Solving The Mystery Of Who You Are

Continued from yesterday…

Losing a loved one is perhaps the most painful experience we go through as humans. It’s often surreal to look at the body of a family member or friend and realize that they have passed away.

Usually, we refer to their death in euphemisms: “Their spirit has parted from their body,” or “Their consciousness has left their body.” But, as our language suggests, we seem to know intuitively that what made them a living being was not their body itself but an inexplicable presence within that physical form.

Needless to say, human consciousness has bewildered philosophers, scientists, theologians, and spiritual thinkers for millennia. When science dissects your essence, it does an excellent job of explaining the blood, the guts, and the other gory insides. It also magnificently explains the fascinating world of atoms, molecules, and cells that form the patterns that make up you.

Yet science is not adept at giving answers to why you fall in love, why you want your life to matter, and why you are conscious of your own existence. Consciousness, therefore, stands as an unsolved mystery even for the greatest scientific minds.

In search for answers to the question of human consciousness, the seventeenth-century French philosopher Rene’ Descartes coined the term, “I think; therefore I am.” The ability to think was evidence of our consciousness to Descartes. But this placed an excessive emphasis on thoughts. Even a computer can store data and make logical conclusions based on that data. In other words, even a computer can think. Yet, it can’t experience reality or life. It does not possess the depth of consciousness that we enjoy as humans.

To be continued tomorrow…

Adapted from Section 1 of Awakening To I Am Love by David Youngren