Sort of a complicated question, I'll try to ask. How was I born me and not another?

[The Grand Nudger]

Alright, I think I found a better way to state the question. Everything from the start of the universe, all the particles in the known universe come from the big bang, or as carl sagan would say, we're all made of star dust. So if I'm just made of star dust, and the rock around me or the cup on my desk are also made of star dust, then out of all the other matter on earth that came from the same place,

-all irrelevant to the question at hand....just flirtation with an inapplicable fascination towards the improbability of outcomes.  

why did I just happen to become a human being?

Because your mother and father were human beings, and it didn't "just happen", they worked at it.  

All the hamburgers that everyone consumes that become babies that mothers give birth to, that came from the hamburgers that their mothers made.

Not an accurate description of metabolism -or- human reproduction.  Babies don't come from burgers, regardless of whose mother did or didn't make them.

I guess it's sort of comforting in a way, because even if your consciousness is destroyed, even if all your memories are disintegrated, once you decompose you go back to the stuff that made you up in the first place. I just wonder, what was the journey like from me being inanimate material to becoming a living, sentient organism.

You..... have -never- been inanimate material.  That said, evolutionary and reproductive biology should clear some things up for you.

[Arkilogue]

I've come to conclude that this is actually an absurd question.  You're you because if you were me, you would be me.  You may as well ask why one tennis ball isn't this other tennis ball.  Because one is made up of a certain set of atoms and the other is made of another.  You are a certain set of neurons inside a certain skull that has evolved to create a self-identity based on things like brain structure and experience.  

You're not a rock, because if you were a rock, you couldn't ask this question.

The key here is the trajectory of "me" based on the accumulation of experiences both objective and subjective, conscious and unconscious.

If you had different experiences or made different choices, you would be experiencing a different self identity.

[Faith No More]

The key here is the trajectory of "me" based on the accumulation of experiences both objective and subjective, conscious and unconscious.

If you had different experiences or made different choices, you would be experiencing a different self identity.

Which is basically just saying, "If you weren't you, you would be someone else."

[EruptedCarcassBloat]

Alright, I think I found a better way to state the question. Everything from the start of the universe, all the particles in the known universe come from the big bang, or as carl sagan would say, we're all made of star dust. So if I'm just made of star dust, and the rock around me or the cup on my desk are also made of star dust, then out of all the other matter on earth that came from the same place,

-all irrelevant to the question at hand....just flirtation with an inapplicable fascination towards the improbability of outcomes.  

why did I just happen to become a human being?

Because your mother and father were human beings, and it didn't "just happen", they worked at it.  

All the hamburgers that everyone consumes that become babies that mothers give birth to, that came from the hamburgers that their mothers made.

Not an accurate description of metabolism -or- human reproduction.  Babies don't come from burgers, regardless of whose mother did or didn't make them.

I guess it's sort of comforting in a way, because even if your consciousness is destroyed, even if all your memories are disintegrated, once you decompose you go back to the stuff that made you up in the first place. I just wonder, what was the journey like from me being inanimate material to becoming a living, sentient organism.

You..... have -never- been inanimate material.  That said, evolutionary and reproductive biology should clear some things up for you.

Lmao, okay, first of all. The food that we eat is what makes up our body. Without food we would shrivel up and die. So yes, our body is able to transmogrify edible matter into the necessary components to create a baby. Therefor babies do come from hamburgers. 

I really don't think you understand this any better than I do, from what I can see. And yeah, my parents made me, okay. But there was a lot of other matter in the universe that didn't happen to become my parents, it just became inanimate objects. I wonder all the time why I came into existence and am not just an unconscious part of the other vast majority of matter that makes up the cosmos.

[Arkilogue]

The key here is the trajectory of "me" based on the accumulation of experiences both objective and subjective, conscious and unconscious.

If you had different experiences or made different choices, you would be experiencing a different self identity.

Which is basically just saying, "If you weren't you, you would be someone else."

Not quite, you would be a different branching version/potential of yourself, but it would not be the exact same self.

And how much of "you" is determinable by you? If I had chosen to master business and make millions a month I might think of myself either a self made genius or a parasitic opportunist of the system, on the much larger other hand, my employees might consider me a god send or a devil. Who/what am I?

[The Grand Nudger]

Lmao, okay, first of all. The food that we eat is what makes up our body. Without food we would shrivel up and die.

True, but irrelevant.  You aren't actually what you eat, that's just a poetic flourish that refers to a more complicated subject.  

So yes, our body is able to transmogrify edible matter into the necessary components to create a baby. Therefor babies do come from hamburgers. 

Transmogrify, lol...is that the technical term?  Sorry, babies don;t come from hambnurgers.  Don;t take my word for it, though.  Sit a hamburger on the table and watch it...wait for a baby to come out.  Report your findings

I really don't think you understand this any better than I do, from what I can see. And yeah, my parents made me, okay.

Which answers the question of why you're a human being as opposed to a rock, or a bat, or what-have-you.  

But there was a lot of other matter in the universe that didn't happen to become my parents, it just became inanimate objects.

Why would that be relevant to you, since we've established that you came from your parents...and they were, in fact, human beings?

I wonder all the time why I came into existence and am not just an unconscious part of the other vast majority of matter that makes up the cosmos.

If things were different things would be different. In your case, the conditions from which you arose lead, inexorably, to your being a human being. Had your parents been a seal...you'd be a seal.

[EruptedCarcassBloat]

Lmao, okay, first of all. The food that we eat is what makes up our body. Without food we would shrivel up and die.

True, but irrelevant.  You aren't actually what you eat, that's just a poetic flourish that refers to a more complicated subject.  

So yes, our body is able to transmogrify edible matter into the necessary components to create a baby. Therefor babies do come from hamburgers. 

Transmogrify, lol...is that the technical term?  Sorry, babies don;t come from hambnurgers.  Don;t take my word for it, though.  Sit a hamburger on the table and watch it...wait for a baby to come out.  Report your findings

I really don't think you understand this any better than I do, from what I can see. And yeah, my parents made me, okay.

Which answers the question of why you're a human being as opposed to a rock, or a bat, or what-have-you.  

But there was a lot of other matter in the universe that didn't happen to become my parents, it just became inanimate objects.

Why would that be relevant to you, since we've established that you came from your parents...and they were, in fact, human beings?

I wonder all the time why I came into existence and am not just an unconscious part of the other vast majority of matter that makes up the cosmos.

If things were different things would be different.  In your case, the conditions from which you arose lead, inexorably, to your being a human being.  Had your parents been a seal...you'd be a seal.

This conversation isn't nearly as informative and scientific as I was hoping it would be :/

[Whateverist]

I'm pretty sure we were all born me. Who else could you have been born as?

[The Grand Nudger]

This conversation isn't nearly as informative and scientific as I was hoping it would be :/

.............lol?

[EruptedCarcassBloat]

I'm pretty sure we were all born me.  Who else could you have been born as?

I mean, I could have randomly been born someone else, out of another woman, or I could have been nothing. I really don't know why this question is so hard to just articulate, because the question makes perfect sense to me. We're just particles, there's nothing special about a human being. You guys keep saying that you couldn't have become something else because you came from your mom. I KNOW!!! But did you ever think how they became the people they did? They evolved, yes. I could have also been born a monkey. It's all just random arrangements of particles. Those particles are random, they randomly assemble because of some processes of the universe. I somehow became a human being, not a whale, not a monkey, not a dolphin, not a giant octopus, but a human being. And all that other matter that came from the star dust just became rocks and dust and whatever other living or non living stuff that exists on the planet. So I have to wonder, why do I exist in a conscious body that can observe it's own existence instead of being just a rock??? Like I really don't know how else to describe this, I feel like I'm just restating the same thing in a different way over and over again.