Captured Thought: Maybe "I" Doesn't Really Exist

  Who am I? This question agonizes and baffles philosphers, poets, and other intellectuals. This average person is no more confident in their identity, as mid-life crisises and teenage angst reveals. But perhaps the reason why a compreshensive answer remains elusive is due to a misplaced faith in the question itself.

   Maybe the real question should be, "Am I?" Descartes would argue that the very act of asking such a question provides the answer, but is thinking really enough evidence to prove the existence of one's self?

   For instance, while I am thinking about what words I should type, I am also listening in on the movements of my family around the house. As I will my fingers to press the proper keys, my eyes focus on a notebook on the ground. How can one person be focusing on all of these things at the same time? This multifaceted aspect to the human mind contradicts the idea of a stable, centered "I".

  Another force which seems to damage the concept of a central "I" is time. Am I really the same person writing this posting now as the three year old who shared my name and family? We are divided by twelve years of near constant experiences and conclusions, and we are joined by only the sparsest group of recollections.

  And speaking of memories, even they do not truly join together the mind into an "I". As we have discussed in class, memories are fluid. They come and go, so leaving me bitter and elated in turn with each recollection. My emotions are not the sum of all I have been through. Rather, they are only the direct product of what passes through my mind in  one single moment.

   Thus, like Orlando, I could be one person in the present, and an entirely foreign one in the very near future. Each thought brings a change, but the passage of time erodes this gradual procces into shards of remembrance, keeping me from much of what I have been before.

   "I" refers to the concept of a unilateral, centralized consciousness. But the human consciousness is constantly divided between various interests and thoughts, even in a single moment. When time is added to the mix, the self divides into millions of fragments often unaware of the existence of others gone before, if memory refuses to serve.

   Thus perhaps it is useless to try to define a personal "I". Maybe "I" doesn't really exist. It could very well be that we are only a collection of neurons, all firing off in different directions, but bound by evolution to more or less cooperate. Perhaps they are in essence democratic, but the process in largely repressed or ignored by us. We choose instead to define ourselves by the limitations of our having a single body, and of living every second only once.  "I" becomes more about our physical limitations, and less about our essential mentality.