Personal Identity

What's all this about DNA changing? I'm sure yoru DNA code remains the same throughout your life... Obviously your body doesn ot remain the same - cells are replcade, etc. But your body continues to be governed by the same DNA code, doesn't it? Your Genetic code remains the same throughout your life...

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Agrote, I do not know if DNA changes or not. I assume that since all that is material changes, DNA as physical phenomena changes but that the code remains relatively unchanged. But, then, what is the code itself made of. Is it somewhat like the Cheshire Cat's smile, a smile sans lips and teeth? Can we have an organization, a form, that is independent of something that is organized, without substance? I don't know. I'm probably asking a meaningless question, one that is not even wrong.

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JLNobody wrote:

Agrote, I do not know if DNA changes or not. I assume that since all that is material changes, DNA as physical phenomena changes but that the code remains relatively unchanged. But, then, what is the code itself made of. Is it somewhat like the Cheshire Cat's smile, a smile sans lips and teeth? Can we have an organization, a form, that is independent of something that is organized, without substance? I don't know. I'm probably asking a meaningless question, one that is not even wrong.

The code remains the same. It doesn't matter if your DNA is made of different particles of matter than it was before, as long as they are arranged in exacltly the same way, which they are - throughout your life. Your genetic code remains the same throughout your life, and I think it determines your identity (and the problem of clones or identical twins is solved by asserting that spatiotemporal continuity is also necessary for sustained personal identity over time).

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Agrote, thanks for the information, but is personal identity a material-physical or psycho-social phenomenon? I repeat my earlier question: a bug has DNA but does that constitute for it a sustained personal identity?

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Right.

Okay, it seems some here pretty much say:

A person's identity is your DNA code, your Social Security Number, your name, and your credit cards.

And when you die, the lights go out and thats it. Its all numbers and codes and then you turn off the switch to your life and game over.

Okay, that was actually very easy!

Heck, we are pretty much a robot! Cool!

I don't even know why we need a "Philosophy & Debate" forum. Its pretty clear all we are is robots with a certain numerical & genetic code, and that is it, period.

Why do we make things so complex when really they are quite simple. All we are is a few numbers and a chemical code.

Next question! Twisted Evil

***

Excuse me for a moment, I have to go look for my Social Security Card! Haven't seen that thing in ages, and if I lose it I might become Nobody!

Then I'll be EMNobody!

And that would not be good. There's already too many Nobodies around here! I don't know if there any room for another Nobody on this board.

Hey, JLNobody, is that what happened to you? Did you lose your Social Security card & your credit cards and become Nobody??? Twisted Evil

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extra medium wrote:

A person's identity is your DNA code, your Social Security Number, your name, and your credit cards.

Nobody mentioned social security cards, and they should not be compared to DNA. Social security numbers do not have anything to do with living cells and brains and things. The only identity that a social security number gives you is, as you suggest, a sort of robotic societal one. DNA, on the other hand, decides who I am to a very large extent - a basic grasp of biology would tell you that.

JLNobody wrote:

Agrote, thanks for the information, but is personal identity a material-physical or psycho-social phenomenon? I repeat my earlier question: a bug has DNA but does that constitute for it a sustained personal identity?

It constitutes for its sustained identity as a bug, but since a bug is never a person it does not constituted for its sustained identity as a person, since it never had an identity as a person. I'm not entirely sure how to define a 'person' yet, but I'm pretty sure that insects cannot be people.

I don't think personal identity has anything to do with social factors - you could spend your entire life in a coffin with a feeding tube and never come into contact with anybody, but you'd be left with your thoughts and you could still be a person. Social influences change people's personalities, but they remain essentially the same person as they were before, I think. In answering the question, "what is a person?" I think that psychology needs to come into it - i think my identity as a person can probably be determined by my possessing the psychological quality of consciousness, and therefore by possessing a functioning, conscious brain. But in answering the question, "what makes a person the same person over time?" I think that genetic code is the answer, since it seems to be the only thing that we can rely on to remain the same throughout our lives. Our bodies can be replaced, our personalities can change, and our memories can be lost, but our genetic code remains the same (constituted by different matter, but still the same code), and as long as we carry on being persons, it is our DNA that determines that we continue to be the same person.

I do have a little problem... if gorillas are conscious, are they persons?

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roger wrote:

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.

agrote,

I was referring to roger's post (above). Combine that info with your post, and you have it: we are DNA code, driver's license, credit cards, and medical card.

Thats it. Easy!

Next question!

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agrote wrote:

DNA, on the other hand, decides who I am to a very large extent - a basic grasp of biology would tell you that.

There it is.

I will grant you "DNA decides who I am to some extent." Okay, I will begrudgingly grant you that.

I am saying that I am more than a biological code.

***

Just take one shallow example:

They develop cloning so well that they can replicate humans with precisely the same DNA code.

According to your definition, if they cloned 100 people like this, these 100 people would all have precisely the same identity.

I disagree. I believe that even if they had the same DNA codes, they each have their own unique identities.

These people would have something else that gives them their own identity that is not quite like the other 99.

Hmmm....what is it that makes each of these 100 people unique? Their unique Social Security card, driver's license, and credit cards? If they lost these cards, would they all meld into the same identity?

What do you think?

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There is no magic soul or divine essence that confers my identity as molecules are replaced. What there is in the end is tradition.

Each quark, atom or molecule in my body has its own proud history stretching back, potentially all the way to the big bang. They've been part of stars that have gone nova, the eccretion disk of our system and probably passed through much of the life of Earth to reach where they are now.

Yet if a person joins the army, then as long as they serve, they are a part of it. What unites a new recruit today with a retired soldier from world war I is the tradition of the military. In much the same way, while the molecules of my body may be entirely different since the last time you saw me, by assuming the roles they have taken in my body they become a part of the proud tradition that is me. For as long as they serve they are entitled to be called "Me".

... An unusually poetic post for me, but I believe it is accurate never the less.

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Agrote, a person is a human being with a self-identity. Other animals may have self-awareness, but "person" specifically refers to human beings.

Identity is produced by core consciousness with access to memories. Memories change over the years as experiences and thoughts cause new neural connections to be made, unused connections weaken, chemical balances and responses change, and some neurons die due to disease, drugs, or trauma, but the basis neural structure remains and thus the core of identity continues.

Antonio Damasio explains how consciousness is produced in his book "The Feeling of What Happens:"

Core consciousness is a transient but conscious reference to the individual organism in which events are happening. It is produced by the proto-self (a non-conscious collection of representations of the multiple dimensions of current organism state) and an imaged account of relationship and enhancement of object image using the cingulated cortices, thalamus, and superior colliculi. Image enhancement achieved via modulation from basal forebrain/brainstem acetylcholine and monoamine nuclei as well as from thalamocortical modulation

The autobiographical self is produced by a continuously reactivated network based on convergence zones which are located in the temporal and the frontal higher-order cortices, as well as subcortical nuclei such as those in the amygdala. Coordinated activation of this multisite network is paced by the thalamic nuclei, while holding reiterated components for extended periods of time requires support of prefrontal cortices involved in working memory.

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JLN, personal identity (who you feel that you are) is produced by your brain. Social identity (who other people think you are) is represented by the cards you carry in your wallet and you may have different identities for different occasions (fake IDs, alternate personas for each role you play in life, multiple personalities).

DNA determines the basic structure of the brain and nominal chemical balances/hormone levels, but experiences shape the neural connections that make us who we are. That's why identical twins do not have identical minds.

We are born with an incredible number of neural connections but much pruning of unused ones goes on in the early part of life (one theory of autism is that without this pruning they are excessively responsive to stimuli) as well as amplification of the ones that are stimulated: "neurons that fire together, wire together". Note that children who are not exposed to any language in early life (wild child) lose some of their ability for it. They can subsequently learn words but not syntax.

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extra medium wrote:

Just take one shallow example:

They develop cloning so well that they can replicate humans with precisely the same DNA code.

According to your definition, if they cloned 100 people like this, these 100 people would all have precisely the same identity.

I disagree. I believe that even if they had the same DNA codes, they each have their own unique identities.

These people would have something else that gives them their own identity that is not quite like the other 99.

Hmmm....what is it that makes each of these 100 people unique? Their unique Social Security card, driver's license, and credit cards? If they lost these cards, would they all meld into the same identity?

What do you think?

I agree with you - people can have the same DNA as each other without havign the same identity. I think I've already mentioned the problem of clones and identical twins, and I've provided a solution to the problem. Let's forget social security cards and drivers licences - neither you nor I believe that they have anythign at all to do with personal identity. My solution is spatiotemporal continuity. Ignoring personalty differences between clones or twins, which could feasibly not exist (at the moment of birth two twin babies might be psychologically identical, for example), I believe that what distinguishes one twin or clone from another is that they occupy different space. My identical twin cannot be me, because he is not standing where I am - he is over there.

So spatiotemporal continuity, as well as the same DNA, is required for a person to sustain their identity over time - I did say that early on.

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Terry wrote:

DNA determines the basic structure of the brain and nominal chemical balances/hormone levels, but experiences shape the neural connections that make us who we are. That's why identical twins do not have identical minds.

Does this mean that if I get severe brain damage and amnesia and my personality compeltely changes, I will become a different person altogether?

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I think our identity is the continuation of our cognitive, rational existence. One could say that their personality is their identity, but I would assert that this is a mistake, since our personality can and do change over time. To think that a certain trait is "you", would imply an inevitability which is inherently incorrect.

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Every post so far as caught some of the reality of social identity. ExtraMedium's last attempt to be inclusive (or exhaustive) was good--i.e.,

"...we are DNA code, driver's license, credit cards, and medical card."

But it leaves out the criticial "self-perception" and reputation, or the way others define you. A major school of thought in sociology deals with the social dynamics of identity (e.g., Shibutani).

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JLNobody wrote:

But it leaves out the criticial "self-perception" and reputation, or the way others define you.

Good point. School children's' performance can be affected by telling the teacher that they are gifted although they are of ordinary ability. Peers have more influence on a child than parents. Most of us modify our behavior based on the expectations of the company we keep.

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agrote wrote:

Ignoring personalty differences between clones or twins, which could feasibly not exist (at the moment of birth two twin babies might be psychologically identical, for example), I believe that what distinguishes one twin or clone from another is that they occupy different space.

Please see my response to you on the previous page. It is not DNA or the occupation of a particular space that is the source of identity. It is the unique neural configuration of the brain, which is initially determined by DNA but is continuously modified by experiences. Identical twins do not have identical fingerprints, nor do they have identical brains even at birth. DNA is like a building blueprint. The home may start out the same, but each person decorates it differently and may remodel it many times over the course of a lifetime.

Quote:

Does this mean that if I get severe brain damage and amnesia and my personality compeltely changes, I will become a different person altogether?

The building can be damaged by fire or moved by a tornado, but it is still the same building. It just may not look or function the same.

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Terry wrote:

It is not DNA or the occupation of a particular space that is the source of identity. It is the unique neural configuration of the brain, which is initially determined by DNA but is continuously modified by experiences. Identical twins do not have identical fingerprints, nor do they have identical brains even at birth. DNA is like a building blueprint. The home may start out the same, but each person decorates it differently and may remodel it many times over the course of a lifetime.

The problem with this is that it is possible (though highly unlikely) that two identical twins or clones could have exactly the same neural structure - perhaps two twins are seperated by birth but miraculously have exactly the same experiences and therefore develop the same "unique" neural structure. Or maybe I could use machiens to make a clone of myself and then 'upload' my neural structure to that person - making all the neurones fire or not fire exactly as they do in my brain, and creating somebody with my DNA and my neural structure, but who is not the same person as me.

It seems that you need to at least add spatiotemporal continuity to your account of sustained personal identity - this would solve the problem of neurologically identical clones. But I also think that it would be appropriate to regaqrd genetic code as the source of sustaiend identity, and neurological structure as merely the result of genetic code (and of course of social experiences). I am maybe just being petty now, but I think that DNA is a better contender as the thing that makes me the same person that I was before, since my neurological structure can change dramatically, whereas my DNA cannot. But perhaps it doesn't matter, since however much it changes, my neuroplogical structure at this moment in time does (I assume) follow causally from my neurological structure at any previous time.

But spatiotemporal continuity is essential for an account of sustained personal identity.

JLNobody wrote:

Every post so far as caught some of the reality of social identity.

That isn't my intention - I'm not interested in what makes me seem like the same person to other members od society. I'm interested in what fundamentally makes me the same person, regardless of society's perceptions of me, as I was before. Perhaps there is no such thing - perhaps we are just arguing over what our definitions of 'person' and 'sustained personal identity' are. But I hope not.

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