To find being a person really weird

[beconase]

I know that sounds odd, but every now and then it hits me how weird it is just being a person and having a mind. Does anyone else ever get this?

Actually, both ghosts and aliens do fit into a Christian framework. C.S. Lewis wrote a sci-fi trilogy, which incidentally I wouldn't recommend giving to your Narnia loving ten year old unless you want them to have screaming nightmares, where he did just that with aliens, though he had them living on other planets in the solar system, which we know is incorrect.

Lots of Christians have historically believed in ghosts, including quite clearly if you read the gospels, Jesus's disciples. Also John Wesley I think.

Yes. I always think that there are 8 billion people on the planet. How did 'I' get to be the 'driver' inside this particular one!

Yes, its weird. I went to a museum at the weekend and there was a room with dinosaur fossils etc. There were displays talking about how many times the earth has replenished itself and I turned to my dh and said this is amazing. Then read about how humans made the dodo extinct in a really short amount of time and then I thought how I really hate humans and about how humans are destroying the earth just by being here. And now life is about earning money to live in a house and then we die, just like everyone else. It's odd.

I'm not explaining it well, but the earth has evolved and been around for so many millions of years, then dinosaurs dominated the earth and things were healthy. Then humans came along and are destroying it ourselves by putting concrete structures everywhere and killing off all the other life. It's depressing.

I think it depends if you believe in the notion of a 'soul' or a 'consciousness' or not. If you do, then I can see why you might find it difficult to comprehend exactly why you inhabit your own body.

I do not, because I only consider my personality and so on to be a product of my personal physiology and biochemistry, so it would be impossible for 'me' to be anyone other than who I am. Body and 'soul' are not two independent things. The soul does not float around as some disembodied ethereal entity awaiting a host. My sentience and sense of self is a product of my physiology, does not predate it, and would not exist without it. It's the same for every other being on the planet, including all the other species, so the only reason "I" am who I am is sheer accident of birth.

As I see it, pondering 'why am I me?' is a fundamentally flawed premise because it puts the cart before the horse.

This. Completely this!

Bags of meat containing a cpu. Making up rules n shit about what people must do, going to work, paying bills and taxes that we only have to do because other meat bags decided that's how we needed to do things.

Meat bags who don't take their holiday entitlement from work or check emails out of office hours because their Big Jobs are so important.

I think about this sort of stuff a lot.

If you view Earth from the perspective of The Universe, we seem to have got 'life' very wrong...

I think very deeply, just don't believe in things that have not been proven.

I don't think being a human is weird....apart from eyebrows.....I find eyebrows really weird, I know they serve a very important purpose, but they are like teeny tiny brow wigs!

Yes, because I am different person in different scenarios. My work personality was very different to that of my close friendships. Ditto family, meeting people for the first time, and acquaintances. They overlap.
My core values, character, are the same. I see it as a diamond, with certain facets hitting the light in different situations.

That's funny, I have a similar way of thinking about it. I once tried to explain to my therapist that I think of each individual as like a sphere, and that no other person will ever see all of another person, just the side that faces them. The person sees all of themselves, but only from the inside, never the outside. She gave me a funny look 😂

You know, I almost went into this rabbit hole on one of the refugee threads.

Because I can fall into existential thoughts quite often, and I don't think that animals are in any way less important than humans, and that plants etc are of value. And I was reading the somewhat pious bleatings informing us that refugees are humans too, and thinking, well, so?

Not in an "I hate refugees" or "I don't think we should help them" way. My career is very much founded in doing good, and I have very strict ethics ruling my life. But in a "why does the plight of beings thousands of miles from my home require my immediate attention because we happen to share a genus"?

I suppose that I generally identify more with locality than with humanity. Extending to the locality of the planet than one noisy overbearing species.

I get the equivalent of MN "funny looks" on threads where people say things like "Nobody in real life cares about this sort of thing" etc.

And I often say, "well yeah, to your face". People don't often bitch about hen dos or weddings at the time, but there will always be a secret grumble or two! It's like they can't imagine that people have manners...

Really interesting thread. I have these "what am I" and "why me" thoughts too

What facinates and terrifies me is that I have no objective evidence of existence outside my own brain.

Because all the "evidence" is produced by my senses, which are produced by my brain.....

Google "Solipsism" for a better explanation than I can write

I don't think I understand the OP tbh! I don't think I have ever seen all of myself. I see it looking back on it. Especially how sarcastic, and nasty, I could be. Because my work environment involved emotional armour, and being frequently emotionally attacked, not only by the people it served, management and the general public, but government it carried it on outside work and after retirement. My default was defence.
I was a teacher.

YES. every now and then I'm like woah I'm just inside my own head looking down at my legs and walking about. And it's like the whole of me is just all small and fits into my head and the rest of me is just excess body but it's so weird.

God, don't get me started on legs.

If I think the literal exact thought in words "move your leg now", does my leg move? No.

But without thinking it in words, my legs move in the ways I actually need to. What the fuck is that about?,

.

I get that feeling too. It occasionally feels really weird that my face in the mirror, my name and my thoughts are all one person - me. I tried to explain this to my mum and she had no idea what I was on about. 🤣

I'm ashamed looking back on it. I was really sarcastic to a lovely neighbour who tried to be friendly. Constantly in warrior mode.
I took a year off after early retirement, I'd taught full time for 35 years, loved alot of it, but was burnt out, and had physical health issues. Enjoyed most supply after that. Learnt more in 5 years than over 25 at the the same school. Enjoyed the emergency planning and discovered younger children. And which schools worked. Plus 8 till 5 on average.

I find human bodies really weird sometimes - like we’re just a head floating on top of a body and then two weird long wiggly arms sticking out and balanced on two sticks. And also that we’re all the same but different. And what’s the point in our faces? Weird.

So the body mind is the experiencer and the doer and there is something observing this doer and experiencer?

I wonder what that can be?

Could we be here on an endless loop? We destroy ourselves each time & start again? Possibly the point? Could we tell if so? Would there be evidence? Especially if billions of years elapsed?

Someone mentioned another civilisation evolving at another time & us not being advanced enough to notice.

What was the black arrow here & what were the cylinders. Started a thread on just this as this thread made me recall:

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/celestial-phenomenon-over-nuremberg-april-14th-1561/

That was an utterly fascinating read, thanks @Nepmarthiturn!

Another thing I've often pondered, is why everything we are is inside our minds yet grief and sadness is felt in our chests - heartache literally.

Yes. Could a computer simulation also explain this?