The Greek philosopher Heraclitus famously said, "You cannot step twice into the same river; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you." What he said was true, but was only half of the truth. The wader is changing continuously just as the river is. The apparent continuity of identity is a fiction, albeit an extremely useful one. You are not the same person you were last year, yesterday, or even one second ago. I often find it instructive to think of myself as a sequence of I's over time (about 40 per second, according to some neurophysiologists), who are affected only by those who come before them, who affect only those who come after them, and whose interests are usually, but not always, well aligned.
posted by howtolive.org at
7:58 AM
4 Comments:
So is it just perception of ourselves that make us feel and think we are the same person? How do you justify our minds and personalities remaining constant?
By
aem, at 10:02 AM
Just came across this for the first time. It's easy to ramble on a blog like this, and to not say anything, or to say things you probably don't mean. So I just wanted to say, you're doing a good job with this, and it is personally useful to me.
By
Anonymous, at 3:04 PM
aem – Good question. Two caveats before I (or in the spirit of my post, "we") answer: 1. Many philosophers have studied the concept of identity much more deeply than I have. 2. My full answer would be at least several pages long and would take several hours, but here's the Cliff's Notes version (which I wrote faster than I probably should've). Our concept of the identity of a thing has been shaped largely by evolution. In the case of a physical object (or even another person) in one's environment, it has proved useful to treat that thing as the same entity over time even if it has changed somewhat, provided that its value to us and the way we should interact with it hasn't changed. In the case of oneself, there are even stronger forces pushing one to treat oneself as the same entity over time. Even primitive life (unknowingly) divides the world into self and other, with the underlying assumption being that it's the same self over time. Whether conscious or not, those living things which honor and respect subsequent versions of themselves (survivally and reproductively) will benefit. Evolution doesn't care how we define identity, its definition of identity is based on the DNA the living things have, and since DNA doesn't change (much) in a life form over time, evolution treats the entity as having the same identity over time. And once you start talking about humans, with memory and foresight, and (sometimes) willingness to delay gratification, you have a creature whose sense of identity is so persistent that (s)he claims to be the same person (s)he was as an infant, when in fact every atom in his/her body and everything happening in his/her mind is different.
anonymous – Thanks for the compliment. My plan is to try to say interesting things that no one else is saying. I can't guarantee that readers will agree with everything I say, but I do promise that I'll do what I can to make every word count.
By
howtolive.org, at 5:20 PM
aem,
I actually don't believe that our minds or personalities remain constant. How many marriages have ended because one spouse is "no longer the same person" as when they got married. We are all an evolving product of our life experiences and environment. Though many reactions are predetermined through our limited humanity, our thoughts and feelings are usually the result of a memory or an event which influenced us, usually on an unconscience level. An simplistic example would be clothing. We find what we wore 10-15 years ago to be funny and ugly. Why is this ? Because we have changed and can only relate to our present feelings.
By
MegaP, at 1:15 PM
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