"who is the you, then"
I can answer this only at a psychological level, that too only very roughly because I am not an expert of psychology. So, do not take what I write here as authoritative explanation of psychology, but it is merely my understanding. You can read all this on Wikipedia if you are interested. And, most of this would sound like nonempirical philosophy, because in certain ways psychology is not a purely scientific field, because hardly anything in it can be quantified. I will slightly transform the question - who is "I"
'I' is an environment constructed by the brain, a kind of bubble, which segregates all the sensations into 'internal' and 'external'. This in psychology is known as 'ego'. And I think in Sanskrit it is known as "aham". For instance, children as they grow up, because of various experiences build an 'ego boundary', which separates the intenal from the external. An infant does not understand that he has an existence separate from the environment. He feels that the fan or toy he sees, are also a part of its "I". The first thing it recognizes as having a separate existence from his own is the mother. Building of ego boundary requires the child to test all the sensory modalities. If he places his hand on a surface, and then you tap the surface with a key, the child will hear a sound and also see that the key and the surface are coming into contact. The child initially is not able to understand that the sound of tap and the moment of impact of key and surface have any relation. But as he sees such events repeatedly, he builds a correlation between the two. The he starts thinking one of them as the cause (contact) and the other (sound) as the effect. The sound would be felt within the ego boundary, but the sight of contacting of key and surface would be outside it. But now, instead, if you would tap the child's palm with that key, he will experience the sense of "touch". He would realize that whereas, sound is produced even if key is made to impact anywhere on the surface, sensation of touch occurs only when things come in contact with very specific body parts. So, he starts making this distinction. The limbs and especially the skin over it marks off the ego boundary. Because wherever the child goes, these body parts can be seen consistently. Also, whenever something comes in contact with some body part a sensation of "touch" is produced. So, the child starts discriminating between body part, say, palm ("me") and surface on which he had kept the hand ("not me").
Gradually, the child also starts recognizing other sensations like hunger, bowel and bladder pressure, etc. They are seen as originating from "inside". Further ahead, the child starts recognizing emotions (not sensations like pain) like anger, desire, fear, lack of fear (sense of security), etc. These are also recognized as coming from "within" (possibly, because they cannot be seen in the outside environment). All this further strengthens the idea of an ego boundary. Whatever lies within the ego boundary is "me", and whatever lies outside this ego boundary is "not me". This all is somewhat corroborated by what people feel on consuming cannabis (bhaang that people consume during the festival of holi). The ego boundary is blurred after that and people experience what is known as "depersonalization", i.e., they can actually hear themselves speak as if it was spoken by someone else. Through, cannabis example I only wanted to explain that even this ego boundary could be influenced (and actually caused) by neurotransmitters. Because, cannabis can enter the brain and act on specific receptors.
Still, I have only vaguely been able to answer what is "I". I have only explained the possible process that leads to the genesis of ego boundary, but not yet as to where in the brain the center for "I" exists. It is also suggested that the concept of "self" arises largely because of memory of events that had occurred in contiguity.
But let me try to put the whole situation in an entirely different perspective. When something "touches" your finger tip, there is actually no real contact, because actually at the atomic level, hardly any atom can touch the other because of intense force of repulsion. So, what actually gets transmitted to the brain is the iformation of force of repulsion. Yet, you do not feel it as 'repulsion'. It is still a touch for you. To give another example, most of the animals are color blind. For them, green is no different from red. In fact, in nature there are no different colors. Only different wavelengths and frequencies. But yet, you feel that there is a color. There is no sound, there is only harmonic vibration and its amplitude. Yet, what you perceive is sound. If you place a tuning fork on your behind the prominence of your ear, exactly same vibration would be felt as vibration (by the skin) and also as sound by transmitted by the ear. So, this proves that brain actually synthesizes "perceptions". So, brain is entirely capable of creating a bubble, within which all the sensations, memories, emotions, decisions, etc. are contained. This bubble need not be "material". Just like how color is not material, but is an indicator of a stimulus. But if something goes wrong perception of color could still arise without the original stimulus. So, why can brain not create such a bubble I am talking of? And this bubble is "I".
I can answer this only at a psychological level, that too only very roughly because I am not an expert of psychology. So, do not take what I write here as authoritative explanation of psychology, but it is merely my understanding. You can read all this on Wikipedia if you are interested. And, most of this would sound like nonempirical philosophy, because in certain ways psychology is not a purely scientific field, because hardly anything in it can be quantified. I will slightly transform the question - who is "I"
'I' is an environment constructed by the brain, a kind of bubble, which segregates all the sensations into 'internal' and 'external'. This in psychology is known as 'ego'. And I think in Sanskrit it is known as "aham". For instance, children as they grow up, because of various experiences build an 'ego boundary', which separates the intenal from the external. An infant does not understand that he has an existence separate from the environment. He feels that the fan or toy he sees, are also a part of its "I". The first thing it recognizes as having a separate existence from his own is the mother. Building of ego boundary requires the child to test all the sensory modalities. If he places his hand on a surface, and then you tap the surface with a key, the child will hear a sound and also see that the key and the surface are coming into contact. The child initially is not able to understand that the sound of tap and the moment of impact of key and surface have any relation. But as he sees such events repeatedly, he builds a correlation between the two. The he starts thinking one of them as the cause (contact) and the other (sound) as the effect. The sound would be felt within the ego boundary, but the sight of contacting of key and surface would be outside it. But now, instead, if you would tap the child's palm with that key, he will experience the sense of "touch". He would realize that whereas, sound is produced even if key is made to impact anywhere on the surface, sensation of touch occurs only when things come in contact with very specific body parts. So, he starts making this distinction. The limbs and especially the skin over it marks off the ego boundary. Because wherever the child goes, these body parts can be seen consistently. Also, whenever something comes in contact with some body part a sensation of "touch" is produced. So, the child starts discriminating between body part, say, palm ("me") and surface on which he had kept the hand ("not me").
Gradually, the child also starts recognizing other sensations like hunger, bowel and bladder pressure, etc. They are seen as originating from "inside". Further ahead, the child starts recognizing emotions (not sensations like pain) like anger, desire, fear, lack of fear (sense of security), etc. These are also recognized as coming from "within" (possibly, because they cannot be seen in the outside environment). All this further strengthens the idea of an ego boundary. Whatever lies within the ego boundary is "me", and whatever lies outside this ego boundary is "not me". This all is somewhat corroborated by what people feel on consuming cannabis (bhaang that people consume during the festival of holi). The ego boundary is blurred after that and people experience what is known as "depersonalization", i.e., they can actually hear themselves speak as if it was spoken by someone else. Through, cannabis example I only wanted to explain that even this ego boundary could be influenced (and actually caused) by neurotransmitters. Because, cannabis can enter the brain and act on specific receptors.
Still, I have only vaguely been able to answer what is "I". I have only explained the possible process that leads to the genesis of ego boundary, but not yet as to where in the brain the center for "I" exists. It is also suggested that the concept of "self" arises largely because of memory of events that had occurred in contiguity.
But let me try to put the whole situation in an entirely different perspective. When something "touches" your finger tip, there is actually no real contact, because actually at the atomic level, hardly any atom can touch the other because of intense force of repulsion. So, what actually gets transmitted to the brain is the iformation of force of repulsion. Yet, you do not feel it as 'repulsion'. It is still a touch for you. To give another example, most of the animals are color blind. For them, green is no different from red. In fact, in nature there are no different colors. Only different wavelengths and frequencies. But yet, you feel that there is a color. There is no sound, there is only harmonic vibration and its amplitude. Yet, what you perceive is sound. If you place a tuning fork on your behind the prominence of your ear, exactly same vibration would be felt as vibration (by the skin) and also as sound by transmitted by the ear. So, this proves that brain actually synthesizes "perceptions". So, brain is entirely capable of creating a bubble, within which all the sensations, memories, emotions, decisions, etc. are contained. This bubble need not be "material". Just like how color is not material, but is an indicator of a stimulus. But if something goes wrong perception of color could still arise without the original stimulus. So, why can brain not create such a bubble I am talking of? And this bubble is "I".
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