text; un: TheHollowKnight

[instilled]

A query:
What makes you you?
How are you yourself?

Please only respond if you wish.

Comments

surprise, bet you thought this would be a grimm tag un: tigerpoet

[tigerpoet]

[What makes you, you... What separates 'you' from 'not you'? How can you be certain of your own experience?

Questions Atsushi has asked himself many times.]

It's difficult to say. I can define myself as a collection of my experiences and memory, but the way people perceive experience is flawed. My brain can be tricked into thinking something happened when it didn't, and I forget things all the time.

I could say that I am my consciousness, but there are parts of my consciousness that I don't understand or have repressed. And that would imply that my subconscious isn't part of me, and that doesn't sound right either.

If I define myself as my physical body, nearly all of that can be replaced without me becoming a different person. Not even considering things like surgery, nearly all of the cells in a human body will die and be replaced many times over a person's lifetime.

If you figure it out, let me know.

bold of you to assume i think

[instilled]

[ Each and ever answer the Hollow Knight received was fascinating. Some were terrifying, some were confusing, but they were all deeply interesting. This response was no different, and the Hollow Knight read it voraciously, even if it couldn't fully understand some of what was being said.

The last line, however, made it know it had to say one thing in particular before it could address anything else. ]

Please forgive any misleading connotations.
This Vessel is the last thing on this planet that could give you a satisfactory answer to the question posed.
However, there are many interesting answers already present.
If you struggle, perhaps they can give you some measure of security.

[tigerpoet]

They've given good answers. I'm not sure that any of them resonate for me, but I hope that they help you.

[instilled]

They are [ terrifying, enlightening ] interesting.
It had no idea that being a person was so innate yet so difficult to define.
Even by your own answer, it seems that it is a combination of many things, and that combination can be flawed, but that flaw can be a part of the whole anyway.

[tigerpoet]

People are inherently flawed, and we are generally not very good about knowing ourselves.

The question of 'what makes you you' is one that philosophers have been trying to answer for thousands of years. I doubt they will stop asking the question any time soon.

[instilled]

It is good that there are so many individuals.
Even if it is hard to know why and how one is one.
Perhaps it is not a thing that can be easily defined.
And a pale light is all that is needed to show it, rather than bright light to obscure it.

[ Had Father known that? Had just having a small piece of Him still remaining in their make up made every Vessel non-viable?

Difficult to consider, difficult to ponder. ]

[tigerpoet]

I think that's true. Despite our flaws, and all the questions we may never answer, people are wonderful creatures.

[That, at least, he had never been in doubt on.]

[instilled]

Yes.
To keep people as people, it is worth one being never becoming a person.
This is true.

[tigerpoet]

That's really not what I meant...

[instilled]

Apologies.
It spoke its own conclusion rather than listen to yours.

[tigerpoet]

It's alright. Just, I don't see how not considering yourself a person would affect someone else being a person. And this is such a difficult question that I don't think not having an answer to it affects your personhood at all.

[instilled]

There is a reason.
Not having an answer does not change a person's being.
It has learned this.
An unexpected result.

[tigerpoet]

We don't have the answers to a lot of things.

[instilled]

Perhaps that is part of being a person.
To find those answers.
It is something that it must consider.
Some facts are difficult to ignore, as concerning as they are.

[tigerpoet]

I hope you find answers that make you happy.