Sentient Meat
If you strip away names, pronouns, and the myriad self-descriptions, that’s essentially all we are: electric meat, governed by chemicals, with the illusion of control.
It makes me wonder about the nature of choice and the concept of free will. One subtle shift in dopamine, serotonin, GABA, you name it, and we’re completely different people.
In another life, at a different job, I occasionally interacted with people in the midst of mental health crises. One in particular stands out in my memory. When his chemicals were balanced, he was an accomplished engineer with a few patents to his name. He published regularly and spoke at important industry events.
However, when he didn’t take his medication, he became someone else. A few days off the pills and he would be found stripped naked, wearing a gas mask, and shooting at police officers from the second story of his palatial estate in an expensive gated community.
If our entire persona can so easily be changed by a shift in chemicals, is it real? Is there anything reliably me, or at any given moment am I merely the confluence of countless causes and conditions?
The implications haunt me sometimes. I look around and I see people grasping for some semblance of control. Whether it’s drinking and drugs, or careful dieting and strenuous exercise, it’s really all an attempt to influence the chemical balance in this sack of meat and bones.
We consider ourselves the pilots of this physical form, but I’m not so sure.