>Who am I?
Well, who are you? And who is who anyways? How do I know I'm not you, and that you are not me? Because we perceive things from a single perspective that originate from a single point in space and time. That single point that we are aware in, and perceive the world in is just that, our awareness. We are our awareness. This is a logical conclusion of course, which can be concluded by means of deduction.
First, to find the self, we must destroy identification with parts of ourselves that aren't really the self. This can be broken down into senses, emotions, and the mind. For these things exist to output information, but output to what exactly? Output to our awareness. For these three parts of the carnal self all are ways that our awareness can perceive the world around us. For they require an input (which is the forever changing world) to an output (consciousness). Without these three tools of which we perceive the world, our soul can never change. For without it, it can experience no relativity, for example a soul outside of the body lives in a realm without space and time, a realm of objectivity, a realm without relativity, for it has no body to experience relativity(AKA to perceive change).
Now some may be at this point harboring thoughts that the soul is of the mind, but I assure you it is not, and that it is an eternal part of the universe. Because the first law of thermodynamics state that nothing can be created or destroyed, then how does our awareness come to be? And how can it exist without our body? Well the guaranteed truths of the self lies in the fact that awareness is separate from the senses of which are used to perceive the world, but are connected with them. Now, the argument that I wish to counter is
>our brain creates this sense of awareness through its function, so that the senses have an output.
Clarification : When I say senses at this point, my definition is "the means by which we perceive the world"
My imaginary opponent has made a valid point here, but this point only matters if we wish to cultivate our souls. Of which will be the next step for people who answer the question "Who am I?" Because once we have dissected the self and identified it's core components and core meaning, we wish to cultivate it, for the soul is eternal, and perhaps the very purpose of us inhabiting these temporal bodies is to cultivate our very souls. But how would one cultivate the soul? One would do this by giving it freedom, nurture it, love it, and give it time to experience itself not just senses. For that is true meditation. Not merely a mental focus on the senses, but a soulful focus on the soul itself, of which would destroy the desire of the soul to harbor a body, and achieving what the Buddha called nirvana.
And to answer the aforementioned question, Regardless of whether or not the soul persists immediately after death, it must be reborn at some point in time in the universe if time is infinite, meaning that every possible scenario will exist an infinite amount of times. Therefore you will live an infinite amount of times, because the exact formation of the mind that creates your consciousness will occur an infinite amount of times. But if time is not infinite and you will only exist as a conscious being manifested into the human form once, then why not pursuit autonomy, and pursue a greater life by your own means instead of the means of others, including by the means of your own desires. To pursue inner peace and control of the self. What value is greater than control of the self? I don't think hedonism is worth the tradeoff of temporal pleasure through the senses in exchange for loss of control of the body of which we inhabit.
Sorry for going on a bit of a rant towards the end, but I feel it was necessary to fully satisfy your question.
Thank you for asking such a wonderful question, and if anyone sees any flaws in my logic then please bring it to my attention, or if any others are curious enough to ask me a question know that I will answer them POSTHASTE.