How I wonder what you are.

This is about what things are made of, in a philosophical sense. What makes gazelles prey? It isn't a property that they can have on their own, without predators they can't be prey. While this example might seem trivially obvious, let me show you an example I found much more thought provoking.

What is it? You might be able to figure out, just from the picture what it is part of but I am going to make a claim about it that you will probably disagree with. That is twinkle twinkle little star.

What I would call your attention to is that the drum in the picture is twinkle twinkle only in the presence of the rest of the mechanism. It is, with those extra components, a faithful and sturdy representation of that song. However, with a different (or damaged) music box it might be a different song or just dissent notes.

By itself the music box isn't a much more interesting a case of interdependent identity then the gazelle, but it makes for a clear example of the much more interesting case of inter-social identity.

American culture focuses on the individual to a greater degree than many cultures. This leads to a blindness to the context sensitive nature of behavior. Some famous experiments about this show just how wildly behavior can change based on social context.

Who and what you are depends on what you interact with way more then most people are comfortable with. 

Pithy reduction of the problem of consciousness #47

Being conscious just means you reflexively anthropomorphize yourself.

Ed Miliband in a speech about the London Riots

"But as we talk about what happened in the riots we must be honest with ourselves.
Children’s ideas of right and wrong don’t just come from their parents.
And we can’t honestly say the greed, selfishness and gross irresponsibility that shocked us all so deeply is confined to the looters or even to their parents.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen this kind of me-first, take what you can culture.
The bankers who took millions while destroying people’s savings: greedy, selfish, and immoral.
The MPs who fiddled their expenses: greedy, selfish, and immoral.
The people who hacked phones to get stories to make money for themselves: greedy, selfish and immoral.
People who talk about the sick behaviour of those without power, should talk equally about the sick behaviour of those with power."