Snippitts of Illusions

I've been thinking, actually I've thought about this before, but it was recently reviltalized into my memory by something a friend wrote. What makes us us? How is it we define ourselves? Often times, often enough that I haven't been able to think of one other than this case, it is outside forces that we use to define ourselves by. One can ask: "Who are you?" and you would say "well I'm me". Then they would say: "No I mean what do you do? What do you like to do?" This is a typically line of question. We can never seem to take a person at face value, which is a good thing. A persons behaviour is not always an indication of who they are, but usually is. When I say I'm Frank, those of you who know me know imediatly who I am. Off handed comments I've made seem to come to mind, movies I like , the kind of music I listen too or have written. These are all viable things to associate with me. The question comes up: How much does enviroment affect a person? This is the case of the old nature verses nuture. This is something that is incredibly difficult to look at. Why? Because we cannot look at it completely objectively on a human level. We can look at animals, and see how they respond, but animals don't seem to have the same cognitive capacity that humans do. So while it is a valid test and can give us a good idea, it will never be completely accurate.

Now, who am I?

I'm a guy with too much time on his hands, otherwise I wouldn't be thinking of stuff like this.

Labels: musings

posted by F.G. Shaw @ 1:49 PM