Now for this thought experiment you must come in with no assumptions about who you are and remove anything that was given to you to properly engage here.
Let's begin....
We start with the question:
Who are you?
First we have to remove everything you aren't and get rid of any assumed answers.
The first answer people give is their name. Well I've got to break it to you, you're name was given to you, so that isn't who you are.
The second most common answer is their occupation, title, role, or status. Again this is not who you are, because these could change at any time. If I say I'm a social media marketer, but tomorrow I quit, then did I cease to exist? The who that was me as a social media marketer would no longer exist in that case, thus that isn't who I am.
The third most common answer is a tribal or identity response so let's go into each. If I denied the first two someone might say to me, well you are a white heterosexual libertarian male. Now this is probably the most accurate depiction of me in terms of logic. However, if you were to explain this to someone who has never met a human, for example an alien, this wouldn't be sufficient by any means. Let's work through it. The alien might ask "Are there no other Caucasian people?" I would say "yes there are," to which it would respond with "how does stating your race/ethnicity tell me who YOU are?" Then you realize it doesn't. It only may lead to assumptions about me rather than factual information. What about my sexual orientation, gender, political affiliation, religion? These are all largely used as ways for us to identify, BUT given there are other people in the world with the exact same traits, values, beliefs, and identity, how do you differentiate from them? Simply by one of the other factors that was given to you or is there a better way to truly come to find who you truly are?
Let's say you believe that all of these things added together give such a specific explanation as to who you are that the comprehensive report of all these things is what you are. In reality though, memory is unreliable and you cannot accurately detail the comprehensive report of yourself, only what you consciously focus on and care to remember because it was impactful and you've discussed it or pondered it many times before.
How can you tell someone who you truly are in one sentence?
Do you want to know the answer?
There is no answer, you cannot accurately tell someone who you really are and do you know why? Going back to the premise that you had to remove all assumptions and any givens. We skipped over this a little bit for the point of the thought experiment. Now I'm bringing it back to share with you that even your thoughts were given to you. How? Well all your thoughts are language, which had been taught to you. Before language what did you think in your head? Was there anything comprehensible? Is language a requirement for thought? If no one ever taught you language, can you even have hopes, dreams, and goals? The issue in our society is we confuse the symbol of something with the actual thing itself.
To actually be able to even engage in this conversation we now have to refine the question, we must instead ask:
Who were you before your parents conceived you and before you were given anything?
You had no name, no race, no identity, no language, but you had to have something to be able to exist now.
"I think therefore, I am."
This leads us to the idea that wait maybe what I was before is what I am now and what I will be after and what will always be. What is that thing? Many will say God for lack of a better term or understanding. I've come to learn that we attribute God or randomness to simply anything we cannot comprehend or fully answer. It's a filler answer that we have until we can answer it. Now a scientist would tell you, simply the answer is energy. Many would agree on the common understanding that everything is made of energy, that you always had energy, you will always use energy and it will never disappear, only transfer. Think about that. If you were just the energy itself, then when you die, you will not cease to exist, you will only transfer. This sounds very mumbo jumbo to many people however, this is our current scientific understanding. When we explain in the way of consciousness and spirituality which is very far from science it starts to spook logical and analytical people. We have come to believe that as a human, the brain spawns consciousness, but that doesn't make sense because we have never been able to explain when consciousness begins. Theists and philosophers have debated this forever. A much easier explanation is that consciousness is what we exist WITHIN. Our brains aren't all separate consciousnesses interacting, but rather one consciousness with many brains interacting.
Again this sounds very far fetched, but we have a very simple way to prove this as true. Ask yourself this: can anything be experienced outside of consciousness? The answer is no. Nothing can exist outside consciousness, because it otherwise might as well not have existed. Everything exists within consciousness and that includes us. Consciousness then is that "energy" that feeling of what "God" must be. Why is it important to differentiate? Well simply because energy does not explain our awareness. Energy does not explain anxiety, thoughts, and everything else that goes along with consciousness.
Now the point of this was to get you thinking about what you really are deep-down and in this I've come to the conclusion that the final most underlying thing is consciousness. Now I've not presented any absolute arguments or beliefs so I am very interested to see what you have to say on this and if this gave you any insight or benefit. I in no means meant to offend anyone who is religious, but rather to provoke you into thinking more deeply on your reality. For whether or not you should choose to accept it, you were given religion, you bought into that belief. I've not bought into this belief, but rather logically deducted it by removing anything that can be doubted which is a philosophical process referred to as Occam's razor.
Again, let me know what you think. I'm completely open and curious to hearing what you have to say. I think this will generate some great discussion and I fully expect some angry people, but hopefully it will mostly be productive discussion. Please avoid logical fallacies in your answer like begging the question / circular argument.