No.

I'm saying that you're largely asking the wrong questions. You were asking the right question when you asked "who am I".

RightSide, I know a lot about physics. Like, a lot. Too much. And everything I know about it leads me to the conclusion that the universe is purely deterministic. That time and causality are as linear as a fucking cassette tape, that all my decisions are already made by circumstance of preconditions.

But I don't live that way. I presume that I have free will even though the science tells me convincingly that I probably don't.

Why?

Because I want to have a house on the shore of the great lakes with a boat and a hot wife and go fishing and hunting and eat tasty animals for dinner. I want to believe that I will get there and that when I do it will be because I spent a lifetime getting there.

That's my meaning. It might be the case that I have absolutely no control over whether that happens, but I choose to believe that I have the power to make it happen.

I choose to believe "I am me" when I strongly suspect there is no "I" at all.

No.

I'm saying that you're largely asking the wrong questions. You were asking the right question when you asked "who am I".

RightSide, I know a lot about physics. Like, a lot. Too much. And everything I know about it leads me to the conclusion that the universe is purely deterministic. That time and causality are as linear as a fucking cassette tape, that all my decisions are already made by circumstance of preconditions.

But I don't live that way. I presume that I have free will even though the science tells me convincingly that I probably don't.

Why?

Because I want to have a house on the shore of the great lakes with a boat and a hot wife and go fishing and hunting and eat tasty animals for dinner. I want to believe that I will get there and that when I do it will be because I spent a lifetime getting there.

That's my meaning. It might be the case that I have absolutely no control over whether that happens, but I choose to believe that I have the power to make it happen.