I am a fan of Hume's philosophies, so I want everyone to try this out.
I want everyone to try to identify yourself.
I don't mean stand up and say your name. I mean catch hold of that which is you, rather than just the things that you do or experience. To do this, focus your attention on yourself. Try to locate in your own consciousness the "I" that is you, the person who is feeling hot or cold, thinking your thoughts, and hearing the sounds around you. I NOT asking you to locate your feelings, sensations and thoughts, but the person, the self, who is having them.
It should be easy. After all, what is more certain in this world than that you exist? Even if everything around is a dream or illusion, you must exist to have the dream, to do the hallucinating. So if you turn your mind inwards and try to become aware only of yourself, it should not take long to find it. Have a go.
After years and years of different experiences and people met, who I am has changed so much it is a jumble. Sometimes I slip into and out of those past selfs if my mood is shaky.
Besides, I like thinking that I am a tumor on the brain of a succesful yet god-awful person. Perverting their thoughts and actions.
I like Hume a lot too, especially his stuff about causality. I kind of like a Descartes response to the elusive I, that I am a thinking thing. But then you get into questions about bundle theory and substance theory, neither of which solve anything. Descartes claimed that at least he could be certain that he existed in some fashion, because he was capable of thinking and of being deceived. But Bertrand Russell took doubt a step further and simply said "There are thoughts being thunk." That still needs quantifiable evidence, though. I suppose it's easier to just assume I don't exist.
I thought about this one for a long time last year. I forget how it came out, but I asked myself who I was and couldn't answer. I don't want to try again.
A complex structure that is specifically made for the survival of that structure. This structure is complex enough to create a brain to direct the body in the best idea of survival. This mind is adaptable and can preset behaviors modified with experience to create a personality and a language that eventually creates the concept of "myself".
Not What are you, although the second part of your answer works. I like it. You may the only person to solve it. I think I am a defensive structure of justice and adverse situations (challenges.)
Let's get clear about what you all would have found. The moment you became aware of anything it would have been something quite specific: a thought, a feeling, a sensation, a sound, a smell. But in no such case would you have been aware of yourself as such. You can describe each of the experiences you had, but not the YOU that had them.
But there are some protests, I see. How could I not be aware that it was I having these experiences? For instance, it is true that when I looked at this computer screen in front of me, what I was aware of was the screen, not me. But in another sense I was aware that it was me seeing the screen. It just isn't possible to detach myself from the experience, which is why there is no special awareness of I, only an awareness of what I am aware of. That is not to say, however, that the "I" can be taken out of the equation.
Now the problem remains that this "I" is a nothing. The self which has the experiences can be seen in a way through an example. It is like the point of view from which a landscape is painted. In one sense, the PoV cannot be taken from the painting, for it is of the a landscape from a particular perspective, without which the painting would not be what it is. But this PoV is not itself revealed in the painting. So, it is true that, if I look at the screen in front of me, I am aware not only that there is a visual experience, but that it is an experience from a certain PoV. But nothing about the nature of that PoV is revealed by the experience. The "I" is still a nothing, a contentless center around which experiences flutter like pretty butterflies.
Going on with this view, if we ask what the self is, the answer is that it is nothing more than the sum of all the experiences that are connected together by virtue of sharing this one PoV. The self is not a thing and it is certainly not knowable to itself. We have no awareness of what we are, only an awareness of what we experience. That doesn't mean we don't exist, but it does mean we lack a constant core of being, a single self that endures over time (as Esphloded is touching on), which we so often assume, wrongly, makes us the individuals we are.
That is the same conclution I reached last year. Yah it makes sense, but the conclution is not what one would expect. It makes sense, but I feel there is a better answer that nobody came up with yet.
Oh, you really do like Hume. You're using bundle theory, and yet rejecting certain fallacious conclusions. The substance (the I in this case) doesn't have to have permanence. But it still stands to reason that you still feel as though you're the same person (even if your thoughts/experiences have changed) as you were, say yesterday or the day before. The problem, I think, with applying bundle theory to the self is that the self doesn't have "roperties" which are necessary for the bundle theory to work. I'm not sure that things like experience are really properties, right? Hmmm, I need to think.
Well when I first started thinking about this, I thought the answer would be as simple as what was my past, what is my present, and what decisions will I make in future circumstances. I soon, however, figured out it was impossible to put this into words. I also found that I could easily list a bunch of qualities about myself, and describe myself, but not (mentally) define myself. I soon gave up on it leaving it undecided, but my last effort was to say that the self was there, just undefinable, like you said. But I threw this away and stopped thinking about it. It was just too much brain pain. Some other (mostly bad) ideas I came up with, starting with the worst: There is no self The self is undefinable, just describle It is your personality I need more than 13 yrs. life experience to define.
I'm sticking with "There is no self." I am too inebriated to defend this position at the moment, but if anyone would like to challenge this viewpoint, I graciously accept.
What I meant by there is no self is there is no conciousness, only an illusion of conciosness. I mean sinse everyting is syapses, then you are like one overly-complicated AI. Please explain what you mean. Knowing your beliefs, I just realized what I said was too ambiguous. I think you may be trying to ust the Boltzmann's brain theory. If that is true, then I will say that that brain is yourself. You may not have a self on earth, but in that dimention...
