What am I?

I am a complicated combination of electrical signals which form a unique and dynamic pattern. This pattern resides in a housing which serves as a means of producing the pattern as well as allowing it to sense and affect the physical world. There are other patterns, similar to mine. Our individual patterns together with our individual housing that makes them possible are called human beings.

We each experience the world seperately and our patterns reflect our experiences. The pattern that I am started as the pattern I was born with. This oringinal pattern is encoded and stored within my DNA. The pattern is structured in such a way that as it is introduced to new stimuli it changes itself to adapt and react in a way that is percieved as correct.

I further modify myself by interacting with others. Through simlar or common experiences we are able to understand one another, to a degree. The most common and most important factor in day to day communication is culture. Culture is a culmantion of experiences common to most members a society. It is this that gives our language meaning because language is an encoding of the concepts of the known universe and culture is the encoder/decoder. When we speak we put things in terms of our culture and this transcends the language being used.

Culture is how we relate our ideas, language is how we express them.

In order to communicate effectively when speaking to someone from a very different culture we must understand the differences between our cultures because this knowledge allows us to translate our ideas into the terms of their culture. Without this understanding it does not matter how well we can speak their language. Of course, almost no human is from a COMPLETELY different culture because while there are national and regional cultures that may be very different there is also a more general Human culture common to almost every human. For example, every human has the common experience of eating food.

This becomes even more interesting when you think about the way that you think. I use language in my mind as a tool to relate and understand high level concepts. Without this tool I would be forced to think on a much lower level and would not be capable of entertaining higher level concepts. So in a way language makes up a large part of who I am because it is how I relate to the world. But the language I use is meaningless without culture. So really it is through my culture that I can understand the world. My culture is impressed upon the pattern that is I. My culture is part of me and not just in some symbolic way. It actually is a part of who I am.

Now I've looked at part of the high level end, now I want to go back down to the low level. The pattern that I am is a combination of electrical signals. I don't know exactly how to communicate the details of the next part. The over all idea, however, is that the components that make up my consciousness are the same as the regular components of the physical world.