That Little Voice in Your Head Is Not You
It exists outside of your body and the good news is….it lives forever
Our consciousness
For the sake of this article and thought experiment, I’m defining our consciousness as that little voice in our heads that talks to us: guides our thoughts, narrates our experiences, and gives us the illusion of having free will.
There is no scientific explanation for why we talk to ourselves, particularly in the second person. Telling ourselves, “You shouldn’t eat that cake you’re gaining weight,” seems as nonsensical as it gets, yet that’s precisely the way we talk to ourselves — like we’re our own little baby that needs looking after, coaching, and reassurance. We sometimes even talk to ourselves in slang, “Come on Man, you can do this, you’ve worked so hard,” Who the heck are we talking to, a different version of ourselves?
What is going on inside our heads? Who is that person providing this running commentary on our lives…in real-time?
And if it’s just a byproduct of our brain function. A coping mechanism, a biological antidepressant of sorts, why won’t it leave us alone? Do we really need to carry a sometimes annoying, obnoxious version of ourselves in our head all the time, constantly interjecting verbal commentary on stuff it has no business sticking its nose into?
If I’m about to eat too much spaghetti, my brain has the power to simply stop me from eating…why do I need a voice that sounds exactly like me in my head saying, “Dude, if you don’t stop eating spaghetti you’re going to get too fat.” I (my brain) knows if I eat too much I’ll get fat, do I really need a little voice to remind and scold me of this fact? Particularly if it’s not going to change my ultimate behavior?
That little voice in your head, your consciousness, is referred to as the “hard problem,” for a reason. I hypothesize we will never find it inside our biological framework because it doesn’t reside there. It exists outside of our bodies and the good news is….it lives forever.
We’re as biological as our dogs, we just think about it
Have you ever noticed that animals behave like we do when they wake up — they stretch, they’re bleary-eyed and wobbly on their feet, just like we humans?
In fact, our cats and dogs have similar biological routines as we do: we both eat, drink, sleep, hump, walk, pee, poop, watch Netflix, and scratch our genitals.
The difference is, we humans possess a completely separate persona — presumably living inside our brains — a “little voice in our head,” that comments, guides, and narrates some of our waking lives.
Sometimes, our consciousness serves as our own internal troll. It criticizes us, “You are not leaving this house with your hair like that,” or tries to shame us, “If you eat the entire plate of French fries you are a worthless human being void of any meaningful self-control.”
Do our dogs and cats have this kind of consciousness on any level? We know they have object permanence because they remember where they buried their bone even though they can’t see it. But do they have a little doggie voice inside their heads telling them, “You know you want that juicy bone you buried last week, go dig it up?” Probably not, at some point they randomly dig up the bone and eat it — a biologically mindless, reflex with no need for self-reflection.
There shouldn’t be two of us, but there are
Some of the things we do frequently, happen without much conscious thought.
We don’t pontificate much inside our own heads about going to the bathroom, drinking water, or walking from point A to point B — we just do those things the same way our pets do.
Yet, from the moment we open our eyes until we close them at night, a little voice in our head, that we think we control, emerges seemingly randomly. As we awake in the morning this little “voice-self” says, “Oookkkaaaay Jonny, get your ass out of bed,” and it bargains with “me,” “I know you’re tired. I know you stayed up late, I’m sorry…but you can do this…you must do this.”
That voice in our head has no basis in empirical science and should not exist.
It is not you, but it is you.
YOU are made up of cells materializing as your skull, brain, vital organs, blood, bones, veins, arteries, all beautifully encased in a sausage-like sticky, hairy skin.
That little VOICE in your head is either an intruder or a byproduct of our evolving intelligence — there is no scientific explanation, no identifiable brain location, that explains why we don’t just go about our daily business mindlessly, without thinking, like a dog or a cat.
Voice triggers
Sometimes we know why our little voice perks up. If we’re really hungry, at some point that little voice in our head is going to relent and “let us” eat that bag of chips.
That makes some sense. Our bodies get hungry and thirsty and that little voice gets biologically “manipulated” to override itself — yourself.
But many times we don’t listen to that little voice in our head. We date someone it warns us not to. Or eat that huge slice of chocolate cake even though it’s warning and castigating us.
We literally have arguments with ourselves, within our own heads, internal debates, arguments, compliments, gaslighting, trolling, begging, bargaining — none of which makes any sense, on any biological level.
What lives on
Maybe nothing, but let’s have some fun…
We know our consciousness is as close to having a split personality as it can get without being a diagnosable mental pathology.
We don’t just mindlessly wake up in the morning and stumble off towards the bathroom. From out of nowhere, a little voice in our head starts talking to us. Why? What’s the purpose of all the analyzing and self babble inside our own minds?
It could very well just be a side effect of our brain's miraculous computing ability — something that emerges as a form of self-stimulation. A way to tickle ourselves through life’s humdrum. And when we die…it (we) dies too.
OR…that little voice in our head, our most loyal lifelong friend and confidante, isn’t part of our blood, sweat, and tears. Maybe the reason we can’t locate it is that it exists in another universe — not inside our meatheads.
Maybe that little voice in our heads is trying to protect us for a reason. Maybe it’s preparing us for what our existence will feel like after we die.
Imagine your body disappearing but that little conscious voice in your head — the one that already sounds just like you — living forever in a different realm.
We talk about uploading our consciousness into a computer. We don’t need to. That little voice in our head is already uploaded — it doesn’t need to wait until our bodies die…it’s already wherever we’re going.
Are you cool with that?
Close your eyes (figuratively).
Take a deep breath. At some point, your little voice will pop into your mind. It may ask, “Did you remember to put the garbage out?” or “Don’t forget to respond to those emails in the morning,” or “Go get some chocolate ice cream for yourself, you deserve it.”
While you need a body to perform all those tasks, you don’t need one to think about them.
One more time.
Close your eyes and think about the love of your life. Now imagine you could never be with him or her physically…you could only “think” about them. A euphoric blast of feeling, sensation, and pleasure, filtered, and thus felt, through a different plane of experience.
Maybe after we die, that little voice in our head lives on as a ghost of sorts. Not to try and contact the living, but to enjoy a universe beyond our current ability to understand or even envision.
Perhaps our eternal voice returns as other biological life forms. Or windsurfs their way around the cosmos for eternity.
That little voice that sometimes drives you literally insane, doesn’t have to die, because it never lived the way we define living. That’s why finding and defining our consciousness remains so elusive.
That little voice in your head isn’t of this world. It’s not part of our biology because it is everlasting.
We all feel like will live forever — maybe that little voice in our head is already there.