are you you?

the hardest belief in the world to shake is the belief that "i am me." yet this "me" we so unquestionably believe in is a fiction, as real as a character in a book or a movie. it's a character we've been taught to identify with to such a degree that we lose the capacity to remember it's just a creation of the mind.

if the entire contents of your mind were utterly wiped out as you slept tonight, who would you be upon awakening tomorrow? who would it be, sitting upright in that bed, eyes open, breathing? the you you think you are would be gone - but what aspect of your current experience would remain even then?

wordless answer

if every single memory, opinion, belief and self-associated thought suddenly and irrevocably exited your consciousness, and you became a total blank slate in terms of mental self-definition, would the you you currently think yourself to be cease to exist? what would be the significance of such an event? would the mental you that existed prior to it come to an end, and a new - though perhaps similar - mental self emerge? would it represent the existence of two separate entities, two different egos, in one human body? or would there remain an underlying, prevailing truth throughout? and if so, what is it about you now that would be just as true about you if you forever lost access to every memory, and every thought you've ever had?