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6/20/2013 6:47:46 PM
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Why am I me and not you?

Some philosophy student was hanging out with me and my friends and I heard this question. Now it's hurting my god damn head and I have to study for a Calc III exam...-blam!-! So it went like this: [quote]Why am I me and not you? [/quote] And I said: chance, maybe a God(s), complex chemistry...no -blam!-ing clue [quote]"[Insert rambling about Jesus and our Lord and Savior here]"[/quote] ... [quote]just kidding[/quote] And then the subject matter changed, and then we got lunch, Earth continued on it's elliptical orbit around the Sun, etc. But then I thought about it..."why am I me and not you?". Why are we perceiving the world around us through the pair of eyes and ears through the body in which you are in [i]right now[/i] and not through let's say the person sitting behind you? Or why am I perceiving this life through a Human in the first place? Why not a lion, or some other alien on another planet? Why am I living in this time frame, in this century and not during the Roman Empire? Bloody hell...I think I'm rambling now...blah blah blah philosophy...

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  • Edited by Sgt Petter: 7/3/2013 6:48:31 PM
    One quick answer to this question would be this: definitions. The usual use of the terms "I", "me" and "you", makes it impossible, both practically and theoretically for "you to be me" or vice versa. It's a little like asking "Why does Stoke's theorem only apply to closed curves?" So, if you want to have any discussion at all based on this question, you need to reconsider the definitions of "I", "me" and "you". So then you need to define "I", some sort of self, and all of a sudden you have a discussion about existence. That seems to be the core of the question (the way I see it). It's still an interesting one though, am I a consciousness? A body? A set of personalities? Opting for the first may lead to a another question: [i]If I am just a consciousness, what is a man in coma?[/i] And you'll probably want to adjust your answer. In this way you may through discussion get closer to an answer, it is important though, to note that the discussion will often hold more value than whatever answer you end up with.

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