Could I have been born as someone else?

[Juma]

That is to say ... neither is at all you. And you'd never get me into one of those things. Reminds me of the Jehovah's Witness belief that when you die that's it. Nothing remains. But God will recreate the exact you in the hereafter. I wouldn't bet on it. Not even if there's a God. The continuity is broken.

Through all the various threads on this subject, nobody's ever been able to give me a decent explanation of why this "continuity" thing is somehow important.

So you die at Point A and are then recreated exactly identically at Point B - big fucking deal. What's the essential difference between that and not dying at Point A and then just walking over to Point B? If you include dualism, I see the key difference between the two, but don't see it from a materialist perspective. What is "lost" in the first scenario which is not "lost" in the second?

Nothing but continuity. And the only reason continuity is of any importance is because we believe it is so. (Or are very deep down programmed to feel as if it is so)

 

[Treedbear]

Through all the various threads on this subject, nobody's ever been able to give me a decent explanation of why this "continuity" thing is somehow important.

So you die at Point A and are then recreated exactly identically at Point B - big fucking deal. What's the essential difference between that and not dying at Point A and then just walking over to Point B? If you include dualism, I see the key difference between the two, but don't see it from a materialist perspective. What is "lost" in the first scenario which is not "lost" in the second?

Nothing but continuity. And the only reason continuity is of any importance is because we believe it is so. (Or are very deep down programmed to feel as if it is so)

I don't understand how Tom Sawyer can't see the difference. In Tom's for-instance of "not dying at Point A and then just walking over to Point B" continuity is the only thing that provides a rational way to conclude that the same person exists at the two points. All the changes that occur to the brain and body during the course of that event means that it would be a different person by the time it got to B. Why else would everyone be stipulating that we create an absolutely down to the smallest detail exact copy of the person to begin with? Those differences matter, and the only way to identify them as unique is by how they got to where they are. In fact, that to me is how life acquires meaning. And it seems to be implicit in the meaning of the word "me".

 

[bilby]

Nothing but continuity. And the only reason continuity is of any importance is because we believe it is so. (Or are very deep down programmed to feel as if it is so)

I don't understand how Tom Sawyer can't see the difference. In Tom's for-instance of "not dying at Point A and then just walking over to Point B" continuity is the only thing that provides a rational way to conclude that the same person exists at the two points. All the changes that occur to the brain and body during the course of that event means that it would be a different person by the time it got to B. Why else would everyone be stipulating that we create an absolutely down to the smallest detail exact copy of the person to begin with? Those differences matter, and the only way to identify them as unique is by how they got to where they are. In fact, that to me is how life acquires meaning. And it seems to be implicit in the meaning of the word "me".

The issue here is that people are obsessed by continuity, because continuity feels important to us. But it really isn't. If you suffer a blackout, then when you come around, you are still the same person - in your opinion.

The question is, why should we accept your opinion? EVERY person, no matter how different they are from me, will if asked declare that they are 'me'; The unique individual consciousness that is a continuation of the consciousness that was present when their memories were formed. But that's an artifact of the consciousness accessing those memories. If the memories are false, the consciousness nevertheless believes that 'I' recall doing those things that in fact never occurred.

Our language is not really suited to even discussing this topic, because it is rooted in the universal assumption that continuity matters - but it seems that continuity does not in fact matter, and that that assumption is false. All that matters is memory, and in principle that memory could be completely at odds with the real past.

 

[PyramidHead]

All of this is getting at what my original question was from the opposite side, as it were. I'm not as interested in whether an identical copy of me in a parallel universe would be me. I'm just using that example to explore how, in principle, nothing about my physical origins or genetic makeup explains why I came into existence.

The "I" that I keep referring to is separate from the content of my actual life history, because as I said earlier, I can drastically change my life history and still be myself. That is, I will still experience (even if it's an illusion) the continuity of my first-person perspective over time. I think this "I" is also separate from the exact configuration of my DNA, because it's hard to see how changing it, a little or a lot, before I was born or after, would have any effect on this subjective continuity (assuming it doesn't damage the brain etc.). It doesn't seem to depend on there being a particular configuration of matter that cannot withstand any variation. The requirements for my "I" coming into existence are not obviously rigid.

From my perspective, there was nothing for billions of years, and then I found myself having conscious experiences and forming memories as a person in the world. Could that person have been anyone, essentially? After I die, what's stopping that from happening again?

I don't see the difference between what you seem to accept as other possible you(s) and anybody not you. Assuming there's another you, say a B one, you, the A one, won't have the subjective experience this B version would have of himself, and vice versa. Whether or not you are nearly, or even entirely physically identical, whether or not your minds have the same informational contents, wouldn't affect this aspect of the situation. The specific contents of my mind don't matter to my impression of being myself except, as is very possible if not very likely, if this impression is itself a content. We can sometimes still have the experience of being even without much mental content. This experience is only different in terms of the range of contents experienced. So, it's at least conceivable, and possibly likely, that the core of what is our experience is identical. We have probably the same basic experience. It is very nearly as if we were all the same people but all in different places. We take other people to be different people when we could just as well take them to be versions of ourselves in other places and possibly dressed differently, and, yes, all inhabiting different-loking bodies. According to this, you are you merely by virtue of being in one place rather than another. You are you not because you are the child of your parents but merely because all the sensory information which is available to you is obtained from a unique ventage point and different people have different ventage points. You just happen to believe all the piece of this sensory information belong to a unique organism that you think of as a person. And for most of us, our mental contents appear coherent with this one-person perspective. So it's all down to essentially how our sensory information is organised, and obviously for good reasons I suppose.
EB

Interesting points, especially the part I bolded. I will have to think about this some more.

For now, I will mention that the impetus for this thread, and many of the points raised in it, came from a long essay by Joe Kern that deals with many of these points: The Odds of You Existing. He poses the following Socratic dialog as a response to those who claim that your existence is reducible to its content, one's personal history and so on:

A: When we talk about our personal existence, we are talking only about content, a personal or self narrative. I am, and only am, my personal narrative.

B: So what would be the case if you had been kidnapped at birth (more precisely: the baby your mother gave birth to that you right now call the earlier you had been kidnapped at birth) and taken to a distant country, and therefore the adult it became right now had a completely different personal narrative?

A: I would not exist.

B: And what would be the case if your parents had never met?

A: I would not exist.

B: So then, would you not exist in the same way you wouldn’t exist if that baby had been kidnapped at birth, or in a different way?

Kern reckons that most people would have to concede that they mean it in a different way, indicating that there is more than one way to not-exist in common parlance. The alternative is to concede that I would still exist if my past history were radically different, and either (a) I would not exist if my parents had not met, or (b) I would still exist if my parents had not met. From what I have been considering these past weeks, (a) appears less likely than it did before I started thinking about these things. Since my DNA could be completely replicated in another person--for example, a perfect clone--and I could conceivably still not exist, and my DNA could be altered--for example, with gene editing--and I could conceivably still exist, there doesn't seem to be a predictable relationship between the genetic code provided by my parents and the fact of my personal existence.

The conclusion that Kern reaches from all of this is something I cannot yet fully accept: he proposes a sort of 'materialist reincarnation' in which personal existence is preserved whenever conscious beings exist. In other words, to use one of his thought experiments, if all of the humans born after 1900 weren't born, but a completely different population of humans were born instead, you would still be one of them. I'm having a hard time figuring out what this could mean while still being 'materialist'. I've been corresponding with Joe Kern for a little while and I'll let you know if he elaborates on this point further, if there's any interest.

For now, I'm tempted to give credence to the idea only because, returning to the thread title, I don't see an airtight reason why I* couldn't have been born as someone else.

*The "I" being just the difference between a hypothetical world where my identical clone exists and has the same experiences I'm having and the actual world.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Ya, I don't see any way at all in which you'd be one of those people. There's an infinite possible set of potential people who could exist and a finite subset of that exists in our world and a different finite subset would exist on that other world. While I suppose that it's mathematically possible that the same individual could show up in both subsets, the probability of that happening is less probable than monkeys flying out of your butt or Trump turning out to be a competent and effective President.

If you were born as someone else, you would be someone else - full stop. You wouldn't exist and someone else would exist instead of you.

 

[Elixir]

Ya, I don't see any way at all in which you'd be one of those people. There's an infinite possible set of potential people who could exist and a finite subset of that exists in our world and a different finite subset would exist on that other world. While I suppose that it's mathematically possible that the same individual could show up in both subsets, the probability of that happening is less probable than monkeys flying out of your butt or Trump turning out to be a competent and effective President.

If you were born as someone else, you would be someone else - full stop. You wouldn't exist and someone else would exist instead of you.

So... looking at millions of bodies, what factor makes us identify a particular one as "me"? Had I been born at the same time to the same parents, but a different sperm had fertilized the ovum from which I grew, would there be another individual who would be "me", such that "I" would not exist? Tried to ask that question of some adults when I was about six... they looked at me funny.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Ya, I don't see any way at all in which you'd be one of those people. There's an infinite possible set of potential people who could exist and a finite subset of that exists in our world and a different finite subset would exist on that other world. While I suppose that it's mathematically possible that the same individual could show up in both subsets, the probability of that happening is less probable than monkeys flying out of your butt or Trump turning out to be a competent and effective President.

If you were born as someone else, you would be someone else - full stop. You wouldn't exist and someone else would exist instead of you.

So... looking at millions of bodies, what factor makes us identify a particular one as "me"? Had I been born at the same time to the same parents, but a different sperm had fertilized the ovum from which I grew, would there be another individual who would be "me", such that "I" would not exist? Tried to ask that question of some adults when I was about six... they looked at me funny.

Yes, if a different sperm had fertilized the egg, your brother would have been born instead of you and you would not exist. There's nothing about the world which insists upon your existence instead of someone else's existence.

 

[bilby]

Ya, I don't see any way at all in which you'd be one of those people. There's an infinite possible set of potential people who could exist and a finite subset of that exists in our world and a different finite subset would exist on that other world. While I suppose that it's mathematically possible that the same individual could show up in both subsets, the probability of that happening is less probable than monkeys flying out of your butt or Trump turning out to be a competent and effective President.

If you were born as someone else, you would be someone else - full stop. You wouldn't exist and someone else would exist instead of you.

So... looking at millions of bodies, what factor makes us identify a particular one as "me"? Had I been born at the same time to the same parents, but a different sperm had fertilized the ovum from which I grew, would there be another individual who would be "me", such that "I" would not exist? Tried to ask that question of some adults when I was about six... they looked at me funny.

There are about seven billion people alive right now; perhaps a hundred billion people have lived but are already dead; and an unknowable (but likely very large) number of people have yet to be born. Of all these, only one identifies as 'me' in the sense of 'bilby'; and ALL identify (or identified, or will identify) as 'me' in the sense of 'themself'.

Everyone is their own 'me'. The difference between 'me' and them is that I am the result of the patterns of activity in the brain that happens to occupy my head right now. In that sense, 'me' yesterday, or even 'me' at the time I started typing this post, is someone else. I can remember 'me' from yesterday, but I can't affect his actions. He is not me.

There is only ONE way to be 'me'; there are uncountable ways to not be 'me'. In the same way that a car won't run if you take the battery out, but the fact that your car won't run is not proof that the battery has been taken out, so the fact that you would not be 'you' had a different sperm fertilized the ovum doesn't imply that you would still be you had you been raised by adoptive parents. You are only you if ALL of the requirements are present. That there is more than one way to imagine NOT ALL of those requirements being present has little diagnostic value in determining what it means to be 'you'.

The whole 'continuity' thing is an illusion generated by your brain, which has access to your memories, but not to the memories of others. The fact is that much of that memory is demonstrably false, and it contains HUGE gaps - so continuity is a lie you are telling yourself.

 

[Treedbear]

I don't understand how Tom Sawyer can't see the difference. In Tom's for-instance of "not dying at Point A and then just walking over to Point B" continuity is the only thing that provides a rational way to conclude that the same person exists at the two points. All the changes that occur to the brain and body during the course of that event means that it would be a different person by the time it got to B. Why else would everyone be stipulating that we create an absolutely down to the smallest detail exact copy of the person to begin with? Those differences matter, and the only way to identify them as unique is by how they got to where they are. In fact, that to me is how life acquires meaning. And it seems to be implicit in the meaning of the word "me".

The issue here is that people are obsessed by continuity, because continuity feels important to us. But it really isn't. If you suffer a blackout, then when you come around, you are still the same person - in your opinion.

I'm not talking about "people" and their psychological problems. I made a logical argument for why continuity of existence provides the basis for identifying objects within our environment. It works objectively and subjectively, to a more limited extent, as with what we conceive of as the self, or "me". And it is certainly not what it "feels" like to me, as my life seems to have lacked much in the way of continuity over the long term.

The question is, why should we accept your opinion? EVERY person, no matter how different they are from me, will if asked declare that they are 'me'; The unique individual consciousness that is a continuation of the consciousness that was present when their memories were formed. But that's an artifact of the consciousness accessing those memories. If the memories are false, the consciousness nevertheless believes that 'I' recall doing those things that in fact never occurred.

So what ... opinions can be wrong. I've been wrong before, but I hope your argument isn't based on Cartesian doubt.

Our language is not really suited to even discussing this topic, because it is rooted in the universal assumption that continuity matters - but it seems that continuity does not in fact matter, and that that assumption is false. All that matters is memory, and in principle that memory could be completely at odds with the real past.

Yes of course. But even Descartes had to admit that when one is lost in the forest one must choose a direction to proceed in. Opinions can of course be changed, but if you don't trust in memory and the ability to reason you might as well give up on existing at all. A moment doesn't exist in isolation. There can be no isolated "now". Existence is a continuum.

 

[bilby]

Perhaps re-framing the question might help. If, for the sake of argument, you actually HAD been born as someone else, how would you know?

I contend that you could not know. So the question itself makes no sense. By definition, you is you. 'Me' is an internal construct of the brain, not an objective reality. Each brain can be presumed to have a similar construct (assuming that I am not uniquely aware amongst a population of zombies); But as that construct is only accessible to the brain that generates it, it is meaningless to even consider how 'I' would feel about being another person. Other people already have an 'I', and it is not (and cannot ever be) accessible to me in any way.

 

[DBT]

You would not know. You would be that person...a person who perhaps wonders if he or she could have been born as someone else.

 

[Treedbear]

Perhaps re-framing the question might help. If, for the sake of argument, you actually HAD been born as someone else, how would you know?

I contend that you could not know. So the question itself makes no sense. By definition, you is you. 'Me' is an internal construct of the brain, not an objective reality. ...

How is "me" not an objective reality any more than any other internal construct of the brain? The brain creates models of its environment. "Me" is one of those models, but one which I happen to have more different knowledge of than anyone else does.

ETA: Of course the models themselves are not objectively real. But they represent things that really physically exist. It doesn't matter what you name it. This isn't about unicorns.

 

[Juma]

A moment doesn't exist in isolation. There can be no isolated "now". Existence is a continuum.

What are you talking about? Physical now or experienced now of your mind?

 

[Speakpigeon]

I don't see the difference between what you seem to accept as other possible you(s) and anybody not you. Assuming there's another you, say a B one, you, the A one, won't have the subjective experience this B version would have of himself, and vice versa. Whether or not you are nearly, or even entirely physically identical, whether or not your minds have the same informational contents, wouldn't affect this aspect of the situation. The specific contents of my mind don't matter to my impression of being myself except, as is very possible if not very likely, if this impression is itself a content. We can sometimes still have the experience of being even without much mental content. This experience is only different in terms of the range of contents experienced. So, it's at least conceivable, and possibly likely, that the core of what is our experience is identical. We have probably the same basic experience. It is very nearly as if we were all the same people but all in different places. We take other people to be different people when we could just as well take them to be versions of ourselves in other places and possibly dressed differently, and, yes, all inhabiting different-loking bodies. According to this, you are you merely by virtue of being in one place rather than another. You are you not because you are the child of your parents but merely because all the sensory information which is available to you is obtained from a unique ventage point and different people have different ventage points. You just happen to believe all the piece of this sensory information belong to a unique organism that you think of as a person. And for most of us, our mental contents appear coherent with this one-person perspective. So it's all down to essentially how our sensory information is organised, and obviously for good reasons I suppose.
EB

Interesting points, especially the part I bolded. I will have to think about this some more.

For now, I will mention that the impetus for this thread, and many of the points raised in it, came from a long essay by Joe Kern that deals with many of these points: The Odds of You Existing. He poses the following Socratic dialog as a response to those who claim that your existence is reducible to its content, one's personal history and so on:

A: When we talk about our personal existence, we are talking only about content, a personal or self narrative. I am, and only am, my personal narrative.

B: So what would be the case if you had been kidnapped at birth (more precisely: the baby your mother gave birth to that you right now call the earlier you had been kidnapped at birth) and taken to a distant country, and therefore the adult it became right now had a completely different personal narrative?

A: I would not exist.

B: And what would be the case if your parents had never met?

A: I would not exist.

B: So then, would you not exist in the same way you wouldn’t exist if that baby had been kidnapped at birth, or in a different way?

Kern reckons that most people would have to concede that they mean it in a different way, indicating that there is more than one way to not-exist in common parlance. The alternative is to concede that I would still exist if my past history were radically different, and either (a) I would not exist if my parents had not met, or (b) I would still exist if my parents had not met. From what I have been considering these past weeks, (a) appears less likely than it did before I started thinking about these things. Since my DNA could be completely replicated in another person--for example, a perfect clone--and I could conceivably still not exist, and my DNA could be altered--for example, with gene editing--and I could conceivably still exist, there doesn't seem to be a predictable relationship between the genetic code provided by my parents and the fact of my personal existence.

The conclusion that Kern reaches from all of this is something I cannot yet fully accept: he proposes a sort of 'materialist reincarnation' in which personal existence is preserved whenever conscious beings exist. In other words, to use one of his thought experiments, if all of the humans born after 1900 weren't born, but a completely different population of humans were born instead, you would still be one of them. I'm having a hard time figuring out what this could mean while still being 'materialist'. I've been corresponding with Joe Kern for a little while and I'll let you know if he elaborates on this point further, if there's any interest.

For now, I'm tempted to give credence to the idea only because, returning to the thread title, I don't see an airtight reason why I* couldn't have been born as someone else.

*The "I" being just the difference between a hypothetical world where my identical clone exists and has the same experiences I'm having and the actual world.

My guess is that this issue only arises because of the imperfection of language and the imperfecton of our mental representation of the world.

The word "me" can mean two very different things: the public persona and the subjective experience of being.

The public persona is what requires the notion of continuity. We conceive of the public "me" as the person evolving in a continuous manner from birth to now, a historical continuum. As a social species, we need this notion badly because we need to be able to trust that other people are what they seem to be and not some spooky look-alike.

But the subjective me is trully whatever we experience subjectively now. Continuity of our historical person is no longer essential. A clone of me will think he is me even though continuity would be lost. We just need to have the same memories, which is just about conceivable, while we definitely couldn't share the same continuity.

So the two notions are conceptually irreconcileable. It's just one of those facts about human beings that we have this duality. It's a by-product, a side-effect, a glitch.

Then, I guess one can always make up great stories to milk the equivocation for all its worth.
EB

 

[Treedbear]

A moment doesn't exist in isolation. There can be no isolated "now". Existence is a continuum.

What are you talking about? Physical now or experienced now of your mind?

Really, both. But I was talking about objective, physical reality. What is, even when it goes unexperienced. But even so, the subjective experience depends on the relationship of perceptions, memories, etc.

 

[Treedbear]

...
The word "me" can mean two very different things: the public persona and the subjective experience of being.

The public persona is what requires the notion of continuity. We conceive of the public "me" as the person evolving in a continuous manner from birth to now, a historical continuum. As a social species, we need this notion badly because we need to be able to trust that other people are what they seem to be and not some spooky look-alike.

But the subjective me is trully whatever we experience subjectively now. Continuity of our historical person is no longer essential. A clone of me will think he is me even though continuity would be lost. We just need to have the same memories, which is just about conceivable, while we definitely couldn't share the same continuity.

So the two notions are conceptually irreconcileable. It's just one of those facts about human beings that we have this duality. It's a by-product, a side-effect, a glitch. ...

It seems to me you've accepted the "spooky look-alike" within the subjective experience. But a clone of me is an imposter, even if an unwitting one. And I'd think twice about sacrificing my own life for the life of my clone, even though the rest of society saw nothing wrong with it. (Of course it would set a worrisome precedent.) I also think you seem to have it backwards in that it's the subjective experience of "me" that has to do with our evolution as a social species, rather than the objective concept of our existence. Subjectivity is all about how the brain models the self in relation to its environment. A paradox, but not a glitch.

I think that if we can ever hope to solve what's been called the "hard problem" of consciousness and explain it in simple language which everyone can understand than we will need to do so from an objective point of view. That's how the scientific method works. I contend that simply having the same memories and subjective experience doesn't necessarily establish what is true about "me". The clearest evidence being that there are many things we simply don't know about ourselves. And there is much of what is essential to "me" and to having the ability to experience "me" that is more than the subjective experience. It's not like some painting on the wall in front of you. It's the complex interplay of memories, sensations, and all the preconceptions we've created. It's a dynamic process which requires continuity in order to function.

 

[DBT]

All experience is subjective even though some of the information content is objective (sensory information) relating to the external world), categorized into self and other, so external objects and events not relating to 'self' is 'other.' Consequently, however many clones or copies of your physical makeup there are in existence, each and every one of them is perceived as 'other' rather than 'self' or this is 'me.'

 

[ryan]

All experience is subjective even though some of the information content is objective (sensory information) relating to the external world), categorized into self and other, so external objects and events not relating to 'self' is 'other.' Consequently, however many clones or copies of your physical makeup there are in existence, each and every one of them is perceived as 'other' rather than 'self' or this is 'me.'

Not that I necessarily disagree, but this would seem to imply dualism. One person would be both a self and other simultaneously, where selfhood is not the same thing as other.

Other can be sufficiently described physically, but a physical description leaves out the selfhood.

 

[DBT]

All experience is subjective even though some of the information content is objective (sensory information) relating to the external world), categorized into self and other, so external objects and events not relating to 'self' is 'other.' Consequently, however many clones or copies of your physical makeup there are in existence, each and every one of them is perceived as 'other' rather than 'self' or this is 'me.'

Not that I necessarily disagree, but this would seem to imply dualism.

Not sure how what I said could 'seem to imply dualism.' I thought I was stating the very opposite.

One person would be both a self and other simultaneously, where selfhood is not the same thing as other.

I have no idea what that means. Sorry.

 

[ryan]

Not that I necessarily disagree, but this would seem to imply dualism.

Not sure how what I said could 'seem to imply dualism.' I thought I was stating the very opposite.

One person would be both a self and other simultaneously, where selfhood is not the same thing as other.

I have no idea what that means. Sorry.

Both self and other are physically the same thing yet you call them something different; why?