[Radical]

Who am I? Are we like a machine or are we more then a machine?

The question is what is that “I” that we refer to. Is it a body part? Or is it a characteristic or a property of some body part or an organ. Is it really separate from our body? What do we mean by separate from our body? Where does that “I” reside?

Let us take an example. Suppose you are healthy today. Then one day your hand gets cut off. You recovered and after that you will still feel that you have the same central entity “I” within you. You will say “my hand got cut off but I did not die”. So hand is not “I”. You will have same perception of “I” before and after the accident when your hand got cut off. Take another example, suppose you got a heart transplant and after your recovery you will say that I have now different heart but I am still alive. Here again your perception of “I” is still same. You still have same habits. You have all your memory still intact. “I” still is same before and after heart transplant.

These types of examples makes us feel that “I” is not part of the body because when an organ or a body part is cut off or replaced then the feeling of “I” does not go away. It still remains same within us. You remember your family. You have the same old opinion of “I” as before the organ or body parts was replaced. You still have your old desires and problems. You feel that “I” is still same. So you may feel that “I” does not belong to hands or legs or any other body parts.

What if the body parts that we talked about in previous paragraph refers to brain. Will you have the same feeling of “I” if your brain is damaged or if you had a brain transplant? I claim you won’t. At this time medically brain transplant is not possible. Science has not advanced that much that we can transplant brain from one person to another person. You should ask the question that would you feel the same “I”, if you go through brain transplant or if you were unconscious? If you ask the question, you will find out that you will not feel the same “I”.

We have known cases where person’s brain is damaged. Then at some point they recover. When they were unconscious then the feeling of “I” was not there else they were not unconscious. You can go through this exercise yourself. Suppose if you were unconscious for some reason or if you were under general anesthesia, would you have feeling of “I”? The feeling of “I” goes away. Only during waking hours or sometimes during dreams you get the feeling of “I”. This tells us that feeling of “I” is produced by brain cells. It is a property of the brain cells that produce this feeling.

So what is the “I” that we refer to ourselves? It is a feeling that happens in brain. It is not a separate entity from brain. Similarly we go through feeling of sorrow and pleasure in our brain. The feeling of “I” is not same as emotional feelings of pain and pleasure but it is another type of feeling that makes us feel that there is a separate entity called “I”. I am not expert in how brain works but in brain there are brain cells called neurons. Within these cells and among these cells there are electro-chemical reactions happening in the brain. The feeling of “I” may be caused by these reactions or communications between neurons or because of some entire different activity. What I am trying to point out is that it happens in brain and is caused by some brain activity.

This leads us to the conclusion that the feeling of “I” is part of the brain. The feeling is such that it has the characteristic that it makes us feel that “I” is separate from our body but it is the characteristic of the feeling. It is still a feeling that is happening in our brain. It is part of our body. The reason I am saying that it is part of our body is that because the feeling happens in our brain and brain is part of our body so that feeling of “I” is part of our body. But the characteristic of this feeling is that it does make us feel separate from our body but it is really not separate from our body. When brain is damaged or unconscious then the feeling of “I” is no longer there.

What are the implications of the above conclusion that feeling of the “I” is part of the brain which is part of the body?

What happens when we die? At some point and time our body is going to stop functioning and we are going to die. It is the same fate for all of us. By using science we can extend the life but ultimately we all are going to die. When we die our brain stops functioning. The feeling of “I” is no longer remains because the brain is not functioning. It is like when a computer’s central processing unit (the brain of the computer – we call it CPU) dies, it cannot process instructions. Similarly when our brain dies and when we die the feeling of “I” goes away. It is no longer there because brain is dead.

This leads us to a conclusion that the feeling of “I” is only temporary and happens in brain and it lasts only as long as we are alive and brain is functioning. After death the whole body and brain dies and there is no “I”. There is no permanent “I” or there is no central entity, which lasts after the death of the body and brain. The unique genetic combination in this universe that has produced our body and brain will no longer exist. “I” is a feeling, which also goes with the death of the body and brain. It goes forever.

From above discussion let me say what we mean by life.

We are born somewhere on this planet. It is sheer luck where we were born. Also the unique genes from our parents have produced our body. Our body has its own properties like a tree has its own properties. When a seed grows it takes the shape of a tree and when fertile human egg grows it takes the shape of a human body. Then our body goes through different stages throughout our lifetime. From childhood it grows and we enter adulthood. Then we enter in to mid life and our body ( we ) starts going down hill. At some point body starts deteriorating and then it dies. At that point the unique body that existed for short period of time on this earth no longer exists. The unique genetic combination in this universe that has produced our body dies and the game is over for us. The feeling of “I” also goes away with the death of our body.

This leads us to conclusion that we are just like a machine. We are our body. Our body is set of parts and organs. The brain is one of the organs. It produces these effects of “I”, identity, intuition, intelligence etc. When our body thus brain dies then the feeling of “I”, identity etc. all goes away since functioning brain is no longer there. This tells us that there is no permanent separate residual entity remains in us after the death of the body. Also when we are alive there is no separate entity in us. These feelings are just property of the brain. The brain produces them.