Erratic ramblings...

So I finally finished the last of my second year exams today, and I felt it was about time that I tended to my increasingly sporadic blog.

The release of “Born This Way” has brought the concept of personal identity to the forefront of my mind once again. Are we really born in a certain way, to become a certain kind of person? (Although I’ll save fate and determinism for another entry). Or, was Locke right in his empiricist notion of tabula rasa?

The current psychological thinking is that neither views are totally true or false. Biological psychology has provided almost unquestionable evidence to imply that people are born with predispositions to develop certain characteristic traits over others. Equally as important is the interaction of these biological tendencies with the environment in the development of personality. It’s not a question of nature vs. nurture, more nature + nurture.

And so, maybe there is a sense in which “born this way” is a true statement. Personally, I believe this to be true. It’s easy to see inherited characteristics within families, and small children (even babies) tend to display a form of their own personality at a young age.

The question then turns to whether or not this sense of self, this personal identity by which we define ourselves, is consistent throughout our lives. Some people try to define themselves with their gender, with a certain hairstyle and clothes… But all of these can be changed, so it seems as though appearance isn’t enough. This leads to either subscribing to bodily continuity or sameness of mentality.

Are we the same person because we inhere the same body? If one believes this, then they can be said to be one time-slice of a space/time worm, extending into the past. However, it’s advisable that one doesn’t adopt this view too strictly. Over time all of the molecules within your body will change, even the foods that you eat become part of your makeup. The classic example to illustrate this notion is the Ship of Theseus. To further highlight the problems of pure bodily continuity is to point out that people don’t generally think that all of the body is important to remain the same person. If someone lost a hand or a limb, one would most likely still identify them as being the same person. On the other hand, splitting a brain in half and putting it in someone else would result in some identity problems, suggesting there is more to our core than just our body.

Could we turn to psychological continuity to combat the above problems? This view typically believes that continuity is a result of an overlapping chain of direct psychological connections, such as cognitive connections between our beliefs, desires, intentions and memories. Prima facie this view seems more promising, as people generally believe that it’s the continuity of their memories and beliefs which define themselves. However, suppose that X’s brain is transplanted into Y’s body, then that X’s body and Y’s brain are both destroyed, creating person Z. Therefore this new person will contain all of the original’s psychological states, but would it still be the same person? It certainly doesn’t seem as intuitive.

A final thought, to leave your brain just that little more confused than it already was… Suppose that you enter a tele-transportation device. Before destroying you, it creates an exact replica of both your physical and your psychological states. This information is sent to another location, which creates an identical copy. Both of the copies have the exactly same physical makeup and the same psychological states. Which is you?