Who am I?

It's the easiest question to answer, as there's an objective answer sitting on my birth certificate, as with most of everyone. But is it really that easy to answer?

For starters, when I say 'I', am I referring to my body as a whole, or is it just my brain referring to itself? Is my identity inextricably tied to the meat-covered skeleton my brain is currently piloting?

I'm reminded of that 'fun fact': every cell of the human body is entirely replaced approximately every seven years. This leads to a fun little 'ship of Theseus' problem—physically speaking, am I the same person I was seven years ago?

Mentally speaking? Of course not! I know things now that my high-school self would not know, and my personality has changed slowly but surely.

Physically, though? I have indeed grown taller, heftier, but is it the same me?

It's weird to think about. Despite technically not keeping any of my original cells from seven, fourteen years ago, the loss and replacement happened so gradually that I would still call myself 'me'.

As always, science fiction always asks the hardest questions about identity. If every single cell in my body is duplicated, what we would call 'cloning', would this duplicate be me? If I traveled back in time to meet my younger self, who between us is the real 'me'?

One way to answer is that the real 'me' is where my consciousness is, but that brings up the debate on mind-body duality, which is once again explored in science fiction—if I swapped bodies with someone, who is the real me? Oftentimes, the real me is where my mind is, but it's always treated as 'wrong' and as a problem to solve.

This implies that something ties the 'own body' to the 'own mind', even if the 'own body' changes over time and the 'own mind' can also grow separately.

Even focusing on just the mind, there is debate to be had on what dictates our actions. Is it the chemicals that our brain operate on? Depression is, after all, clinically just an imbalance of hormones. Is it something deeper than this? What constitutes 'my idea'?

To drive the point further, there's the concept of the id, ego, and superego, three aspects of the mind as coined by Freud (though he is mostly a quack). Are we driven by desire, rationality, or a mix of both?

Finally, the sense of 'me' can also be derived simply by asking the people around me. Different people in my life would describe me in different ways, and often contradicting. These people see different sides of myself, so of course their idea of me can conflict with another person's idea of me, and even my idea of me.

It reminds me of that proverb about the three faces we wear: one for the outside world, one for our closest friends and family, and one for ourselves.

In essence, 'who am I?' was never that easy to answer.

But the only correct answer, I'd say, is 'the best selves we could be'.