The rational and scientific understanding of what we are

This topic is about the rational and scientific progression of the understanding of what we think that we are over time.

As conscious beings, philosophically, first we notice that we are bodies and have a conscious awareness that we have an existence through time. Then we notice that others die so we conclude that we the living will also die. Since upon death the body is still there but something very important is different. There is no human like behavior any more and the body quickly changes (rots) over time into bones. It seems very rational to assume that something has been lost or left the body at death. With very little scientific understanding of the body, there is the rational and logical, for the time, assumption of the existence a soul or spirit that leaves the body at death. Which is something like the Phlogiston theory of fire before we understood scientifically combustion and the production of energy from matter; basically limited understanding because of limited knowledge

We then noticed that live bodies produce a complex set of different behaviors that we call life, and give this property the name when used for humans the soul or spirit. The conclusion is that if you do not have a spirit or soul you cannot be alive.

With greater understanding of the body and the creation of computers we realized that the body alone is complex enough to produce the complex behaviors that we see in a living human beings. We can now speculate and believe that we are a body of matter with complex changes occurring that is producing or being what we are. But what actually are we though, that the body produces? Some thinkers have said: No! No! We are the body, the body does not produce us. we are the body!

Over time, the idea of consciousness is developed, with the conclusion that we are conscious when we are alive and not conscious when we are dead. But then people still believe in a soul or spirit. So is the soul or is the body conscious? Since people often experience seeing life from a perspective that is outside of the body like in dreams and in other semi-conscious states, this gives us again the ration idea that this exterior perspective is a perspective from the soul, so the soul is the one that is conscious not the body.

But further scientific research shows that experiences of being outside of the body can be produced by the brain alone without the need of a soul. On top of this knowledge, there is no scientific evidence of the existence of a soul or spirit.

Scientifically we are back to believing that we are a material body. But science shows that the matter in the body is replaced by matter outside of the body all of the time, even the bones are not the same over time. So what you are is not a specific piece of matter over time. So what actually makes you, you, and not someone else? Consciously I am not experiencing exactly what I did yesterday. So not only is the body changing, the consciousness that the body produces is changing as well.

The concept of matter being assimilated into the body was proposed. The new matter that is always coming into the body has to be assimilated (changed in some way) into being you by the old matter that is already in the body. If this was not the case the old matter could be saved over time to make several other copies of you. The problem always comes down to: you are the body, and you are not the body but a consciousness. How is one body connected to one consciousness, if there are no souls or spirits to connect the two?

It is proposed that the concept of the assimilation of matter is necessary to tie matter together over time to create one unique you. The problem is that science has not found any unique thing that a body does to matter to make it unique to that one body over time. In other words it appears that matter can be replaced instantaneously in the body and still produce the same consciousness and thus you as long as the structure and functioning of the body is maintained.

Upon careful though we realize that we do not experience what someone else is experiencing so they must be uniquely different. But how can this be if matter can produce the same or close approximate structures and functionings of matter, should then, it not also produce the same consciousness and ixperiencitness as well?

This is where the ideas proposed by awaretheory comes in. Identical structure and functioning of matter produces identical behavior, consciousness, and ixperiencitness. This means that other conscious beings can have a consciousness that you experience. If this is true it means that you can be, or are, much more than the relatively simple consciousness that you now experience at each progressive moment.

See also: awaretheory, ixperiencitness, itofazmultiplicity, superimmortality, supermortality, template superlist, Circular itofazpaths,