This impossible thing, you.

 Facebook has a tendency to become the "everything place" for me. I get all my news, catch up with people, entertain and digitally scrapbook my life there. Last night while I was scrolling around 1 a.m. I was gathering together a lot of titles of interesting things, one of which was an article about the self and whether or not we have the ability to identify with ourselves as if we are a continuum, if fluidity of self/soul is a thing.

This has been something that I have been wanting to explore for a long time now. Not so much the role that the self plays throughout a lifetime of acknowledgement this is me, but from the rudimentary point of view, who is "me"? 

The article that I read was entitled, "The mystery of personal identity: What makes you and your childhood self the same person despite a lifetime of change." That title, though, was a weighted and loaded introduction to a series of intellectually stimulatingly titled links, most that had more depth in said title than the whole article, at least of the authors words. Mostly it was large block quotes from the book being discussed. I am complaining, this is a mini critique before we get started. I was yelling out, "consider the source" halfway through, announced to myself this was my collegiate self, became disinterested ... and was then very satisfied that it ended abruptly. If you aren't going to put in the effort, at least don't bore us with pretense. The point being, this has been a rather huge commodity for me lately, knowing this one little thing, that oftentimes humans have no idea what they are talking about and that is an indication that they have no idea what they are talking about.

You might laugh at this, but really, if you do not get something, you cannot explain it. It is of the most basic and obvious of common sensical knowledge. And as you know this to be true, you can tell by a writer's either shying from topic by not explaining anything, as this one did, or else saying something that sounds like it makes no sense. It makes an excuse for the writer's excessive use of block quotes. Toward the end of the seriously brief article the author adds a paragraph of links to other articles of the same topic, with the same weaknesses. I hope she isn't paid per word. I am now moving on to the topic. That perhaps the indication the author struggled has more to do with the validity of her argument than her talent.

As I attempt to write on a topic I hardly know about, I will with special care proceed to tear down the tenets of this illusionary discipline, which has folks everywhere jumping to take a stab at, evidenced by the multiple links within the piece, links related to titles of books, some having four and five books per article.

 First of all, the most celebrated of modernist views on the self is that it is illusive, dynamic, and comprised of bits and pieces that can be rearranged and tossed out or even grow larger and smaller or disappear altogether over time. This definition being vague, is easily understood. We are of several parts which when added up total "you". I reached this conclusion at the end of the article: The modern person wants to define himself so precisely he is unable to come to any conclusions. His self-awareness is as elusive as the ability to fully define and record the sum total of his entire life. And this is the point I think has evaded this group of new philosophers. They have mistakenly given credit to aspects of the personality which are ever changing, instead of focusing on something that is undefinable, the human soul.

Now, where I am different from other people is that I can acknowledge things very comfortably that I feel are obvious and say I know them. I, without concrete evidence, know there is a God. Without any evidence, I am certain of the existence of the soul. If by chance the soul is emotion, ideal, and beliefs, these being inconstant, then clearly the individual is sort of a walking package of potentiality without the noble and comforting constancy we each believe we cherish in our loved ones. Of course, we could allow that in science we have the ability to use limits for things. You have changing moods, but remain in a certain state, and that state is a "common constant". And now to introduce article 2, which has introduced us to, "the emerging field of experimental philosophy". It wouldn't be a philosophy if it was a science, laugh out loud. 

This article, titled, "The nature of the self: Experimental Philosopher Joshua Knobe on how we know who we are", explains that, and is intermingled in the above explanation, that we are a series of different things which happen to us and that we react to, and those things are changing, which makes the identity elusive. I cannot create an image within myself which can grasp the idea that my emotions have anything to do with myself as an individual. If I am happy, I am in a state that is common, shared, understood by everyone. This cannot be a characteristic of self. It is different to be, say, an incredibly moody person. That some have a "constitution" is soul and identity related. But human emotion and someone's constitution are two very different things. A constitution is fundamental to an individual by necessity, and organized, but emotion is not. All people have sadness when they lose things that are meaningful to them, but the way by which they proceed to handle the situation, is the self. We have all seen Sense and Sensibility. I was also intrigued by the giant bite of turkey I had this morning. I was easily able to know and identify the flavor of that bird. 

I want to first ask one silly question. The author opens with statements that we have no ability to trust our future selves as we are ever changing, and then proceeds to state that, "even biologically, most cells in the our bodies are completely renewed every seven years. How, then, do we know [who] “we” are? How do we hold the “self” with any sense of firmness?" I am mystified by this as well. This author pauses to recollect that she has the ability to recollect at all. Her intense feelings of awareness have been lulled to a quiet contemplation, where she indulges herself in her complete makeover, which leaves her an entirely new being. She then awakens abruptly to the starling notion that, while this seven-year process transpires, it fails to destroy the memories, bonds, and peculiar tastes of said person. I have yet to, after a lifetime, become a social person. In fact, I am well below the bar there. I am also incredibly artistic, the seven-year renewal has not wiped me clean. I'm here, and it's me.

For whatever reason yesterday I was having a little internal spat with the Hindus for having set up a system that makes me feel I need to reach an ideal that is all up in my consciousness, where I could safely be the sum of all of these things. I wanted to understand the way it works, because, you know, enlightenment in reality is probably as hard to grasp as the self. A sort of serendipitous foray into the challenges of seeing a whole for its parts, as I did today dissecting the self. Such an easy concept, harder to understand though, now. In the 20th century people started pulling puzzles apart and forgot how to put them back together. But they think puzzles are great and they know all the pieces. Look here! This one is your ideals. You say you don't care if you gain weight now? You're really eating that? This cannot be my friend Mary!

But it is me. A fatter, happier me. With an ice cream sundae.

Off topic for a moment. Wouldn't it be fun to be smart enough to test people on what they know by asking questions and watching them recoil at trying to answer them? I am going to add this onto my list of goals .I want to know how to get people to spill on things they know nothing about, but people don't care about things. I want you to not see me as cruel and terrible in this, think of me like the original Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th street, all jolly and kind, and genuinely interested in his fellow man. Especially since they are delightfully simple minded. Oh wait, that's already being done. Conservatives do that.

Furthermore! 

I do not mind thinking into things though. Just now I had to decide if I liked Furthermore! in the middle of two paragraphs. Perhaps 20th century poetry made formatting less informal. Would Thomas Aquinas be able to stomach a word, a single word?!

I think that it is most informal on the occasion that I wrote a following blog as I sit here, one which opens, "I'm editing this b*tch". There goes tradition.

If anything matters, anything at all, it is that we have solid beliefs and morals, and if not, that those exist, somewhere, in great bounty. For the good of all mankind.