I believe Admiral Stockdale meant to say “What am I? Who am I here?”
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The important thing is, were you good enough to eat Raw Bits™?
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Never resist when it comes to Paul!
(On second read that sure sounds weird…)
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Reubens?
Maybe.
Other folks by that particular nomenclature*?
Not so much…
*(It’s my ex’s name.)
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When I feel particularly angsty I tend to write shit poetry. One, I believe, was called The Least of Me, all about how out of everything that makes me me, my body is the least of it.
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All that and no mention of the Ship of Theseus? This isn’t exactly a new question. You can never step in the same river twice.
I don’t know that it applies to the constancy of consciousness or personal identity, but on a baser level an object’s definition can be thought of as dependent on its utility. An umbrella with a hole in it is still an umbrella, as it still mostly performs the function of keeping rain off of your head; an umbrella with no skin is not an umbrella at all, any more than a skeleton is an animal. Depending on how the umbrella is used it could be considered any number of other things.
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I am a point of view, an entelechy traveling through an essential monad experiencing each one moment of totality sequentially, creating an illusion of orderly progress labeled the passage of time. The portion of the monad which everyone can agree to comprehend, we typically call the universe. I can change my focus to see forests or trees or leaves or planets within the portion of the monad that my point of view enters because observation is my universal function; by observation I change the nature of reality.
Others constantly attempt to change the point of view that is me (often quite clumsily) in order to co-opt my effect on the universe for their own purposes, or simply because they are dissatisfied with the portion of the monad that they can comprehend. Sometimes I choose to allow these changes, or am forced to accept them; other times I remain inviolate - but I am always me, and always was, and always will be.
Hey, you asked.
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