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March 10, 2005
Thought Experiments On The Nature Of Identity
These experiments are fun to try on family, friends and strangers. The implicit dualistic materialism is a feature, not a bug.
First hypothetical. Imagine two healthy individuals, A and B, swap brains. That is, A’s brain will be removed from A’s body and placed in B’s body, B’s brain will be placed in A’s body. Where is "A"? Virtually everyone will conclude that A is now in B’s body and vice versa. Where my brain goes, "I" go.
The interesting thing about this is that it demonstrates fairly convincingly that most people believe that they are not their bodies. In this scenario A survives in Bs body and vice versa. A variation might involve the creation of a cloned body, or transplanting the brain into a cybernetic body, or a brain in a jar. Most people would agree that even if the body were dispensed with entirely, as long as the brain is either intact or adequately simulated, "I" have survived. Although most people would have some trepidation, I suspect that the resistance to such a procedure would be largely the result of technical concerns, not ontological ones. This bodes well for cybernetics.
Second hypothetical, same as the first, except that in the brain transplant procedure, A will suffer complete and permanent retrograde amnesia, that is, all of A's memories up to that point will be totally and irretrievably wiped out. Is A in B’s body? Or someone else?
Now it starts getting interesting. I have found that most people are still fairly comfortable in their belief that A has survived in B's body. Another way of considering the same issue: would a person who completely lost their memory still be the same person? Most people conclude that the loss of memory, while difficult, would not fundamentally affect selfhood. In fact, I recall in one circumstance an acquaintance becoming quite agitated at the very suggestion that the loss of memory would impact selfhood.
Note however, that this feels quite a bit different from the first hypothetical. Something important about "me" has been lost - my history. The loss would be a painful one, emotionally significant, but I submit that most people would not consider it ontologically significant. It would appear, then, that most people seem to conclude that "I" am not my memory, in other words, I am not my past. If I lost every memory I had, I would still be here, the real me would still be present and continuing.
An interesting and important issue at this point is - what is it that remains? The remainder seems to me to consist largely of habits - habits of thought, likes and dislikes, emotional tendencies, and the like. One could imagine, for example, waking up one morning without any memory whatsoever (and assume no way to reconstruct the past), and trying to discovery who one was, what one was like. Am I introverted or extroverted? Do I like music? What types? What foods do I like? Am I rational? Emotional? Intuitive?
All of these aspects of ourselves seem to exist in some way independently of our memory, although perplexing questions immediately arise. What's my favorite song if I have no memory of every hearing it before? Would I even like it, or does its context in my past determine its appeal? What about beliefs? If I can’t remember ever hearing anything about UFO’s, do I believe in them? Perhaps I would have an inclination to believe in them, though no belief per se.
Consider that such a break from the past, though disturbing, would also be extremely liberating, allowing me to look with fresh eyes at myself and the world, allowing me to see with the “Beginners Mind” of Zen. Certain rituals and other metaprogramming techniques have as their goal, a variation on this precise theme, the abandonment, as it were, of one’s past. To be “born again” or to be initiated is to separate one from one’s past, affecting a kind of liberation. The “true self” is unaffected and in fact is liberated from the constrictive repression of the past.
In my experience, most people seem to accept as true the proposition that I am not my past.
Third hypothetical, A and B switch memories, everything else remains the same. A and B retain all of their habits, inclinations, likes and dislikes (for convenience I refer to this as “personality”). Which is A and which is B?
This is a tough one because it sets the sense of self derived from our memories in opposition to that derived from our mental habits. My experience is that most people conclude that memories tell us who we were, but “personality” tells us who we are, and that therefore A is in B's body.
This seems to me an interesting conclusion, because it signals a belief that my tendencies, my personality, is what is most associated with “me.” The sum total of my experiences may have made me who I am today, but if my memory of them is taken away, I am still the same person, and in this sense "I" am more closely identified with the collection of habits, propensities, aptitudes, dispositions and so on that exist even absent any memory of the past. In effect, as long as my future life is likely to proceed in a more or less contiguous fashion from past, that seems to be enough for me to identify my "self." In effect, if my future memories will be consistent with my past ones, I still consider myself to be continuous with the past self that I can no longer remember. It is a curious situation that most people seem willing to accept that the self is not memory, and yet our identity seems so constrained by what we have done in the past.
Fourth hypothetical; A’s memories are intact, but A’s “personality” is replaced by a random personality. Is A still A or someone else? What if A’s “personality” is replaced by a similar but somehow augmented or improved personality. The first is brainwashing, the second metaprogramming. Oversimplifying, one’s old habits are abandoned in favor of new ones. Many rituals of various kinds aim at this type of personality substitution.
The question “is A still A” seems more relevant in this situation than for the amnesia victim. I feel that if I lost my memory, I would still be me, however, if my personality changed, then would I really still be me? Has something fundamental about “me” been taken away? I believe most people will conclude that although I have different qualities, different mental habits, the essence of “me” has not been affected. For one thing, I feel that I am the same I that I was in childhood. However, my personality is totally different. Our personalities are slowly evolving day by day, year by year. The process is slow but inexorable. However, I consider myself the same I. My personality has changed, but my I am still me. Similarly, if I am brainwashed, the transformation is more rapid, but I am still me. Ontologically, I have not been affected. Most people, I have found, tend to reach similar conclusions.
Note that just as memory is fundamentally a identification of selfhood with the past, personality is essentially an identification with predictions about the future. Intuitions about the type of person I am translate into predictions about future experiences i am likely to have and how I will react to them at the time. If our memories are the wake that we leave behind us, our personality is the course we have charted.
In advanced metaprgrammatic activities, the “personality” may become malleable, and be dramatically transformed at will. But transformed by who’s will? Something essential seems to have survived, something continuous with my prior self, a more liberated, freer, higher self. If someone says “ever since you started doing meditation, you’ve changed” my response would be, my personality might have changed, but “I” haven’t changed. I’m still who I have always been, perhaps even more so. The metaprogrammer, in turn has a “personality”, core beliefs setting the parameters of the metaprogramming activities. See Super Free Will: Metaprogramming & The Quantum Observer These may be superceded in turn. Note that as Paul points out, at each level, the activities of the personality seem robotic and automatic to the meta-level. This is the problem that Descartes overlooked. “I think therefore I am” is all well and good until you see that “you” didn’t think, the thought happened to you, was programmed, but you assumed you were responsible for it. Descartes cogito therefore turns from a thinking thing into a perceiving thing.
The fact that my “self” can be understood as “having” a personality suggests that I believe that I am not identical with my personality. The personality is, in this respect, something that I have, the way same that I have a body, not something that I am. This is particularly strongly felt when we have actively participated in modifying our personality. It is my prediction that most people if pressed would conclude that “I” am not my personality. The initial conclusion may be that I am really some metapersonality, but that in turn gives way and ultimately there is no permanent (i.e. temporally enduring) hyper-metaprogram that persists and with which I can identify.
Now, finally, assume that A and B swap memories and personalities. Assume no intervening period of unconsciousness, the operations are instantaneous. Where is A and where is B? Some people will conclude that A and B have swapped bodies, just as in the brain swap. But if identity is not affected by the loss of memory, and identity is not affected by the loss of personality, and if there is no interruption of conscious awareness, it would seem to follow that A has received a new memory and A has received a new personality, but that A persists.
The interesting question is, if that is the conclusion, what is the “I” that persists; what self has remained continuous, the self that had A’s memory and personality but now has B’s memory and personality. I conclude that there is something that continues, something, in fact, quite fundamental. The observer, bare attention, consciousness without an object, pure consciousness, Big Mind.
And note what we have done: by taking away identification with memory and personality, we have stripped identification with the past and the future. We are left only with the present. Without a past or a future, who am I? The answer seems to be, I am bare attention, I am pure consciousness. The experiencer. Atman. Note that this “self” is itself unexperienceable.
Moreover, this identity is essentially impersonal. That is, it would be the same in A as in B. What I really am is the same as what you really are. Only the admixture of time in the form of personal history and future expectation distinguishes us from each other. Accordingly, it would be quite rational to conclude that in the final hypothetical A and B actually have switched bodies, despite the continuity of conscious awareness. If only something non-personal has persisted, something which is identical in both individuals, then the total personal identity has been in effect swapped and reconstituted. An impersonal bare awareness can’t really be “me” in any standard sense of the word. Thus, if I am not my past (memory), or my future (personality) or awareness, perhaps I am not anything.
Note that this hypothetical situation might also be created in the case of a person (1) abandoning identification with their past and (2) abandoning identification with any given set of mental habits or expectations. Try it and see what happens!
Warning, this line of reasoning may cause extreme agitation, use with caution.
I think therefore I am; however you don't know I think, therefore you don't know I am.
I suppose my philosophical delvations started when I woke up in my bed at about age 5, and not having any memory prior to that day; as if I was born right then and there. I had a vague sense of who my parents were and approximately the location around me (but it all seemed to be wrapped in deja vu)... That "I" is still the same I that is writing this text now... or is it? What about the "I" before that "awakening" / forgetfulness. Where is he? What would happen if that 4/5 year old "I" wakes back up into my 21 year old body. Would that "I" have access to my memories, or would it be neurologically / energetically disconnected from the newest system of energy that makes up the "I," I am now. Even Further, where would I go if my 4/5 year old "forgotten" self took over. There have actually been people who have gone through stuff like this and their younger self did take over at one point!
Aside from that, I use to have sleep paralysis when I was a bit younger. Under the influence, I couldn't move my body, didnt see any color (such as black) nor clear, couldn't hear anything, couldn't feel anything. I had a vague sense of wanting to wake up, but not having access to move my body; but I was in a wierd timeless-like place where all these thoughts "I" was having was constantly being wiped clean. but it wasn't being wiped clean, it was wiped clean... period. I can't think of any way to describe it. The only thing I can compare it to, is if the universe is not infinite, what would you perceive and experience if you were to go to the very edge and look out at the nothingness, not even black.
Posted by: Francis Scully at March 10, 2005 05:25 PMIts interesting you mention the sleep paralysis experience because I used to have a similar type of experience on a somewhat regular basis, generally while waking up, that I came to describe as the immensity. I was unaware of anything except some vague conception of myself being infintesimally tiny and something else that was unimagineably gigantic. It didn't have any other quality. It wasn't really frightening but definitely weird. I haven't had it for probably 30 years. Maybe it was sleep paralysis.
I have always thought it somewhat puzzling that most people don't remember anything before age 5 or 6. I have always attributed that the fact that we can't remember something that happened to someone else, and our egos are not fully formed until about that age. Perhaps some of our company trained in the psychologic arts would know something about that.
Posted by: MrNeutron at March 10, 2005 05:59 PMThanks for the thought-provoking piece, Jason!
I totally know what you're getting at(I think). Partly it's a semantic problem. We have this word "I", a noun, and a noun is always somewhere, so where is it? Is it here or there? Obviously the real answer is more complex than that.
There have been actual cases of people getting amnesia and then going on to convert to a different religion or something after - families said they were "completely changed." Surely there have been lots of cases of the opposite as well. Resonance tends to persist.
If all of our memories could be downloaded into a machine, would "we" be in there? It depends on what you mean. There might be a locus of experience there, maybe even one that thinks of itself as you. We'll have to wait and ask one, I guess. Lots of our personality depends on the larger body, glands and nerves and so forth - the spinal column. Part of it is in your language and how you structure your thoughts. Would the person with amnesia have to learn language all over again? Some of it may indeed be in the conscious surround. What role does background consciousness play in personality? It's very easy to get our levels mixed up.
Francis, I'm very interested in the no-color. I think I had it once, but I can't remember it well. I met a man once who was born blind and later had his vision brought online by surgery. Now when he closes his eyes he sees black... but he says that he did not see black before - he saw nothing.
Posted by: Teafaerie at March 10, 2005 06:41 PMIve actually had a similar experience to what you call immensity, only it was occuring the instant I woke up. When I was living in my old apartment, I came home from work and took a quick nap. The next thing I know I suddenly lunged out of my bed from a deep sleep about 2 hours later, and everything seemed to be very hecktic. Time was moving in strange rhythmic patterns, like it was moving very fast but in short and quick pulses. This wasn't visually percieved, but mentally percieved/understood. I also felt like I was very very small and everything around me was so enourmas that I felt like every quantum particle in my body was being pulled, pushed, and stretched in bizarre ways. Kinda like pins and needles but a bit different. For some reason I felt like my mind was planning something. There was some subForce that was sharing a space within my body and was doing all the "planning." I'd go outside and see that my roomate's van wasnt there and knew I was all alone, and kept thinking I was stuck in some freaking timeless quantum bubble in some hack thrown away garbage heap of reality and would never be able to escape; LOL!
That was actually about 6/7 months ago, and was actually a reoccurence that I used to have from about age 8 to 13 that seemed to be a yearly thing, happening on or around every Thanksgiving day. What changed was my perception of what was happening to me. When I was younger, I used to think it was mumbling unaudible voices emanating from my body in irratic rythms. Strange how perceptions of the same thing can be so different!
I also gained a strange sense of perception after that. Now if I focus on one point, (I usually use my feet because they are usually in front of me when I lye down. I'll stare at one object and observe it's complexion. Then my vision morphs into seeing the object as extremely huge, yet extremely small, at the same time. While doing this, I usually start experiencing an open eye meditation episode where tunnels of color that seem to drape over everything, seem to swirl/flow either toward or away from me at a constant speed. But I usually get distracted after about a minute or so, and lose the state. One of my roomates said that the color was probably just my eyes constantly renewing/refreshing itself (the rods and cones?)
On a side note (just thought i'd add this): there was some interesting research done by Rick Strassman ( http://www.rickstrassman.com ) about Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) in the brain. Very interesting that this insanely psychedelic substance shares space with the supposed gland (pineal gland) that sets the cycle of sleeping/waking in motion by light percieved through the eyes.
Posted by: Francis Scully at March 10, 2005 06:51 PMI suppose it's what you think you can conclude about the "nature" of conciousness itself...if your memories and "personality" can be removed from your physical body, do you retain your "unique" qualities that make you yourself?
It does seem a bit strange to me, trying to percieve my own conciousness inside a different casing of flesh..if only because I've become accustomed to the one I've been lugging around for 35 years on the planet. It would seem to be strange (at first anyway) to interact with "Person A", if you've known them well, after their brain was transplanted into "Person B"--but I think you could adjust.
Identity could be a construct of both mammalian programming (habits, belief-systems) and individual memories. Memories don't seem to "be" the person, necessarily--but they do seem to be a record of a being's individual experience and sometimes do form how a person might react and think about events or other people.
I've been interested in metaprogramming--in order to rid my mind of robotic programs. Thanks for this post!
Posted by: Sly Stoner at March 11, 2005 02:42 AMI know we're supposed to be thinking around the dualism for the purposes of this exercise, but there's an assumed distinction here that is keeping me from getting any kind of handle on the questions.
It's not the mind/body distinction, it's the memory/personality trait one.. I have no idea where to divide those two. As far as I understand the system, memories operate largely by habits of thought and imagination, and personality operates by filtering perception of the world through layers of memory..
So when you suggest removing someone's memories whilst retaining the personality, or vice-versa, I don't feel any emotional distinction. In either case, the question is one of degree, not of kind. If you purposed to remove 100% of either from my brain, I would fight that as against death. 10% of either, or 5% from each, I cannot tell apart.
It would probably help if I could see inside my own skull in general day to day life. It may be that I'm having trouble distinguishing mammals and reptiles here, because my senses are not refined enough to do better than count the legs and divide by four?
Marc - I think you are right, if the contents of consciousness are carefully analyzed these types of dinstictions start breaking down. On the other hand it still seems to me an interesting exercise to really consider what would be left if my past were totally wiped out. I don't beleive its common but I think that brain injuries can have this kind of effect, and the interesting issue is whether the person's identity in a fundamental sense is altered. Similar issues are raised in people who have had their hemisperes separated (occassionally performed to relieve extreme epilepsy) where in effect two individuals end up occupying the same body.
I can say that through mediation (esp. vippsana) it is possible to start getting a handle on the fact that thinking may be directed towards the past (memories) or towards the future (planning, anxieties), but our experience of them is always in the present so a very subtle shift in identification (from thinker to perceiver of thoughts) in effect "stops time." In that state the sense of identity is impacted, but its difficult to assess without thinking about it and thereby falling out of the meditative state.
-Jason
Posted by: MrNeutron at March 11, 2005 10:35 AMOne of the most relevant books to your original post, Paul, as well as to various of the subsequent comments, is Fred Doepke's excellent *The Kinds of Things: A Theory of Personal Identity Based on Transcendental Argument,* Open Court books (opencourtbooks.com). Highly recommended as a counterpoint to Parfit's *Reasons and Persons* (itself, of course, excellent). Your friendly neighborhood bibliographer-philosopher-economist-futurist, mcp2012.
Posted by: mcp2012 at March 11, 2005 05:12 PMHi mcp2012,
This article was written by Jason. :)
Thanks for the heads up on both books though, I've never heard of either of them.
Posted by: Paul at March 12, 2005 12:30 AMthe distinction between memory and personality.i`ve not found one.certainly not in those older than five.we become reaction machines.
the nlp model as richard bandler developed it allows a person to take a test to determine character,the mmpi(minnisota multiphasic personality inquiry)for instance,and then go through an nlp meta-programming therapy and then retake the test with different results.as an nlp practitioner i can attest to the changes,not only in myself,but in my clients as a result of my application of the the meta-model and it`s profound ability to change character in people.
nlp is only one of many processes that people use to deal with past events that are controlling elements of thier personality.all of them are mechanisms for dealing with memory.
i have experienced change in people in as little as one session.
when we change the pictures and words in our heads the neurochemical balance changes too,sometimes instantly and permenantly.
i want to stress that i am greatly simplifying the nlp process for the purposes of discussion.
about the unusual experiences related in several posts above,i had a similar experience when i was a teenager arising from sleep late one morning after an acid trip i became aware of a beam of energy rushing towards me that hit me forcefully in the head and pinned me to the bed for what seemed like minutes.there were no other elements to the experience.just a jolt of energy,paralysis and then a return to life.
odd.
i do have memories of life younger than five,though.i can remember life in the playpen,banging my head while riding my tricycle at two years old,trading my toy car with the nieghbour at two or three.the list goes on.i can also remember flying out the window above my father`s head on a carpet one night when i was four or five.
it`s a funny old life.
3 comments:
1. You use the words "memory" and "personality" as if these are two separate and independent things. It's a fuzzy concept.
2. You imply that a personal identity is a binary thing: either existing or not existing. Again, it's a fuzzy concept. If get Alzheimer's and lose significant portions of your memories/personality, are you still you? It's a meaningless question because it's not a yes/no answer. "You" can fade away a day at a time until you're completely braindead.
3. You got those answers by asking people what they think about personal identity. Keep in mind that that won't tell you what identity is, only what people think it is.
Posted by: Konrad at March 17, 2005 08:19 PMExcellent essay. I fully agree that what we really are is the "observer", the continuously experiencing mind, the one that feels pain and pleasure and everything else.
However, to use the word observer is to imply a passivity to consciousness. Quantum physics is clearly teaching us that the process of observing affects the world. In fact, in the Copenhagen Interpretation, measurement (by a conscious entity?) is actually what reduces the world of infinite quantum possibilities into an actual world that we experience.
In other words, the act of perceiving the world is what creates it. The entity that is "I" is the one that creates our body, our personality, our brain, our history etc, out of the quantum possibilities available to it. Especially our brain.
It's funny that there's really no word in our vocabulary which unambiguously describes this "I" that we are intimately familiar with, experiencing it every moment of our lives.
Posted by: dlight at March 24, 2005 07:49 AM