Why Do I Feel Like I Am the Body?

Are we really just Awareness? How come I so strongly naturally gravitate towards the belief that I am a form, a body? After all, I am not aware of the object in my visual field unless I look at it. Perhaps it is because a large percentage of my perceptions in my Awareness right now seems to be of the body right now. How I am sitting, any aches or pains, the sensations of my hand touching the keyboard, thoughts that are coming into my awareness, these all constitute as what I perceive of as the NOW. Now I look up at an object, and I become aware of it as it enters my Awareness as the perception enters my Awareness. Does this mean I am now the object as it is in my Awareness? What is the difference between the object and the body? All objects and forms are made of atoms and the same subatomic particles. Is the body really different from that object? Perhaps we feel the body is alive and is different becasue we experience more of the body. There are more perceptions coming into our Awareness that we believe are of the body, so therefore we are "limited" to our bodies. Would we say that our Awareness is limited to "inside" our heads? Perhaps that is because we are experiencing mostly visual perceptions. Where would a blind person say "they" are located at? Where would a deaf person? Would they say they are the ears? Would a deaf and blind person they are the skin, as they feel their dominant perceptions are tactile? Would a person in severe sensory deprivation such as in solitary confinement say they don't exist anymore just because most of their perceptions are not of the body anymore? They dream, they have intense hallucinations, and are definitely aware of these "images", sounds, and perceptions. Are those real then, or are they hallucinations? Perhaps perceptions and sensations are lying and inaccurate all the time? What we experience as life through oncoming and going perceptions is ever changing although they may feel stagnant from time to time. 

Perhaps science can tell us what is real? Leo Gura at actualized.org has an excellent talk about the limits of Rationalism here. In essence, Science is also a framework, a model created by the human mind fueled by a human desire to make sense of the world. Is it possible that the world and the universe is actually not rational at all, or a-rational? We find one model of science which seems to explain a lot of what we think explains what we perceive and the mechanical laws of the universe. But we have holes and gaps in other areas. Maybe we just need to give science more time and it will explain EVERYTHING in the universe that can be measured objectively and what we experience subjectively from perceptions? Science is great, it has given us insights into "making sense" of the world we perceive. But it has limitations, and this is not something a rationalist would easily accept. Hardcore rationalists can be as dogmatic as very religious individuals. Both can be stubbornly in belief that only their "method" can explain the universe and the world "out there". Both are just one framework created by the human mind, forged from human desire, to make sense of something that doesn't necessarily have to make sense to the human mind at all. 

And science is only a story we tell ourselves as well. We tell ourselves facts, and this is how the universe works. And like stories, science is constantly changing and being revised all the time. What was considered a fact hundreds of years ago changes hundreds of years later. To be a scientist is to work from one framework or model, through one perceptional ability/the thinking ability. Thinking is just one perception that comes into our awareness. To be a scientist, especially a theoretical physicist or quantum physicist, is to be working on the boundaries of certainty and uncertainty all the time. Theories change all the time. And the current science from quantum physics says atoms exist as probability wave, and only when observed, does the probability wave collapse into one outcome that is perceived. Science has also "proven" that objects in the "real world" are made of atoms and that atoms are comprised 99.99999% of empty space. So as the story of science tells us right now, objects and things are not so real either. But again, science itself has its limitations, as good as it is.