatrists try to diagnose, sociologists try to define in situational group settings, spiritualists describe with wonderfully colorful and imaginative concepts, literary types with wild and exciting stories, and brain researchers with neurological circuitry.  They all have truths and they all fail.  Perhaps they will always fail.  Our beady little brains may not be able to figure it out.  Would our brains have to be bigger than itself to see and define itself in a way that it could explain to itself who it is.  Like a parent explaining things to a child.

Well, you probably are saying, yes but you said the brain sees more than we do, feels more, thinks more, and at times makes us do more than we are aware of.  So can't it be the parent and explain to us, the child who we are?  Does the child really understand what's behind the parent's watered down to their level explanation?  Or do they only understand what they can understand at their watered down level.  Can we really see, feel, think, and experience what we can't see, feel, think, or experience.  Besides, does the brain even care to really answer who it is, or able to.

I am here to tell you that you are Mr. Do (I), widgets (Me), and body (Myself).  You ain't going to like this but you are basically the way you are, or is, by the way I arranges the widgets to see, feel, think, and do.  Now that's cyclic, redundant, you create you.  So who is you....ah, the inborn strengths of your widgets, trial and error learning, or both?  I thought I was in control.  No, don't tell me I am who I is, or who can be, or who was....there has to be more to it.  Is life no more than luck of the draw genetic and luck of the draw life experiences that help or hinder I from rearranging widgets?  And is that also predetermined how I will respond to those cues?  Is free choice only a genetically predisposition for life so it is satisfied when I arranges the widgets so myself will do the right things in the given environment (perceived, emotional, conceptual, or physical) to live in pleasure and safety?  Perhaps so.  Then we can define true free will, or the strength of it, as having useful perceptions, adaptive emotions, wise thoughts, and helpful experiences to help I arrange those widgets to reap the benefits of themselves, of others, of opportunities and to build and engineer self, others, and things to better life, not death.  To sum it up we could say to do what works, biologically, emotionally, socially, or situation ally.  Is that not what your mother told you, to do the right thing?  Is that a moral judgement or really just a survival judgement?

Next Post: so it all boils down to the consciousness controlling the subconsciousness?