What am I?

I finally got around to answering all those questions in the profile. It got me to thinking (which is what I'm here to do). Am I just a collection of likes and dislikes? I like pudding and don't like cottage cheese and that defines me.

The animals that we call the human race are incredibly social, and we seek each other out like the monkeys we are. Except instead of sniffing each other's butts, or picking bugs out of each other's fur, we say, "Oh, I loved that movie/book/whatever, did you?"

And if we respond affirmatively, then we have made a friend. We are alike, you and I. We have something in common, and even though we come from different parts of the world, have different accents, different clothes, different hairstyles, even different genitalia, we can communicate.

So suppose someone could take a surgical tool and cut out something I like. Would I be a fundamentally different person? Suppose I stopped liking pudding, how different would I be? I know when I was a kid I couldn't stand brussel sprouts, but nowadays I love 'em. I am a fundamentally different person than I was when I was nine, but it isn't because I've come around on brussel sprouts. I have a vast number of differences with the person I was when I was nine.

So how many changes would you have to make to change a person? Five? Ten? More? Would you be willing to do that to yourself if I told you it would make you a better person? The self-help book industry and the existence of Dr. Phil prove that most people are desperate to become someone else. I think if we could make a la carte personalities, people would be lining up around the block to change.

Is that brainwashing? According to my readers it isn't as long as they come on their own accord. So if I volunteer to be brainwashed, what do we call that?