What makes me the person I am?
Introduction
Have you ever wondered what, in the most general sense, makes you the person you are? You believe that, say, ten years ago you were the same person that you are today even though a lot about you has changed in that time. Your body is very different, and so are many aspects of your emotions, thoughts, beliefs and so on. So in virtue of what are you the same person then as you are now? What is it that makes you at two different times one and the same person? Is there a "special something", persisting over time, which constitutes your identity and underlies all the mental and physical changes which take place in you? Similarly, is there a "special something" – the same thing presumably - which distinguishes you from other persons?The problem: The problem is to try and spell out the nature of this "special something". Of course it might be that one way of solving this problem is to deny that there is a "special something". That issue will be discussed later.
A first attempt: The soul
According to this attempted solution, my identity consists in my possession of a soul. What makes me the person I am is that I have a soul. My soul comprises my inner essence in some way. I am the same person now as I was ten years ago because my soul has persisted unchanged throughout this time and will continue to exist unchanged throughout my life.Is this attempt successful? The immediate question here is "What exactly is the soul?" But leaving that aside, there is a deeper and more difficult question: What makes my soul me? If there was a problem concerning what constitutes my personal identity (What is the essential me?), that problem still exists if we introduce the soul. For exactly the same question can be asked about it, namely, what makes it mine? What makes it me? Introducing the notion of the soul does not seem to solve the original problem.
A second attempt: The body
According to this second attempt, my continued existence depends on the existence of my body. My personal identity consists in the continued existence of my body. This attempted solution to the problem has the advantage that at least we are familiar with our bodies, in a way in which we are not familiar with our souls (assuming they exist at all). However, this second attempt seems no more successful.Consider the following hypothetical case of bodily transfer. Bill is lively, convivial, outgoing, not particularly intelligent, rather shallow but good company. Ben is serious, clever, introverted, shy, aloof and generally pretty incommunicative. One morning Bill and Ben wake up with the other's personality traits, emotions, beliefs, memories and so on. Ben distinctly remembers going to Surfers Paradise and can recall the trip in minute detail, though we know that it was Bill who went to Surfers and that Ben has never been there in his life. Bill, on the other hand, has vivid memories of going to see a recent production of King Lear but we know that Bill has never been to the theatre. And so the story can be continued. As improbable as this story sounds it does seem logically consistent. What's the best way to describe this situation? Why not: Bill and Ben have exchanged bodies? Now if bodily transfer is possible then my identity can't consist in the identity of my body. That's because in the situation described Bill and Ben have retained their identities despite the fact that their bodies have exchanged. Bill and Ben's identities seem to have more to do with the relevant psychological facts concerning their memories, emotions, personality traits, etc. In other words, each has retained his personal identity despite losing his bodily identity.
Another similar case is the one thought up by the English philosopher Derek Parfit – he calls it "teletransportation" which is carried out by a machine called a "Teletransporter".
"I enter the Teletransporter…This machine will send me to Mars at the speed of light…When I press the button, I shall lose consciousness and then wake up at what seems a moment later. In fact I shall have been unconscious for about an hour. The Scanner here on Earth will destroy my brain and body, while recording the exact state of all my cells. It will then transmit this information by radio. Travelling at the speed of light, the message will take three minutes to reach the Replicator on Mars. This will then create, out of new matter, a brain and body exactly like mine. It will be in this body that I shall wake up."
(Parfit, p.199)
As with bodily transfer, teletransportation seems logically consistent. Thus, if I can wake up in a different body as the story says, then the continued existence of my body is not essential to what I am.
But if neither the "soul" nor the body is the essential ingredient of personal identity, then what is the essential ingredient?
A third attempt
Perhaps all we need is some notion of psychological continuity or connectedness. This means that there is sufficient overlapping in our memories from day to day. I may not be able to remember much, or anything in fact, from 20 years ago, but I can remember enough from yesterday and from yesterday enough about the day before and so on back. This may be compared to strands in a rope which, while not stretching for the length of the rope, will at least overlap with other strands. No single strand will stretch for the whole length of the rope, but the rope consists of a multitude of overlapping strands – hence the continuity in the length of rope. My personal identity is, in a similar way, made up of the overlapping memories into the past and intentions, purposes and desires into the future. This notion of psychological continuity may be all that is needed for my personal identity. One major advantage of this account is that, like the bodily account, it avoids the mysterious "special something" - the "real" me.However, is this enough for personal identity? What unifies the stream of conscious states which make up this "psychological continuity"? The psychological continuity is made up of memories, intentions, thoughts, beliefs, purposes, desires, hates and loves, imaginings, and so on. But what makes all these mine? In virtue of what do they belong to me? Are the overlapping strands of memory, intention, etc enough or do we need a single unifying entity which can form the basis of my identity?
An application
Abortion: If psychological continuity is sufficient for personal identity, then you are not identical with the fetus which developed into you. For there is no psychological continuity between you and your earlier state as a fetus, since a fetus has no psychological states at all. This is relevant to the abortion discussion as it shows that a fetus is clearly not a person. If in your state as a fetus you were already a person you would have to be the same person as you are now, and this is ruled out by the psychological continuity criterion.Some questions
- .If your body is not essential to your identity, does this allow for the possibility of disembodied survival – i.e. "life after death"? Does disembodied survival make sense at all? Can there be a mind or consciousness without a body?
- Does personal identity actually matter? Even if psychological continuity is not enough for personal identity, might it be that psychological continuity is all that we want? Consider Parfit's hypothetical example:
"I am one of three identical triplets. My body is fatally injured, as are the brains of my two brothers. My brain is divided, and each half is success- fully transplanted into the body of one of my brothers. Each of the resulting people believes that he is me, seems to remember my life, has my character, and is in every other way psychological continuous with me.
And he has a body that is very like mine." (Parfit, pp 255-56)
Do I fail to survive? Do I survive as one of these people? Do I survive as the other? Do I survive as both? I seem to have lost my identity but haven't I still survived in some sense?