Am I a collection of brain chemicals?
Does this mean that all my actions are deterministic from the beginning of the universe? Because of causal relationships and from the external environment, which is also the universe?
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Not true. I am a neural network: the most complex connections between neurons (axons, dendrites, synaptic contacts between them), which are conductors of electrical impulses (even cyclic currents). Actually :I am the circulating electrical impulses. And chemicals (neurotransmitters) are only a means of exchanging signals.
Your free will, i.e. the ability to make decisions, as well as the ability to analyze, draw conclusions and make decisions following your logic, is also a set of chemicals.�
Accordingly, all your actions cannot be predefined.
This is a well-known philosophical question that doesn't (yet?) an answer, at least a materialistic one.
The phenomenon of consciousness and personality is also not yet explained; and without understanding what a person is and where it comes from, we cannot adequately relate it to the laws of the physical world.
But it is possible that in reality there is simply no determinism in the material world, and any competent physicist will immediately say about some quantum effects that make determinism fundamentally impossible. I'm not a physicist, I do not know 🙂
Not quite so, modern science “considers” self-consciousness (“I”) of a person as a special process of the brain (one of many). And the very work of the brain as a product of electrochemistry (and not “a set of chemicals. substances”) and organization (structure) of neural networks.
But in any case (no matter how pundits” twist “it, if only “quantum effects” are not involved in this), it turns out that the “I” is a certain set of reflexes strictly deterministic (the result of the “I” process is predictable/predetermined).
And although I'm sure (checked more than once) that my “I” is not a “special process in the brain”, I agree with “science” that the brain is a purely reflex process (strictly deterministic). In my “I” from the work of the brain there is little left (motor skills, sensory skills, secretory skills), because that “other” (operating with life meanings, knowledge of life and conscious choice) what science as an independent entity (psychos) does not recognize for me is just more important than the reflexology of the brain.
For the vast majority of people, alas, brain reflexology (deterministic) accounts for more than 95% of their “consciousness”, and therefore, in fact, their “fate” is largely predetermined (reactions to stimuli are well predictable, methods of developing skills are deterministic, and therefore all this can easily be used against the real interests of these people: propaganda, advertising, PR, and even NLP, and people do not even notice that they are “controlled from the outside”).
So you yourself know better, you are just a product of brain electrochemistry or something else (not yet known to modern science). There are those who consider themselves a “product of quantum effects” (a kind of random distribution of probability densities of the “wave function”), by the way, according to my observations, their consciousness works very similar to what they think about it (but this is also, alas, determinism only of a different” breed “- holistically probabilistic, with signs of obvious”spontaneity”).
So who you are is up to you (as you decide, so it will probably be).
No. Your “I” is not chemicals – it is a way of organizing these chemicals, in other words, it is not an object or substance, but information.
No.
Everything is the universe. And approximately 99.99999999999999999999999999% of the entire universe has nothing to do with you at all.
Some causal relationships and the environment closest to you have an impact on your self.
They do not determine, but have an impact. In addition, your self is influenced by your internal processes (including your rational decisions, but not only them), as well as the element of randomness. For example, your sexual orientation is an example of randomness in the formation of your self.