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Personal Identity, well Who Am I, Anyway?

An Interview with Jenni Jenkins and Mike Wilson, our philosophy and psychology tutors.

Mark: Maybe you can start us off, Jenni, with a quick overview of Personal Identity?

Jenni: Perhaps identity is one of those things that you don't even think about unless you're philosophising we just take it for granted that we are who we are.

Mike: indeed. i often think about descarte's dualism i think therefore i am but actually prefer to think in terms of "i experience therefore i am"

Jenni: One of the most interesting debates is how do we know we are the same person over time. Given that our physical selves (apparently) change every 7 years what is it that stays the same?

Mike: Yes, that is interesting. Are we one self or many selves?

Arthur: I agree, it's hard to know exactly what "I" am - over time.

Mark: That's a fascinating idea, Jenni. I have quite a long memory going back to the pram and I always remember me as 'me.' How is that?

Jenni: What is the I? Physicalists want to say it is a purely material thing whereas a dualist like Descartes will say we are made up of mind and matter. If we are mind and matter then how do the two things interact with each other, completely different substances? Descartes view it seems to me is entirely common sensical except it is a difficult view to sustain the light of modern physics

Arthur: As you say elsewher this is one of the fundamental problems of philosophy on the one hand we have descartes with separate mind and body (spirit and matter?) and how do they interact and on the other we have the materialist position - nothing but matter but then we have Serle's question : How, for example, can it be the case that the world contains nothing but unconscious physical particles and yet that it also contains consciousness?

Mike: Descartes is responsible for a lot of splitting between mind and body. More psychology today tries to bring back the interconnectedness of mind and body or psyche and soma.

Jenni: How can something seem so obvious yet be so flawed philosophically and scientifically?

Mark: Is this one of those cases where 'common sense' is at odds with reality?

Mike: Or is common sense as close to reality that we can get? I always come back to subjective experience as being the defining factor of who I am

Mark: I'm also thinking of Newtonian physics which obeys common sense while way out quantum mechanics and relativity actually make a better job of describing the universe we observe.

Jenni: Does it seem obvious to everyone that our thoughts are different from the brain states that produce them?

Mike: I would say that we are more than our thoughts feelings, sensations, intuition too.

Arthur: Yes - to put it briefly. What would have to be the case to say that a computer was thinking?

Mark: A Turing test?

Arthur: Even if the Turing test failed would we still say that the computer was thinking? (maybe that should be passed!)

Mark: It could just mean that we are not smart enough to catch it out.

Jenni: it is easier to ask what would have to be the case to say that our brains are just complicated machines. but I suppose a computer would have to be able to plan for the future, have intentions and aims and be capable of having emotions like compassion. If you believe that our minds are just very very complicated computers then does it make sense to talk of us as thnking at all? Perhaps we are just computing?

Arthur: In which case what happens to personal responsibility, morality etc. etc.?

Jenni: Yes, that's a good point.

Mike: I find the computer analogy difficult because the limitations and possiblities of computers are different from humans.

Mark: We appear to ourselves to be pursuing self-motivated thinking processes, not aware of following a program. Self-will is maybe an associated idea with identity as Arthur has pointed out.

Arthur: That is true - part of what it means to be human is the whole complex of what a human being is. Walking, sleeping, eating ...

Mike: You could say that who I am is partly defined by culture, society and self.

Jenni: Yes. How others see us is very important.

Mark: There is a limit to using machine analogies. Before computers we used telephone exchanges as analogies for the mind as these were the most complex information machines at the time.

Mike: Yes, I agree, Mark.

Mark: We are biological systems, millions of years ahead of human technology.

Mike: And millions of years of being human.

Arthur: It's as if we all part of a 'language game' - just as words have meanings in particular 'language games' so maybe we have our being as part of a culture.

Mike: Perhaps we are also what our genes remember.

Mark: So, what sort of activities do you suggest that your students try in order to explore this problem, Jenni?

Jenni: I have written some focus points into the lectures for students to reflect on this. I think a lot can be learned from discussion s like this too.

Mike: Indeed.

Arthur: Yes, I think we can learn a lot simply trying to express what we think and trying to understand a different viewpoint.

Jenni: I might ask students to list all the different 'hats they wear' in a week, mother sister, teacher, driver, nurse etc.

Jenni: Another idea I have is asking students to imagine looking at the world from a different viewpoin.t Thomas Nagel says that it is impossible to see the 'view from nowhere.'

Arthur: What would it be like to be a bat, for example?

Jenni: Yes.

Mark: A lot of people see themselves as their jobs and have a terrible time when work comes to an end either through retirement or prematurely.

Mike: Jobs = personas. Many people are defined by their persona.

Arthur: That's very true - and also very sad. Given that there is so much to explore ... still.

Mark: Yes. Fortunately, I have too many jobs to fall into that trap.

Jenni: Definitely, yes, we are defined by what we do or, perhaps, Aristotle would say what we are is responsible for what we do.

Mike: When the persona is taken off/away with e.g. retirement, some people have no idea why they are.

Arthur: But, getting back to Jenni's point - we have numerous personas, numerous roles - why should one be so dominant?

Mike: Perhaps it is because we choose to identify with one, Arthur?

Arthur: ...or the identity is forced upon us ... in order to earn a living for example.

Jenni: Arthur --this is what Aristotle meant, I think, that we will never be happy doing something unless we are 'cut out' for it.

Mark: That's very true.

Arthur: Yes, I think that's true.

Mike: And Maslow said that, if I don't do what I really want, I will be unahppy for the rest of my life, potentially.

Arthur: We could go down the route of being destined or predestined for it, but that's maybe for a different discussion.

Mike: What about both Arthur: part destined and part predestined?

Jenni: I have done some work with people who are schizophrenic ---I know this isn't the same as multi personality disorder but it is very interesting to hear them talk about being 'other' people. I had one student who told me her name wasn't her real name. The person by the other name was nasty. She spoke about her completely objectively.

Mike: Pscyhologyically, these are split off parts of a person that the person is unable to associate with. There is no such thing as multipile personality. There is however a fragmented ego, often caused by accute trauma.

Mark: It can be quite spooky the way the brain can throw up alternative people. Mike, does dream analysis shed any light on who we really are?

Mike: Dreams: talk of dreams gets me really engaged. It's all connected to all the themes so far.

Jenni: If Descartes thinks that he is existing only when he is thinking, what happens when he is asleep?

Mike: Then he does not exist, Jenni? Descartes locked himself in a cupboard trying to prove if he existed or not!!

Jenni: Well, Descartes is only hypothesising, I supose, but there again, how do we know what happens when we are asleep?

Mike: I think dreams are proof of existence in sleep.

Mark: So, we are still there in our dreams, therefore we still exist?

Jenni: Considering our dreams are often quite different from our everyday lives and sometimes we dream we do terrible things that we would not consider doing in our waking states?

Mike: Yes. The unconscious often gives us an opposite of waking life, if there is such a thing as an unconscious, of course.

Jenni: I agree. I have great problems with subconscious and unconscious.

Mark: Are there types of dreams that particularly expose the root person, Mike?

Jenni: I find the whole thing about dreams fascinating. Do you think dreams can tell us about ourselves --things that 'we' the conscious parts of us do not know?

Mike: Absolutely but not in an airy fairy way. Mark, i think we are partly ourselves in dreams.

Arthur: And partly ...?

Mike: Partly ourselves in waking life. We are partly our personas but if we identify too much with a persona then we get out of balance. Jung thought that an ego sat behind the persona like the conductor of an orchestra.

Arthur: The real driving force?

Mike: That would be the composer or what Jung called the Self. You call tell I am a Jungian.

Arthur: This is particularly fascinating discussion / analogy as I'm currently reading a biography of Mahler - both a conductor and a composer.

Jenni: Is the conductor the real 'I'?

Arthur: Or is it the composer?

Jenni: Ah, well. the composer could be a computer programmer.

Mike: Yes, the real "I" = the same as composer or programmer like in the Matrix?

Mark: That rings with a more recent computer analogy. Our minds are self-referential, self-correcting programs, similar to those written with languages of artificial intelligence like LISP and PROLOG. We are constantly refining our own selves in response to our experiences.

Mike: I agree.

Jenni: Perhaps our brains are the hard drive and our minds the software?

Arthur: That's getting closer, I think.

Mike: Or our personas are the software, Jenni.

Jenni: Which brings me back to a question I asked or meant to ask earlier: are our minds 'things' inside our brains or are they the same thing?

Mike: Depends if you are living in the east or the west, Jenni. In the west we tend to put mind in the brain and in the east mind can extend out of the body.

Arthur: That's right, Mike. There are a lot of interesting ideas on this in Buddhism, for example, and even eastern Othodox Christianity which is not splir by the Cartesian dualism that we in the west have inherited, which has brought about much of the division that we encounter.

Mike: Yes, Arthur.

Mark: Any closing words, people?

Mike: I have really enjoyed this hour. Thank you all.

Jenni: So have I, thanks.

Arthur: Perhaps we could contnue sometime in the future?

Mark: Thanks, Arthur. It's been a fascinating session due to the great expertise of our two tutors.

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