Does the brain create a virtual personality so that it feels it owns itself?

Each one of us senses that we own our brain and body. Does it make sense to think the brain is the real you and is its own owner? But when you sense information that does not mean the information is right. The brain might make you think you are the owner. Nerve impulses can make you feel a pain where there is no pain. It is like you own a pain that is not there.  So what else can the brain do?   If the ownership perception is coming from nerve impulses then the you that owns the brain could be an illusion.

What do we mean by own?  Do we think we own ourselves the way we own a house or do we merely mean we feel in control and in charge?  Or do we mean both?  Own means we feel free.  A house cannot own itself and neither can we - but we can if we redefine own as referring to being in charge.  You own the feeling same way as you own how you feel about your house that you have bought.

Some say the real you is not your brain and is somehow trapped in it.  That could refer to a soul or a ghost or it could mean you are like an artificial personality that made by the brain but is not your brain and made to feel free and happy when it is actually trapped and controlled.  If the real you is not your brain that does not mean there is necessarily a soul.

Neural circuit impulse patterns (CIPs) enable the basic functions of the brain.  They take care of the core functions of the brain.  So naturally the state of being aware that you exist and perceive will be one of the most important of these.

Consciousness is described as knowing that you sense things. But is that accurate?  Even if you wrongly sense things that does not change the fact that you know that you sense.

With computer avatars you can create the illusion in your head that you really are the avatar when the avatar is only what is playing the computer game for you. You become self-aware as an avatar.

The nervous system is about awareness. It is about detecting and acting on what is detected. What matters most then? Just being aware or the practical value?

CIPs create your avatar and thus it could be that what runs your brain is an avatar as well.  It is the brain creating something to help it be aware.  An avatar in the brain or in your game is simply some CIPs working together as a set.  This set engages with other CIPs and lets itself be affected by them and it affects them which causes the perception that there is a self or conscious being doing it.

When you sense say taste something you never really know exactly what it tastes like for CIPs respond to what your tongue says and creates a representation of the sensation. So being the avatar you are, you cannot be sure that you are not a virtual you.  When it gives you virtual information it has no concern with you being a real self.  The whole point of being a self is that you can be aware of things but in a sense you are

If I am a virtual me not a real me then there is more to me than just a virtual me.  I even act like a computer the way when I am awake I am online and offline when I sleep.

How does you being a virtual self impact on free will and morality and love?  Free will is unfree in the sense that nothing is 100% certain so everything is open to doubt even if it is very believable to you.  Demonising a person who does grave harm is therefore wrong.  Yet if you really have free will you should be able to become that which ought to be demonised and hated. Free will if it exists is biased towards good even if the good is often misguided.

You need enough consistency in what you think and do in order to have a character. If you change too much and contradict yourself too much then you have no character at all.   This opposes the free will notion that a saint can change rapidly and then murder you.

Selfhood is not sameness but is a self turning gradually into a different one all the time.  A self needs the power to change.  Imagine your self is type A.  A over time will develop some characteristics of type B.  And  then later signs of type C can appear.  A self that is fixed at A is more of a prison than a self. Yet we feel that we stay the same though things change around us.  The self is an illusion for though real it is never what it makes you think it is.

Doctrines such as free will and God assume you are like a fixed soul self that has real free will and sees things as they are and not just a representation of them.  Those doctrines are thus intrinsically oppressive.