Who Am I?

Sat, May 30, 2020

This question plagues me every day.

What is my identity?
Are identity and consciousness the same thing?

If my all my cells have regenerated every seven years, am I the same person that I was in my twenties? How does my consciousness preserve my sense of identity?

Those are fun questions but not very useful for you, so here’s some facts about me:

• I’m a credentialed violist

  • This means that a lot of money changed hands for me to understand music from dead people.
  • Nowadays, this looks like music from people that died a really long time ago. Not Beethoven; older. Older than that.
  • Like 12th century mystics who also happen to be famous composers.

• I’m also a software engineer

  • I generally focus on data-centric software. In the past this has looked like building data visualization applications, and distributed financial data systems.
  • Currently at Eventbrite

• Outside of work, I think and read about human information access, discovery, processing, and retention.

  • We live an a world where, in theory, more information is available to us than we know what to do with. Knowing how to find, filter, and integrate that information into our lives is a significant aspect of the zeitgeist of this century.
  • I believe this area will significantly direct the course of the global population for decades to come.