Personal Identity

Agrote....
Still thinking about your first question.

To answer the second, as far as appearances go, I once sat in a cafe and glanced over at one of the tables to see a family that I had not seen in 10 years. It was like looking at a faded photograph. On another occasion I met a woman on the street who had been in my class when I was 8....decades ago....I recognized her immediately.

I guess our core features and our capacity to recognize the same doesn't change that much.

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I'd also throw in more question: What is a person if you were to take away the influence of one's culture, language, nationality, religion, history books....?
What is the core that is 'I'? Or is it not separable?

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I would say the continuation of the experiencer, regardless of the traits that one has in a certain period.

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Re: Personal Identity

agrote wrote:

How can we identify a person as being the same person over time? (what makes me the same person that I was 10 years ago?)

I have always found this question interesting.

This question comes as close to "proving" existence of a "soul" as anything I've encountered.

I believe all of the cells in our body are replaced every few years (or sooner). So it can't be anything physical in our bodies that keeps us the same over a period of years.

So its kind of simple, really: If its nothing physical in our body that keeps us the same person throughout the years, does this mean we must have a "soul"?

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Don't think so, extra medium. Nerve cells aren't replaced at all, and I suspect that's where the action is.

To a surprising extent, I think a large part of our identity is carried around in our purses and billfolds. Imagine yourself in a strange town. You've lots of anonymous cash, but oddly, you are missing your drivers license, credit cards, medical insurance card, etc. I'll tell you who you are; to all intents and purposes, you are nobody.

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Re: Personal Identity

extra medium wrote:

agrote wrote:
So its kind of simple, really: If its nothing physical in our body that keeps us the same person throughout the years, does this mean we must have a "soul"?

No. First of all I can't see any reason to make that jump when there are much more plausible theories to be made.

I have an answer to my second question, and it is as follows:

Person 1 at time 1 is the same person as person 2 at time 2 if and only if...

1) They are both persons (whatever a person might be - I haven't got an answer for that question yet)
2) They both consist of living cells
3) They both share the same DNA code
4) There is spatiotemporal continuity between person 1 and person 2 (so for example if at time 1 I walk downstairs without teleporting or anything like that - I just move through space in a way that is consistent with the laws of nature and matter and stuff - and then I arrive downstairs at time 2, my self at time 2 is spatiotemporarily consistent with my self at time 1 - does that make sense?)

This account seems to solve the problem of cells in the body being replaced - although my body at age 90 is completely different to my body at age 3, I am still the same person because I have the same DNA and my two different bodies are spatiotemporarily continuous. The purpose of the spatial thing is to solve the problem of identical twins or clones - although they have the same DNA, they occupy different space, so they are different people.

My only problem is that I'm not sure whether there actually is a right answer to my second question; maybe it's just a matter of deciding what we mean by the word 'person,' or maybe persons are some fundamental thing. I'm not sure.

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Fair enough.

But consider this:

None of us are identical to the person we were one millisecond ago.

We are not precisely 100% who we were yesterday, last year, 20 years ago.

So yes, perhaps its the wrong question.

Indeed, on several levels our identity today is not precisely the same as it was in the past.

We are not who we think we are, of that much I am certain.

Are we simply a temporary specific combination of DNA and nothing beyond that?

When you die, do the lights simply go out?

The jury is out.

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Another question to ask is whether or not it is possible to be aware of the minute changes extra medium is talking about. I certainly do not feel fundamentally different from moment to moment. Our bodies are changing, but does our perception of ourselves change just as quickly or is it preserved somehow?

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extra medium wrote:

None of us are identical to the person we were one millisecond ago.

My body may change, and my personality may change, but I still consist of a working, conscious brain with the same code of DNA, and there is spatiotemporal continuity between myself one millisecond ago and myself now (so I am not my identical twin or anything like that) - isn't that enough for me to be the same person I was a millisecond ago?

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agrote wrote:

extra medium wrote:
None of us are identical to the person we were one millisecond ago.

My body may change, and my personality may change, but I still consist of a working, conscious brain with the same code of DNA, and there is spatiotemporal continuity between myself one millisecond ago and myself now (so I am not my identical twin or anything like that) - isn't that enough for me to be the same person I was a millisecond ago?

Close...but not identical! Does this mean our identity is actually changing through time? I believe the answer is yes, to a degree.

And this is happening on so many levels. My DNA may be nearly the same now as it was 20 years ago. But I definitely feel like a different person than I was 20 years ago.

In fact, if my self of today met my self of 20 years ago, I do not know if self 1 would recognize self 2 as self 1. In any event, its a different identity.

Oh yes, the driver's license and social security # are still the same, but that is so artificial. These are constructs to help us cling to our social identity. But I believe that our social identity is but a small fraction of ultimate identity in the larger scale ultimate reality.

The paradox may be: are we really anything?

Do we have an identity?

Can you prove it?

Yes you have unique DNA. You happen to be a certain human for a period of time. But is that you?

You have a certain job. Is that you?

You are in a certain family. A particular name. Is that you?

You have certain likes and dislikes, hobbies, friends. Is that you?

Really? Who are you? What are you?

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fredjones wrote:

Another question to ask is whether or not it is possible to be aware of the minute changes extra medium is talking about. I certainly do not feel fundamentally different from moment to moment. Our bodies are changing, but does our perception of ourselves change just as quickly or is it preserved somehow?

Right!

I think there is something to the idea of our perception of ourselves changing, and being preserved to an extent, all at once.

This is really a shallow low level example of all this, but it gets at it a bit:
Has anyone experienced the example of: You meet all your high school friends for the first time in 10 or more years. They've all obviously aged, but somehow you're the only one who hasn't aged much? At least, you don't notice that you've aged as much as them?

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Knowing someone and seeing them 10 years later deals with memory people that arn't around you all the time only notice pyhsical changes such as a haircut or a new beard. I had a really weird experience 2 days ago where i ran into my best friend in 1st and 2nd grade that i hadn't talked to since then and now i am a senior. At first i was skeptical that it was him. So i pulled the "Stephen?!" thinking if it wasn't him id just act like oh i was mistaken and say you look like an old friend of mine.
Anyways i think that memory and creativity allows you to remember who is who. I actually have a knack at rem faces for some weird reason. For example ill notice something peculiar about someones looks and then i never forget them. So if i see somone shopping in the grocery store 2 weeks later if i bumped into them i could actually tell them what they bought. They would prolly think i was a stalker though so i never do that.
But with ones own identity it is true that it is changing based on your daily choices.
I think of life as being a great room full of closed doors. The doors symbolize the choice and whats on the other side symbolizes the outcome. WIth every choice you make you take a risk of changing for better or for worse. But if you sat there too afraid to open any door you would ammount to nothing and im not even sure you could live with yourself. Suicide might be your only door you open.

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extra medium wrote:

agrote wrote:
extra medium wrote:
None of us are identical to the person we were one millisecond ago.

My body may change, and my personality may change, but I still consist of a working, conscious brain with the same code of DNA, and there is spatiotemporal continuity between myself one millisecond ago and myself now (so I am not my identical twin or anything like that) - isn't that enough for me to be the same person I was a millisecond ago?

Close...but not identical! Does this mean our identity is actually changing through time? I believe the answer is yes, to a degree.

And this is happening on so many levels. My DNA may be nearly the same now as it was 20 years ago. But I definitely feel like a different person than I was 20 years ago.

In fact, if my self of today met my self of 20 years ago, I do not know if self 1 would recognize self 2 as self 1. In any event, its a different identity.

Oh yes, the driver's license and social security # are still the same, but that is so artificial. These are constructs to help us cling to our social identity. But I believe that our social identity is but a small fraction of ultimate identity in the larger scale ultimate reality.

The paradox may be: are we really anything?

Do we have an identity?

Can you prove it?

Yes you have unique DNA. You happen to be a certain human for a period of time. But is that you?

You have a certain job. Is that you?

You are in a certain family. A particular name. Is that you?

You have certain likes and dislikes, hobbies, friends. Is that you?

Really? Who are you? What are you?

I don't understand. All you seem to be refuting is that our identities are all about social qualities - but I never suggested that. Why is unique DNA not enough to determine personal identity?

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agrote wrote:

I don't understand. All you seem to be refuting is that our identities are all about social qualities - but I never suggested that. Why is unique DNA not enough to determine personal identity?

Okay, I'll try to put it another way:

For something to have a definable identity, I believe it can't change over time.

But we change over time.

The molecules, the makeup of our DNA, everything in us changes over time.

This DNA you keep going back to. Okay, let us examine the DNA.

The molecules that make up this DNA are constantly being replaced, regenerated, renewed.

Your DNA of a year ago, a decade ago, is not the same DNA you have today.

To me, this means your identity is not precisely the same as it was a year ago. Even a second ago.

We have no identity that stays utterly the same throughout our lifetime.

Any permanent identity we try to give ourselves is just a monkey's attempt at grasping to keep hold of an illusory reality that isn't really there.

Its (mostly) a social construct.

Does this make sense?

***

What do you think is your identity? Your DNA code? Thats you? Thats it?

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I think it's short-term memory that sustains our sense of personal identity, the feeling that there is something substantial—soul or ego—that travels through time. This unsubstantial ego or soul seems very real to us, so real that we defend it to the death sometimes, but occasionally, very occasionally we somehow slip into an alternative consciousness that transcends the illusion of this ego and our identity expands, at least temporarily. Of course this is what is referred to as a mystical experience, the original basis of religion before it gets screwed up in second-hand way.

I've often wondered how some animals recognize others as being their same species, for instance dogs, which come in a multitude of sizes, shapes, and colors. How does a tiny Yorkshire terrier recognize a great dane as being another dog? Or how does a nest-parasite bird, a cuckoo that was born and reared in another bird specie's nest, know that it's a cuckoo?

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Identity is, as extra medium notes, a social construct. It is a social marker, involving things like reputation, honor (which is what we die for), etc. It's even something that thieves are stealing nowadays. Everything about us changes; we have no static substance--only the thought of being a persistent thing. Even if our DNA did not change (which it does), could we treat that as the substantial foundation for identity? Beetles and rats have DNA, but I don't think we consider them to have identity in the sense of selves and egos.

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Good point EM i never thought about it liek that. I always thought of people changing because they learn from past experiences and choose to approach different matters based on their learned wisdom. I didn't think about chemical reasons why people may act differently towards something

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^^Yeah, what JLN said. ^^

I hate to keep deferring to him, but he seems to put into concise words what I take a lot more sentences and constructs to get at.
Blast you JLN, mindreader! Twisted Evil

thanks, Di.

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Ditto, EM.

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