Who am I?

Over the course of history, it has been a constant goal of mankind as a collective whole to discover the nature of all things. From the time of Aristotelian philosophical beliefs in the Four Elements as the building blocks of all things (earth, fire, water, air) to the present day debate and discussion of quarks and strings in the field of quantum physics, knowing what makes up everything around us has intrigued the minds of countless individuals throughout time.
Rene Descartes provided us with the well-known philosophical quote, "I think, therefore I am." This idea would presuppose that yours and my personal existence is made possible, created, and rooted in the capability of critical thought. In other words, the idea of the human self is tied and directly related to the thoughts that fuel our lives. Ergo, I am thought.
Today, we see ourselves as a collection of organic systems functioning together as a whole, each a collection of organs, which are made up of cells, which contain molecules, made of atoms, now theoretically seen as consisting of quarks or strings, although I am not entirely familiar with the specifics of that theory, not having studied quantum physics.
These two views, that of the mind and the body, have been a constant source of philosophical debate and uncertainty. Am I a physical being whose chemical and electrical impulses and processes somehow give way to mental cognition? Am I an immaterial collection of thought that has somehow created a mental image of the world I "live" in, thus traveling around in a semi-dream state? Or do I possess some immaterial "soul" that acts in some way cooperatively with my physical body, and if so, how do the physical and non-physical parts connect and function together as one whole?
As we grow up, one of the great questions we must eventually face is, "Who am I?" Without this basic knowledge, life as existence in relation to other people or forces of nature becomes more and more difficult. The problem we run into like a brick wall is how we go about discovering the nature of our "self". One does not simply wake up one morning knowing oneself in all entirety. It is a long, occasionally a seemingly never-ending process.
In order to begin to know who we are, I believe it is necessary to know what we are. Most certainly we are human beings, for that is the name, the title that we have assigned to our species on this planet. But what is a human being? According to the widely accepted scientific beliefs of society today, a human being is a bipedal living organism consisting of various body systems that work together to sustain life for a certain period of time. We possess five physical senses, controlled by various sense organs; the eye for sight, the ear for hearing, the mouth for taste, the nose for smell, and the body as a whole for touch.
It seems easy and logical to understand that all of our organs work in sync with each other to keep our bodies alive. Our respiratory system provides us with oxygen, transferred to our circulatory system for distribution to the rest of our body. Our digestive system allows for us to provide the body with the various nutrients it needs to sustain life. Our reproductive system is the source of procreation and the continuing of our species' existence, for we cannot live forever. What is not answered about human nature and "what" we are by all of this is the concept of thought. What organic system produces thought. The brain is part of the central nervous system, one of its functions indeed being to process information about our surrounding environment and elicit responses in the rest of the body reacting to that information. But is mere orientation in space in relation to other bodies a good enough explanation of thought? It doesn't seem naive to assume that a thought such as, "Ow, that's hot!" could be nothing more than a physical reaction to the stimulus of heat applied to the body.
Language is merely the organization of sounds produced by the vibrations of the vocal cords into various words, a very useful trait that serves the purpose of communicating with other people. A "verbal" thought, therefore, could be understood as the manifestation of the electrical signal sent by the brain to the vocal muscles to produce sound. When we "think" but do not speak, that message/signal is simply not being sent from its point of origin, the brain, to be carried out as speech. For why should the process of thought be any different from the other sense perceptions? I can be aware of a sight, sound, smell, etc. and not produce any physical reaction to it, provided it is not too overwhelming a stimulus. Similarly, I can contain a thought, the reaction to some stimulus presented to me through one of the sense organs and not express it with the physical action of producing sound or speech.
Therefore, mental cognition could theoretically be explained away as a physical process, not some manifestation of an ethereal, non-physical being. Where then, does the concept of will stem from? Why is it that I can make a personal choice in response to certain stimuli where another person would make a different choice? For example, I am asked on a date by an individual, but turn that individual down where another person would quite willingly have accepted the proposition. What physical process allows me to make that "conscious" choice? How do we explain free will?
My answer is rooted in the concept of memory. As a young child, an infant, we are curious about anything and everything presented to us. The amount that we learn about the world around us may be greatest during those first few years of life where we have no inhibitions in relation to our actions. We test the limits of every situation. As we grow and learn, we begin to develop resistances to certain actions like putting our hand on a hot stove or throwing our food across the dinner table. This process of learning is the storing of memories related to the responses elicited by certain actions. If we are spanked as a baby or reprimanded with harsh tones not pleasant to the ear, we will gradually learn that it is our actions that produce those negative responses in others and thus begin to filter them out of our habitual activity.
Especially in today's age, with the technology of micro chips capable of storing unheard of amounts of data in a tiny amount of space, it shouldn't be hard to grasp the concept of the storing of physical stimulus-response memories in the brain. The only difference is that a computer utilizing the memory space on a chip is not organic. It is not made up of the various complex systems that the human body is. A microchip is a brain without eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and body to provide its physical stimuli. Therefore, it is limited in its capabilities of what we consider "life".
To answer the question of why one person would accept the date when another would just as quickly reject it, the response depends on what experiences each individual has had in the past, what memories they have stored that might relate to the situation. If the person asking me out is a blonde, and I have had unpleasant experiences with friends, family, past relationships, or anyone who is also blonde, I may be more likely to say no. Similarly, if I have had too many bad experiences with dating in general, I may be more likely do turn away from the prospect of another one. To list all of the factors contributing to a decision like that would be near impossible and frankly, unproductive. The point is that there are memories of physical responses to stimuli relating to the situation at hand that shape our response to the situation. Free will, therefore, is not entirely free. It is personal, for every individual will have varying experiences as they grow, but it is in fact the stored "memory" of our early experiences that determine and shape our will.
Therefore, we as human beings are a compilation of physical, organic systems that work together in response to external physical stimuli (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch) and possess no immaterial, eternal, or immortal soul or other non-physical entity. Death is the termination of the functions of the body and thus, the end of individual existence, for without the brain functioning as the storage center of all of our memory experiences, our compiled identity is no more.
So who am I? I am the compilation of my past experiences. Who can I become? That depends on what situations I place myself in and what memory experiences I gain from those situations. To know my past is to know myself. To take initiative in the present is to exercise free will and take charge of shaping that will down the road. To aspire for the future is to take pride in the path I have chosen.

Necessary Impossibility

Great minds have come before us.
They have pondered over the idea of utopia.
None have succeeded in imagining one.
Each has its flaws.
And a flawed utopia is no longer utopia at all.
It crumbles in an instant.
Becomes something similar to life as we know it.

Evil can never be banished from this world.
It is the necessary counterpart to good.
Without evil, there is no good.
And from there, existence itself fades to nothing.
There is nothing.
Unless there is a tail for every head.
A black for every white.
A sin for every virtue.

But equally as true.
Good can never be overtaken.
Completely swallowed and destroyed.
By evil.
For without good, ther is no evil.
And from there, existence itself fades to nothing.
There is nothing.
Unless each yin has its yang.
Each night, its day.
Each death, a new life.

So utopia is a dream.
A goal never to be reached.
But it is the job of the good.
To seek this impossibility.
To fight against all evil.
To preserve the existence of all.
For as evil fights on, so too must good.
Otherwise, existence itself fades to nothing.
And there is nothing.