A strange concept

My fellow blogger Chelsea raised the old "who am I" question on her blog (link).

It is a strange thing to ponder, this concept of 'me'. How does one define it? What makes one person different from another?

There is a part in a child's development where it learns that there is a difference between it and other people. It's fairly easy (and safe) to test with toddlers: Hide some object, let someone leave the room, hide the object somewhere else, let the person return, and ask where the person will start looking for the object. If the toddler points to the new hiding place, it has not grasped the concept of 'me versus you' (and therefore having a different knowledge of where to look for said object) yet. Most animals never get past this stage, although more do than you might think.

'Me' must be different from other people and from the world. Wherein lies that difference? What makes me 'me'?

Curiously, a person's character is not as consistent as is often thought. How one behaves or reacts changes, and it changes a lot. In fact, instead of thinking of ourselves as, for example, "being someone who enjoys cooking" does not make us cook more often, but rather it is the other way around. If someone cooks often, the mind makes up this idea that, apparently, they "are someone who enjoys cooking" (otherwise, why would they keep doing that?).

Confused yet?

Many scholars are now of the opinion that there is not, in fact, such a thing as 'free will'. What we perceive to be our own free will is, supposedly, merely a collection of genetics and experience that makes us act in one way or another.

If such a thing is true, can there truly be such a thing as 'me'?

I don't know; I don't have any answers. I just like the questions. (Or rather, I ask the questions a lot and therefore I think I like them.)

Perhaps there is no answer to this question. And perhaps there is no 'you' to ask it. But that makes this strange place called life an even more complicated, magical and wonderful thing.