Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Pattern recognition and an identity crisis

What the fuck am I? (Too many "fuck"s in this blog? It just works so well at getting readers...) You'll definitely notice an identity crisis weaving it's way through these entries. I guess it's not so much a crisis as I am content with not ever finding out who or what I am. I do believe, however, that the search is a necessary and vital process. In other words, my identity - my life for that matter - is boiled down to a fruitless search. In order to prevent utter personal chaos, the process then has to be the goal. And since meaning is a human construct (yes, I will be serving drinks and similar bits of bullshit wisdom in hell) and a rite of consciousness (more nails in the a-religious coffin), brain-chaos-containment is meaning.  So, Aristotelian logic leads us directly to the idea that I have discovered the meaning of life: process not achievement. The world is now saved. You're welcome America (standard hilarious Will Ferrell).

But back to question at hand: what the fuck am I?  Phenomenology has us bracket our perceptual habits and start fresh (more on phenomenology when I know what the hell I'm talking about).  So starting fresh: I am atoms.  I am carbon; I am oxygen; I am hydrogen; and I am sprinkles of other molecular crap.  The table my computer sits on (I won't discuss the computer itself because I don't pretend to understand whatever magic the Warlock Jobs used to create it) is also made of similar, if not identicle, molecular crap.  So what am I in relation to it?  I am exactly that: a relationship.  When I see myself in the mirror, I am looking at the same particles as I see in a cat, or a table, or tree.  I am different because of the relationship of those particles.  I am a pattern, not a substance.

What does this mean?  I am a construct of my mind.  My brain interprets the relationships and creates me or the table or the tree.  I don't exist as I think I exist outside of my head.  So what the fuck am I?  I am whatever my mind wants me to be.



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