Is Personal Identity a Myth?

An interesting question to kick off a new season of vaguely philosophical opportunities to jabber amongst ourselves!  The first part is not sarcastic at all, by the way.  There's plenty to chew on from all sides of that bone.

It was the word "personal" that really informed by thinking on the subject, the idea that we identify ourselves as individuals completely separate from whatever group we might also belong to.  Further, we might wonder if the individual is a mistaken perception and we are really cells or tiny components of something larger, yet beyond our ability to sense.  We can observe that there is some amount of variation in importance and development of individual identity in different cultures throughout the world; in the West, we probably place the greatest weight on individuality, self-sufficiency being the backbone of our society that it is, especially in the US.  However, it seems to be obvious that each person considers him- or herself as a single person, with particular experiences that are not completely shared by other members of the group.  While in some cultures, the well-being and survival of the group is more important than that of any individual member, this does not mean that the identities of those members are completely subsumed in that of the group.  People still make individual decisions, they just consider the benefit to others as more important than their personal gain.  Yet, there is also such a thing as group think and mob violence.  There are times when individuals make different choices in a group than alone, or seem not to be making conscious decisions at all.  We could chalk this up to instinct perhaps, some form of unconscious reaction as a survival strategy.  Some people, on the other hand, talk about a sort of universal consciousness, not readily tapped into by the majority of people, but existing and available to our perception under the right circumstances.  Under the tent of this "universal consciousness" we might place ESP or telepathy, or other forms of non-verbal, non-visual communication, besides group behaviors.  This would mean, essentially, that "instinct" is not innate or genetic, but something stored in an external consciousness that we only access in the right conditions.  I am not sure how to feel about this idea; geneticists and neurologists would have clearer thoughts on the subject.  In any case, the vast majority of the time is spent identifying ourselves as individuals, so even in the event that there is a superpersonal consciousness, our personal, that is individual, identity also exists, and takes up more time in our minds.  As much as we try, we cannot avoid being ourselves.

Our Leader, on the other hand, saw the question as something more related to our changing identities over time.  Each physical body, he argues, contains an identity that is presented to others and which others identify as a personality or persona.  Even identical twins, who have the same physical characteristics and may even be impossible to differentiate for others, have their internal and unique identities.  He insisted that the problem is the lack of stability in reality, therefore we resort to language games to create a base to depart from.  We consider ourselves the same person (in the majority of cases) that we were five years ago and at five years old.  We also consider people we know to be and have been the same people in those conditions, barring major changes that individuals sometimes undertake or suffer.  We recognize a person as an unchanged persona, even when they have changed a great deal physically or psychologically, perhaps because they retain the memories of what they were before these changes.  His perspective, in the end, is that we do not really identify ourselves, but rely on others to do so for the convenience of society.

The True Philosopher gave us the analysis of the self, and in his discussion leaned rather heavily on Wittgenstein, possibly because he is a familiar figure for us and his line of reasoning is easily followed.  His written thoughts, however, made quite a point of the impossibility of knowing the self, due to the limitations of human perception.  He ended up saying that it really was not that big a deal anyway, however.  Whether we truly know others is less important than knowing what they choose to show us, and truly knowing ourselves is also less important than what we present to others so they can identify us.  In his participation, he outlined the problem of perceiving the self, likening it to vision: we know that have a self, but the limits of the self are out of our actual perception in the same way that the eye sees but we cannot see our own eye.  Self is tacit, but "self-evident", and the truth of our being remains inaccessible to outsiders as their is to us.  As for changes, he later mentioned Heraclitus' river illustration, returning to the idea of the ever-changing universe composed of ever-changing units inside it.  We ceaselessly change as does everything around us, but we also have a burning need for stability that causes us to create an identity to represent our personal and stable existence.

The Source often writes out some preliminary thoughts when his topic is chosen, but this time did not.  Possibly because he himself was not quite sure where he wanted to go with it.  He began by saying that a better title might have been "Is Personal Identity Innate?" and continued along the lines of questioning how we deal with changes in our environment to maintain our sense of self.  He concluded his first contribution by saying that the self is the manifestation of our perception of our experiences.  Later he concurred with the Philosopher's view that a certain distance and (created) objectivity is necessary for there to be a self, and mused on the "shapes" that the self contains in representation of various emotions and personality traits.  He also noted that although change is constant, it is often unnoticeable at the moment.  Rather, we see the effects of change over time, especially after some separation, or distance, from the changing object.  He was allowed the last word, stating that we have a necessary distinction between permanent and constructed things, and that even concepts outside of the flux of existence mean nothing to us if we cannot perceive them.  He even hinted that existence depends upon being perceived.

The Doctor gave his normal diagnosis of "an infinite topic" and dug into the presentation of the self as a form of acting.  What we show to people is, for all intents and purposes, our self, as that is what interacts in the world and receives the actions and reactions of others.  Later on, he pointed out the physical connection between the brain and the self as personality, reminding us that people who have suffered trauma to the frontal lobe may experience changes, perhaps severe ones, to their personality.  However, they do not, in general, lose their sense of self or consider themselves to be different people.  They are the same people, with different personas.

A Newcomer noted that many people believe in reincarnation, which often depends on the preservation of the self in spiritual form as it moves through different bodies.  This self and identification is removed from the physical constraints of neurology mentioned by the Doctor, but a number of religious believers share the idea of the self having but little connection to the body.

We focused mostly on the question of identity as personality or self, only superficially delving into the second part of the question: myth.  When it was mentioned, there seemed to be a general agreement that a myth represents something untrue, but important socially or culturally.  Therefore, in spite of the falseness, the myth lives on as either "common sense" or urban legend, or even mythology, being presented as false immediately but with an important message for the listener.

It's a bit of a shame that we can never call the hivemind together on time, so that the discussion can go on for more than the 90 minutes we end of being allotted.  Unfortunately, people come late and leave early, and our time in the building is limited.  The devoted amateur philosopher is not a myth, but certainly a rarity.