8FOLD/ACRA: The House of Fiction # 4

[martinphipps2 at yahoo.com]

Tom Russell wrote:
>    I obsess sometimes about the nature of identity.
> How much of me is me?  Am I half my father and half my
> mother?  Am I the sum of their lives?  Am I a
> socio-economic-political product of my times?  If
> that's true, than I have no say over who I am.  I
> can't help who I am, and so I have no true me-ness, no
> personality, no free will.

You are a biological organism acting on the instincts to survive and
pass your genes to the next generation.

Oh wait!  Even better!  You are a billion cells wrapped in a layer of
skin and all co-operating for mutual survival.

Oh wait!  Even better!  You are a quadrillion atoms engaged in chemical
reactions that result in the cyclic formation of deoxyribonucleic and
amino acids.

Oh wait!  Even better!  You are several quadrillion quarks and leptons
existing in a quantum state that is 99.9% you and 0.1% dead cat.

>    Though if there is an essential me-ness, a soul
> that defies brain chemicals and physical reality, then
> I don't have control over that, either.  I'm created
> with a core, basic personality.  And what does that
> say for free will?

Ha ha ha.  Ha ha ha ha ha.  Ha ha ha.  Ha ha ha.  Sorry.  Had to laugh.
 No choice really.  Endorphins made me do it.

>    I know that emotions are the result of chemical
> imbalances in the brain.  Science tells us this.  But
> I don't want to believe it.  I want to believe in the
> mystery of personality rather than its solution.

And I want to believe that Jennifer Love Hewitt wants nothing more than
to make sweet passionate love to my genitals.

>    Drugs change the chemicals in your brain, they make
> you happy or down or whatever, they dull your thoughts
> (or speed them up).  Let's forget side-effects,
> over-doses, death.  Forget all that shit, it's not
> important.
>    But if drugs change who you are, than it brings up
> very curious and tricky questions about the nature of
> me-ness.  With drugs, I wouldn't be me.  I'd be
> chemicals.

Or genes.  Or cells.  Or atoms.  Or elementary particles.  It's a
matter of point of view, really.

>    Now, some people
>    (my brother Kevin)
>    are cool with that.

We are all chemicals.  Some of us choose to be 0.5% heroin.

Martin