Self Identity

There are a vast amount of on-going issues in world of philosophy, and by ‘on-going’ I mean ON-GOING!  That is, issues that have been on the table for thousands of years.  Issues that seem to get further from finding a solution with each contribution or attempt to solve them.  There is an apparent paradox or what is sometimes referred to as a red-queen dilemma when it comes to writing and thinking about such problems.  The more we work on a problem, the further we get from the solution.  As John Archibald Wheeler stated, “We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance”.  But that’s philoosophy.  

There are those who think that philosophy is all about finding the answers to life’s biggest questions, but in reality, philosophy is and always has been about asking the questions themselves. Answers are secondary at best.  It really is a journey vs. destination situation.  When we hike, and ride, and climb there are benefits to the activity itself, benefits that keep us coming back for more.  Most of rock climbing for example is failure (fallure should be a word used in climbing to express the way in which we fail (just in case any climber out there wants to try and add a new word to the established climbing argot)).  It’s in our failures that we grow stronger, attempt after attempt, we gain muscle, skill, callouses, we strengthen out tendons, our resolve, and aptitude.  We also gain confidence in our equipment making our failures less scary and easier to come to terms with.  Similarly, most of philosophy is failure (phailure?).  And like climbing, failing in philosophy comes with an array of positive outcomes too lengthy to list, but included on that list are human enrichment and flourishing.  Now, in philosophy like rock climbing, sometimes we send, i.e. sometimes we make it to our destination, but to dwell on an achievement ignores the real success that comes behind the scenes.

With the flurry of advancements in AI and machine learning, there is a real possibility that many of our most ubiquitous philosophical dilemmas will be solved or shown to be nothing more than quasi-problems keeping philosophers busy on the hamster wheel of truth.  I’m not sure which classic philosophical problems aren’t on the chopping block, but chief among them are issues surrounding consciousness, morality, reality, and personality identity.

Focusing on personal identity, this is a great example of a problem that goes back to the ancient world in which the more we learn, the less we know.  Essentially, the problem asks how something can be identical to itself despite undergoing incremental change.  The problem can be stated in some form similar to the following: If A = B, then everything we say about A must apply to B.  If Fontainebleau and Font are the same thing, then everything we say about Fontainebleau also applies to Font.  So, if Fontainebleau is in France, then so is Font.  If La Marie Rose is a route in Fontainebleau, then La Marie Rose is a route in Font.  If La Marie Rose was in Fontainebleau, but not in Font, then they wouldn’t be the same.  The problem arises when Fontainebleau changes.  

In 2001 a vandal deliberately destroyed several routes in the forest leaving an unrepairable path of destruction including the classic La Médaille en Chocolat.  

So, if at one point, Fontainebleau included a route called La Médaille en Chocolat with all the foot holds intact, and at another point the holds on La Médaille en Chocolat were chipped off by a disgruntled climber with a chisel, then Fontainebleau has changed.  If Fontainebleau has changed due to this act of vandalism, then it is clear that Fontainebleau is no longer the same, if Fontainebleau is no longer the same, then Fontainebleau after the destruction of La Médaille en Chocolat is no longer Fontainebleau.  In this case A ¹ B because every feature of A (Font before the destruction of La Médaille en Chocolat) is not a feature of B (Font after the destruction of La Médaille en Chocolat).

The issue is actually much more calamitous than laid out here, because it doesn’t take an act of destruction to change Fontainebleau.  Erosion, growth, moisture, sun, all play a part in altering the state of Fontainebleau at every moment.  Fontainebleau can never be the same as itself, because it is undergoing change at every moment.  Even referring to Fontainebleau is a misnomer because there is no place that is Fontainebleau, only perhaps a place that was Fontainebleau.

In the ancient world, philosopher Heraclitus’ famous proclamation that you can never step into the same river twice leads us to the same point.  We also see this idea preserved in Plutarch’s description of the Life of Theseus, in which the boards on the ship of Theseus are replaced one by one until every board on the ship has been replaced.  Leading us to question if/when this ship stopped being the same as the original. 

A similar example can be noted based on this very article.  In the opening paragraph, you may have noticed a misspelling of the word ‘philosophy’.  I could very easily correct the spelling, but then you would not be reading this paper, because this paper includes that misspelled word.

Some may object, suggesting something along the lines of “same name = same thing”.  In other words, as long as we are calling Fontainebleau “Fontainebleau” then it’s the same.  What does it matter if a few holds on a few rocks were chipped?  

Well, it turns out that it does matter.  We have a definition of sameness (laid out above) and if something changes it is NOT the same.

All this is well and good, but we humans are not special exceptions.  We too change, and so the person who started reading this article a few minutes ago is not the same person who is reading this piece now.  You have changed.  Skin cells have fallen of when you scratched an itch or are falling off now as you scratch the itch you may have just noticed.  Further you have more information about personal identity now than you may have had when you first started reading this piece a short time ago.

As AI develops and cloud computing advances, there may be opportunities to upload ourselves into the cloud.  A scary venture if ever there was one.  But, if this possibility becomes realized, we’ll have to consider these very important questions about personal identity. 

Would that cloud-based person the same you?  Maybe?  Then again, perhaps there was never a same you to begin with!