Iovestar

I came to a similar conclusion as you after some meditation. In order for "you" to exist, the part that "isn't you" needs to exist alongside you. Therefore, the things that aren't you are as much a part of you as you.

You cannot deny the existence of free will without also denying your identification as a rational human being who deliberates with ideas such as the existence of free will. As long as you have a sense of identity, you cannot escape the reality that you are the one making all your decisions.

I've thought a lot about consciousness as well, and the rather amazing ability to be aware of one's consciousness. It's definitely not the easiest topic to accurately convey as it's essentially your brain attempting to study itself. We can theorize and experiment, but how accurate can we really be when we automatically fall under the human bias? I've always wondered, what is the function of consciousness? Why haven't we evolved to be automatons with no awareness? Why is awareness necessary? Why do we have the ability to know we are aware? Anyone who can ask "Am I conscious at this very moment?" has consciousness awareness, so it must have constituted an evolutionary advantage of some sort - or is it just an accidental byproduct of evolution? I have quite a few different ideas in regards to this topic, but for the sake of keeping my sanity, I will just share a few. haha. I have thought a lot about what distinguishes human beings from automatons / AIs. What can we do that automatons / AIs cannot? Perhaps consciousness may be required for planning the future, or being able to predict unforeseen situations, which AIs seem to have a terrible time at doing. To be able to feel emotions and to analyze situations in order to make decisions.. is this possible without self-awareness? I have also wondered.. will we eventually be able to create a complex machine with consciousness awareness, and how would we even test its awareness? Perhaps, once we are able to create machinery which can autogenerate/delete itself (like neurons in the brain which constantly form new connections) we will be able to generate artificial consciousness? I feel that there's definitely a lot we don't know, and we can only theorize. I often wonder if we will ever really understand consciousness and what it truly is. -- “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” – Max Planck

I've been decreasing my caloric intake recently, and I've witnessed a huge spike in my energy levels and mental clarity. My motivation and productivity levels have increased, and I just generally feel less sick haha. I was wondering if any of you have experimented with calorie restriction and/or fasting and very curious to hear about your experiences.

I think that attraction definitely happens when a specific criteria is met and a lot of it is built on past experiences. For example, I may be looking for a particular type of person who shares similar characteristics to someone close to me in the past (could be a friend, family member, spouse, etc.) or even someone I admired from afar. Or, I may be looking for someone who likes similar things that I do. I also think that there are just things that people are universally attracted to, like kindness and physical attractiveness. I think most of the time it is instantaneous, but I also think that you can be totally unattracted to someone, then they surprise you and meet a certain criteria that you may not have realized you had, which results in attraction.