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  "path": "/2026/05/who-are-you.html",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-18T00:29:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://blog.mikeriversdale.co.nz",
  "tags": [
    "There is no you in your brain — your identity is a “society of the mind”",
    "The Mystery of Personal Identity: What Makes You and Your Childhood Self the Same Person Despite a Lifetime of Change",
    "The Astounding Improbable You",
    "Why I Think You Reading This Article Is Astounding!",
    "Your Reality Isn't True",
    "Your Brain And A Piano",
    "(subscribe/RSS)"
  ],
  "textContent": "This post, alongside my love of science and particular _time_ , is about a passion of mine –you. I've found a few intriguing articles that ponder who the who inside you actually is; or isn't, enjoy.\n\n# There is no you in your brain — your identity is a “society of the mind”\n\n_By Masud Husain, April 14, 2026_\n\n> [..] patients with brain disorders poignantly reveal how even very basic brain functions play a key role in determining who we are. They are crucial parts of the “society of the mind” that creates our self, but they are also crucial to keeping us within society.\n\n# The Mystery of Personal Identity: What Makes You and Your Childhood Self the Same Person Despite a Lifetime of Change\n\n_By Maria Popova, 7 October, 2014_\n\nThis paragraph by philosopher, writer, and MacArthur Fellow Rebecca Goldstein has had me staring into the distance pondering everything for weeks; who am I?\n\n> I stare at the picture of a small child at a summer’s picnic, clutching her big sister’s hand with one tiny hand while in the other she has a precarious hold on a big slice of watermelon that she appears to be struggling to have intersect with the small o of her mouth. That child is me. But why is she me? I have no memory at all of that summer’s day, no privileged knowledge of whether that child succeeded in getting the watermelon into her mouth. It’s true that a smooth series of contiguous physical events can be traced from her body to mine, so that we would want to say that her body is mine; and perhaps bodily identity is all that our personal identity consists in. But bodily persistence over time, too, presents philosophical dilemmas.\n\nIt's brain smushing to sit with this thought, how am I the same person whilst everything – physically, mentally, culturally – about who I am now is so completely different?\n\n\n\n\nYou?\n\n\n\n\nI leave you with a slightly different view of _you_ , the _you_ amongst all the others _you's_ that are, have been, and possibly will be.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nArticles about you, and how amazing you are:\n\n  * The Astounding Improbable You\n  * Why I Think You Reading This Article Is Astounding!\n  * Your Reality Isn't True\n  * Your Brain And A Piano\n\n\n\n(subscribe/RSS)",
  "title": "Who Are You",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-18T00:29:00.222Z"
}