How do you differentiate between yourself and the water that you drink? What about the dirt that you will inevitably become?
The idea of the “self” is an illusion, we ARE the universe perceiving itself through a temporarily limited perspective.
Discussion
Spot on. You are not your body and you are not your beliefs.
What about yourself and your thoughts. Are you your thoughts?
This is definitely a possibility, Descartes “I think, therefor I am” is without a doubt profound.
However thoughts come into our mind completely spontaneously, if you try to trace the root of a thought you will realize that it simply appears to you out of nowhere. You then “decide” weather or not to act on it. (I put decide in quotes because it is not clear to me that it is possible to choose an alternative path to the one that you inevitably chose)
Joe Rogan has talked about ideas as forces that use humans to carry themselves out and there is definitely something profound to that as well.
All I know is that I know nothing and that this experience of consciousness is infinitely interesting.