Body? Consciousness? Which one is the real me?

Let's talk about a mind-blowing hypothesis. If humans have the ability to heal themselves, and a new head grows after the head is chopped off, then am I still the same person I used to be? This involves a question: as a human being, which of our limbs can represent me? Legs? Heart? Brain? Or something else? This question can be said to be a very core philosophical question, that is, "Who am I?" Let's talk about this question below!

01. “Who am I?”

Who can represent you? Just like the famous Ship of Theseus, "All the parts of a ship are constantly replaced because of damage. Finally, the ship is completely replaced. Then, is this ship still the Ship of Theseus?"

Tim Urban wrote a very interesting article What Makes You You?

What Makes You You?

It seems that "I" is an obvious concept. Everyone knows that I am me. However, when you think about it carefully, you will start to doubt, what exactly am I?

02. Theory of the Flesh

The body, that is, your existence in the real world represents you, and it does not change because of time and everything you have experienced. You as a child, you now, and you in the future when you grow old are all you. How about it, it seems like this is you, right?

However, suppose we perform surgery and remove a part of your body, such as your appendix or a limb, would you still be yourself at this time? Even if we replace parts of your body, such as an organ transplant, would you still be you?

Especially the latter, if the body represents you, then if all your organs were replaced, like the Ship of Theseus (if your consciousness is still there after the brain is replaced), then are you still you?

Well, at this point, you can see that the body theory does not lead to the conclusion that you are you.

People often joke that what would you do if you woke up and found yourself turned into a woman? The answer is to let your brothers have some fun first. In fact, behind this joke, it reflects a fact that your identification with yourself is not dependent on the body.

03. Information Theory

Since the body cannot represent you, and your self-recognition is based on your own thinking, let's discuss the issue of thinking. I once answered the question "Is it possible for humans to avoid death? - Answer by a Zhihu user" and mentioned the basic theory of consciousness, that is, the theory that consciousness is generated by brain connections.

The brain consists of countless neurons, and these neurons transmit electrical signals to each other all the time. Every action can form a signal, which eventually forms our consciousness.

Each connection in this network represents a consciousness, for example, connection A represents blinking, connection B represents liking, and connection C represents seeing (this is exaggerated, it is much more detailed than this)

The picture below is a connection between a person with stroke and a normal person, mainly showing the hemianopsia caused by stroke

The left picture shows the average distribution of the brain network of the control group; the right picture shows the average distribution of the brain network of the hemianopsia patient. The size of the dots is marked according to the actual proportion. The significantly improved network connections of the patients have been highlighted, and the newly formed connections and the original strengthened connections are marked in green and blue respectively.

The basis of human consciousness and function is the brain, and the basic operation mode of the brain is to complete signal transmission through electrical signals in units of neurons. So the conclusion is that as long as we crack these signal transmission processes, we can crack human consciousness .

Well, suppose we cracked this technology and could completely copy a person's consciousness , just like a Windows system, where each person is a system disk. Then we create a bunch of clones and input all your consciousness into them, just like installing a system.

At this time, these n people have the same consciousness as you, and each has a unique personality. In extreme cases, there is no need to clone them. You can just wipe out the consciousness of a passerby and inject your consciousness into them, just like the "possession" in novels or the legendary "life extension".

So the question is, who can represent you at this time? Is it you? Or these clones? Or passers-by? Or everyone?

Well, when you come to this point, in fact, you are confused, and so am I. Because, as an observer, we cannot determine who you are. However, as for yourself, you can be sure that you are the only one, and the others are all fakes.

So, at this time, what is the basis for your judgment? In fact, it is based on the fact that this body is yours and not a stranger or a clone.

So, the final conclusion is that you are a long process of growth. This process includes your body, your spirit, and everything you have experienced. This is the complete you. If you ignore any of these points, you will fall into the dilemma of who you are.

04. Let’s get back to the point – How to define “Who am I?”

Back to this article, “Who am I?”

1. As long as your head grows out and still has your original consciousness, you will still be you.

2. If your head grows out, you lose all consciousness and start from scratch, then the new you will be created at this moment.

By the way, in fact, the theory of copying consciousness has been proposed for a long time, but we still cannot solve the operating mechanism of the human brain, that is, we don’t know how the brain thinks, which is the real core problem. Therefore, even if all your consciousness is copied to a new individual, if the thinking mode of this individual (assuming that the thinking mode is related to the material basis), then, at the moment of copying, you actually belong to two people , one sees the blue sky, and the other sees the earth.

Do you remember the scene in A Chinese Odyssey?

Haha ...

Finally, I recommend watching a NetEase open course:

Yale University Open Courses: Philosophy

There is a more complete content: If a person is broken into atoms and then reassembled, is this person still the same person? - Philosophy