Your identity

[stars2heaven]

This is an old philisophical question, many of you have probably heard of it in some form or another at some point. Despite this it remains a highly debated topic, even among "professional" philosophers, to this day and is a important issue in metaphysics and ethics. So here it is:

 

Imagine you go on some long voyage in an old wooden boat. Let's call it the "Marie Elaina". During the course of this voyage you have to replace the various parts of the boat as they wear out or break. Infact, your voyage has taken so long and you've had to replace so many parts that you've ended up replacing, at some point or another, every single part of the boat. That means the planks that make up its hull, absolutely everything. The question is: are you still sailing the same boat at that point?

 

Imagine that, secretly, someone was collecting all of the old pieces of the boat as you discarded them and reassembling them. By the end of your voyage, they have reassembled an entire ship. Whose is the "Marie Elaina"?

 

The answer to this dillema is important, because it applies to us as well. During the course of our lives every single part of our body, each cell and its parts, are eventually replaced. At 50 years old there is no part of you that was present when you were 5. Are you the same person as when you were at 5, or 20, or 30, or 40?

 

If you are the same person, is the ship the same ship? If the ship is not the same ship, are you the same person?

[Germandeathkittiez]

I guess it just goes to show that our soul is the real, unchanging person, and our physical bodies are just a replaceable shell. Look at it how you might - soul; dark matter; death; god; whatever, it is the essence within the shell that appears constricted by this everflow of cells and particles - we are very small, constricted portions of the essence of life.

[Vagrant0]

I don't believe the boat analogy really works past the conceptual. The boat is only identified based on what others call it, and has entirely no say in the matter. In contrast, although a person is also only identified based on what others call them, that person also normally gets to have a vote in the process. Even in the case of Soap Opera style amnesia, then the person often still has a role in defining themselves simply because they are included in the process of discovering that person (even if it is not who they were before). In a way, who we are is really just a constant argument between our own ego and the rest of the world.

 

As long as there is some agreement on certain fundamental aspects between the two, there is an acknowledged identity. Other than that, everything else is pretty much transitory.

 

All I know is that I am now, and have always been myself, and as far as I know, I've always been living the same person's life and have not yet woken up with someone else's. I could try to redefine that life as I see fit, but history, society, and practicality are not always as willing. Even if I were to become someone else, I would likely still remain myself simply for the sake of continuity. It is, afterall, rather hard to exist without some origin. Or atleast, that is the best explanation I can come up with as to why I remain myself.

Edited December 9, 2009 by Vagrant0

[Balagor]

I must say that the boatexample is rather hypothetical. Being build from broken remains, it must be quite a different boat. At least it must be smaller, since some of the broken material simply is GONE. But yet a copy.

People are also build of the same materials, and yet we differ from each other, because we have somthing the boat doesn´t have: A MIND.

Our ID comes from the social layer we are born into. Think of yourself if you were raised in a settlement of Australian Aboriginies instead of in the center of a big city.

I identify myself with the people i live amongst, and adapt my id to that. Thus i know who i am, i belong with my "tribe".

Today we can make cloned copyes of ourselfes (Maker forbid it). Even in that case, i still believe it will depend on the social upbringing of the "clone", what kind of id this person will have. The 2 copyes could even differs if raised differently.

[Herculine]

People constantly grow and change. It is the nature of life and being human. Today I am not exactly the same person I was yesterday. And nobody is out there collecting my old parts.

[dezdimona]

People constantly grow and change. It is the nature of life and being human. Today I am not exactly the same person I was yesterday. And nobody is out there collecting my old parts.

Bravo. You change,you adapt,or you stagnate and perish.Such is the way things are.In nature the strong survive,the weak and unfit die-off so that those genes die off with them.

I have changed,adapted and am mush the happier for it!

[stars2heaven]

I don't believe the boat analogy really works past the conceptual. The boat is only identified based on what others call it, and has entirely no say in the matter. In contrast, although a person is also only identified based on what others call them, that person also normally gets to have a vote in the process. Even in the case of Soap Opera style amnesia, then the person often still has a role in defining themselves simply because they are included in the process of discovering that person (even if it is not who they were before). In a way, who we are is really just a constant argument between our own ego and the rest of the world.

 

Why is it that somethings identity should have anything to do with what another calls it? Didn't some thing that we now call oxygen exist even before things of its kind were discovered and then named? Didn't it have an identity then?

 

If we have a role in determining our own identity, would you agree that our identity can change based on how we choose to change it?

 

As long as there is some agreement on certain fundamental aspects between the two, there is an acknowledged identity. Other than that, everything else is pretty much transitory.

 

What agreement(s) are necessary for there to be an acknowledgment of identity?

 

All I know is that I am now, and have always been myself, and as far as I know, I've always been living the same person's life and have not yet woken up with someone else's.

 

But you know that you have changed in many ways. Your body has changed, added and lost material that makes it up. Psychologically you have changed in many ways also. You have gained and lost memmories. How do you remain the same person from day to day, seeing as how from day to day you become something that you were not the day before?

 

I could try to redefine that life as I see fit, but history, society, and practicality are not always as willing. Even if I were to become someone else, I would likely still remain myself simply for the sake of continuity. It is, afterall, rather hard to exist without some origin. Or atleast, that is the best explanation I can come up with as to why I remain myself.

 

Remaining yourself for the sake of continuity seems more like a matter of semantics than what is actually true. If you are something other than what you were before then that is the case regardless of how you or someone else chooses to interpret it.

 

Im mostly asking questions here so that I can clearly understand your position. Can't agree with it or attack it if I dont know it :)

[stars2heaven]

I must say that the boatexample is rather hypothetical. Being build from broken remains, it must be quite a different boat. At least it must be smaller, since some of the broken material simply is GONE. But yet a copy.

 

Was the boat ever the same at any two seperate instances then? Or was its identity constantly shifting?

 

People are also build of the same materials, and yet we differ from each other, because we have somthing the boat doesn´t have: A MIND.

Our ID comes from the social layer we are born into. Think of yourself if you were raised in a settlement of Australian Aboriginies instead of in the center of a big city.

I identify myself with the people i live amongst, and adapt my id to that. Thus i know who i am, i belong with my "tribe".

Today we can make cloned copyes of ourselfes (Maker forbid it). Even in that case, i still believe it will depend on the social upbringing of the "clone", what kind of id this person will have. The 2 copyes could even differs if raised differently.

 

So our identity is determined by our minds, and our minds determined by various social aspects. What would happen if you lost all your memmories, or suffered some sort of brain trauma, or psychological trauma? Would you remain the same person, or are you someone new?

 

Here is a different hypothetical for everyone:

 

Consider a Star Trek type age/time.

 

You step on a teleporter. A computer then scans your body, taking note of the exact order of every atom and molecule in your body. Then it separates all of the matter you are made up of, sends the scan of of your body through radio waves to some distant planet where anoter computer takes all of the same types of atoms that made you up and then reassembles you.

 

When you wake up you would be, other than the matter than made you up, exactly as you were before. Same memmories, same looks, etc. The ONLY difference is that you are no long made of the exact same materials as before.

 

Is the person who was disassembled and the person assembled the same person?

[stars2heaven]

People constantly grow and change. It is the nature of life and being human. Today I am not exactly the same person I was yesterday. And nobody is out there collecting my old parts.

Bravo. You change,you adapt,or you stagnate and perish.Such is the way things are.In nature the strong survive,the weak and unfit die-off so that those genes die off with them.

I have changed,adapted and am mush the happier for it!

 

It seems from this that the both of you agree that we are different persons based on our changing bodies and minds. If this is true, then how should we treat criminals?

 

If a prisoner who has been in jail for 20 years is not the same person who committed the crime, why should he be imprisoned? After all, we dont often think that imprisoning someone who didnt commit a crime to be acceptable.

[Balagor]

So our identity is determined by our minds, and our minds determined by various social aspects. What would happen if you lost all your memmories, or suffered some sort of brain trauma, or psychological trauma? Would you remain the same person, or are you someone new?

 

Being a witness to a person with a brain trauma from a stroke, I must say that the person actually changed.

Physsically the person will still bee the same, exept from som chemical differenties in blood and brain.

But in mind there was a huge change, so I would say it was no longer the same person.

The person I speak about became a vegable, and I must assume he could no longer identify himself.

His inviroment would recognize him as different person, thus our identity comes not only from within

but also from the surrounding inviroments.