WHO ARE YOU?

Who Are You: A Story and a Question to Make you Think.

Read the story, then post your answer.

Let’s imagine that one morning, you’re looking out of the window and suddenly, a shiny metallic
object about the size of a small garden shed, drops from the sky and lands at the bottom of your
garden!“Oh No! A bomb! You think, and run for cover under the table (not that it would do you much good if a bomb that size exploded in your back garden, but it makes you feel safer).

Minutes pass and nothing happens. You begin to feel a little silly, and also quite curious so you
decide to take another look. Sure enough, it’s still there at the bottom of the garden, and now you notice it has red lights blinking softly on either side. “What is that?” you think as you make your way through the back door, and start to walk slowly down the path. As you approach the object, you can see that its shaped something like a spinning top, and has some strange symbols marked upon it.“Wow!.....a spaceship!”

You no sooner think the thought, than a door in the side slides open. You dart behind a bush and crouch down to hide. (You’d been meaning to trim it back, but now you’re glad you didn’t). It’s then that you hear the sound - like someone humming a long monotonous tune. You’re very frightened, but you simply have to know who - or what - is coming through that door, so you
peek around the bush. Rolling up the path towards you is a ROBOT!! It looks a bit like CP3O (from Starwars), but shorter and fatter, and it stands on a platform which appears be hovering a few inches above the ground. It “looks” in your direction and the humming stops. It heads right towards you just as though the bush weren’t there at all, and stops about three feet away.

You’re just about to scream and run, when the robot extends his hand and says - in perfect English - “Hello! I’m Tubby. Who are you?”Tubby is so polite and friendly that you forget to be afraid. Somehow you remember your manners and introduce yourself“I’m Jeanie Dougal [or whatever your name is]” you manage to stammer, but you don’t shake his hand - that would be too creepy”.

“Well Jeanie Dougal, it’s very nice to meet you” says Tubby

“Likewise I’m sure” you say “Are you..... are you from another planet??”

“Yes. Are you from this one?”

“Of course I am. But wait a minute - if you’re from another planet, how come you speak English?”

“I have a Universal Translator” says Tubby as if that explains everything. Then seeing that you don’t understand, he adds “Ah! 21st century. Well, it’s like dubbing the words over a foreign movie, but a bit more advanced. It let’s me converse in 50,000 languages throughout the universe”

“Oh.” you say, and then you think to yourself “This is it! Contact with another species - a space traveller, and I can talk to it in my own language. There must be thousands of really important
questions I should ask. Now let’s see.....”

Your mind is blank .... Say something .....
“Why were you humming?” you blurt out. “That’s it?” you think “That’s the best you could come up with? Idiot”

“Humming? Oh yes, I expect it would sound like that. I wasn’t actually humming; I was collecting information. Listen, I’ll slow it down so that you can hear.” Tubby stops talking but you can hear a steady stream of numbers coming from somewhere deep in his chest area. “That’s how I record everything,” he says “but I do it very, very fast so it sounds a bit like humming. How do you gather information?”

“Well I use my eyes to see things, my ears to hear things, my nose to smell things and my mouth to taste things. Oh yes, and I can feel things too - you know whether they’re hard or soft, rough or smooth and so on.”“Which part do you use for that?”“My hands mostly but my whole body can feel. Can’t yours?”

“No, I’m made of metal. What are you made of?”

“Flesh and blood and bones I suppose”

“Neat, May I touch” You offer your hand and he touches it gently at first, then squeezes it a little too hard.

“Ouch! Don’t do that!” you say. Tubby releases you immediately.

“I’m so sorry. What did I do?”

“It’s not really your fault. I should have explained. When touch is too intense, it becomes pain - very unpleasant”

“How inconvenient!”

“Yes I suppose it is, but it helps to keep us from damaging ourselves. I mean if I broke my arm and I couldn’t feel any pain, I might try to keep on using it.. That would cause worse damage and I may even end up losing the arm completely. Or, I might try to walk and run with a broken leg. It wouldn’t support me and I may fall and damage a more important part.”

Tubby hums for a moment then says “It seems very important to avoid damaging the body. Is that what you are then - flesh and blood and bones ?”

“No, not really. I’m a human being. Flesh and blood is what my body’s made of, but there’s more to me than that”

“Like what ?”“Well I can feel certain ways like happy or sad, or scared or angry.”

“Ah! emotions. I’ve heard about them, but I don’t really understand them. They’re not included in my programming. Tell me some more about them please. What are they used for? What is like to experience emotions?”

“I’ll try. Emotions can be useful if you don’t let them overwhelm you. If I’m scared for instance, it makes me extra careful, my body responses are heightened and my senses sharper so that I can react quickly if there’s danger. If you don’t control them they can get in the way. Like after an argument when I really want to make friends again, but I feel too angry. It’s hard to describe what emotions feel like. Joy feels wonderful, contentment feels calm, anger is upsetting but also exciting, fear makes you feel all jittery - they’re all different - but all of them feel like a wave of energy that just washes over you.”

“So perhaps that what you are - your emotions”

“No. I feel emotions and they help my body to react to things but they don’t direct my actions.”

“What does then”

You think for a minute and then say “My mind I guess. It makes everyday decisions and tells my body what to do, how to look and what to say. It also holds all my memories”

“Like a computer. Now you’re talking about something I understand. So you’re a computer.”

You feel a little uncomfortable at being mistaken for a computer - though you’re not exactly sure why. “No I’m not” you say indignantly “I can do much more than a computer.”

“Such as?”

“I can imagine things that have never happened, and invent ways to handle them if they did.”

“So can I. OK you’re a very sophisticated computer.”

“Stop saying that! I wish I could explain it to you better. I need an original idea”

“What’s that?”

“An original idea? That’s when you think of something that has nothing to do with anything anyone told you and nothing to do with anything you’ve ever experienced or observed. You just make it up out of nothing”

“Now that’s interesting. I can’t do that. It could still just be advanced technology though. But you’re only in the 21st century ..... Hmmm.... Tell me, if you ask many different humans to solve the same problem, would they all come up with the same solution?”

“Some might, but there would probably be many different solutions. Everyone has they’re own way of dealing with things. We’re all different”

“The plot thickens! What makes you all different?”

“Our personalities, our experiences. I don’t know - lots of things”

“Well what makes you go - do you have a battery pack?”

“What?”

“You know, your power source. I run on batteries. They last 10,000 years. How about you?”

“No, I don’t need batteries - I’m alive!”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know! I breathe and eat and move and sleep. If I were dead I couldn’t do any of those things”

“Like being switched off.”

“Kinda; but many people believe that it’s only the body that dies, and that part of us continues in another kind of existence.”

“This is getting more and more complicated. You die but you’re not completely dead. You have a
body; you have emotions; you have a mind. They are all part of a human being, but you aren’t actually any of these things. All of you have them yet all of you are different. Who is it that owns all of these things?” What makes you all different? What is it that goes on after the body dies? Who’s in charge? ......
........ WHO ARE YOU, Jeanie Dougal?”

Sylvia Richards


OK. Now it's your turn. Answer the question in your own words as best you can, and leave a post. This isn’t a test. There are no right or wrong answers. I just want to get your opinion so that I know where you’re coming from on this. Remember, this is your idea of who you ARE not something you OWN, so your answer should should start something like: I BELIEVE I AM A __________ not:I BELIEVE I AM MY __________ nor I BELIEVE I HAVE__________You can leave it at one sentence or explain it a bit if you want.

In a few days, I'll share my answer with you. Can't wait to read your posts.