On Identity - What Makes Our Identity?

Do allow me to ask you a question today- who are you?

Without a doubt many people would start off by telling their names. This is indeed a natural reflex, because their name, like any other personal names, identifies a specific unique and identifiable individual person.

Okay…. But still, who are you?

Now, some people would start to get stumped from this second comment. Some would re-iterate that they are what their names are, and many people would start to associate related concepts to the concept of their individuality- I am eighteen, I am a female, I study at National University Singapore, I am single, I live in Ang Mo Kio, my family is…… (Grin)

Biologists on the other hand, would be ranting off a completely different script. They would touch on genes, on how it is exclusively different to the individual, and how they complex to form the individual DNA. They would then touch on cells- how cells come together and complexes, with each cell having that specific DNA code, to form the individual himself. And since every bit of the person is made by atoms that are somehow slightly differently structured (due to genetics), henceforth every body (literal) is individual.

Now, we know that this is an association of logical concepts. We associate more familiar concepts such as eighteen, female, NUS, single, Ang Mo Kio, and family, to slowly piece together the more complex conceptual being of the individual on top of her name. Similarly, we too associate the concepts of genes, particular DNA structures, cells and bodies to re-construct the concept of the body. Indeed, they could keep ranting off details and associative concepts, and they may be correct in representing the individual. But as Henri Bergson has stated before, just how Ang Mo Kio can never be a part of you, and how that particular brain can never be that individual mind, these concepts can never truly represent the actual thing itself.

So, who are you? Then and again, what makes the ‘you’ that you have associate yourself to be all this time, actually you?

From the previous posts, we have concluded that the only method of answering this question lies within the faculty of Intuition and Intellectual Sympathy. I can never be for a moment, you- and hence theoretically I can never get the full truth to the answer. But now, there is only one person who could answer this question fully and truthfully. I don’t mean to sound like an overzealous author of some self-help book, but that person is you (or the individual herself). In other words, the question on personal identity can be answered by no one but only the individual.

Note that concept of self-identity is a very complex topic. Generally speaking, the fundamental premise of Personal Identity lies in the concept of Personal Continuity, or the conditions under which person at one time is the same person at another time. Personal Continuity ensures that the quality of the mind are consistent from movement to the next, generally regarded to include self awareness, sentience, sapience (wisdom-ic epistemological judgment), and perception. Note that all four aspects require an integrated form of logic and intuition, especially sapience and perception- which concepts have been touched on in the previous post of the MBTI.

From there, it forms the conscious conscience. The conscience is the repeated self-identification of oneself, or the self-identification of one’s personality through time. Some philosophers may believe that consciousness is the primary form of identity of human beings; as Locke argues that Self-identity is not founded on the body substance as the body may change while the person remains the same. Take for example a prince's mind which enters the body of a cobbler: to all exterior eyes, the cobbler would remain a cobbler. But to the prince himself, the cobbler would be himself, as he would be conscious of the prince's thoughts and acts, and not those of the cobbler. A prince's consciousness in a cobbler's body: thus the cobbler is, in fact, a prince.

Now, while this argument is appealing in a cognitive context, many people have thought that such disregard for the biology of the individual was a fallible assumption. Biologists (see above) have given a definition of a human as a biological organism and have asserted that a psychological relation is not fully necessary for Personal Continuity. As Eric Olson has asserted, personal identity too lies in life-sustaining processes. After all, would you still be you if you were to be reduced to the mind of a brain floating in a glass jar kept alive by artificial means?

Now we get to see a relationship between the biologist’s script and our conventional script. Grandly known as the mind-body problem, it concerns the explanation of relations that exist between the mental processes, and bodily states. Indeed, this topic touches once more on the issues of biological determinism and free will- in this context, when the non-material mind can influence a material body.

Of course this project does not aim for us to modify our biology. As our biological make-up is very much determined by nature and the logical construct of our genetics, it would be near-impossible (although probable in a utopia via eugenics) to seek the objective ‘living best’ directly from the objective truth of the best ‘biology’. From here, we shall assume the existence of a free will, or at least a possibility for the mind to at least assert an influence on the body. We would dwell in greater detail on the consciousness of the individual, and from there construct the individuality of the individual.

Consciousness now is a term often used in everyday speech to describe being awake and aware- responsive to the environment. But in more philosophical and scientific discussion, as a more related to the specific way in which humans are mentally aware in such a way that they distinguish clearly between themselves and all other things. Consciousness entails self-awareness, and they involve thoughts, sensations, perceptions, moods, emotions, memories, and dreams.

The conscious mind would then subdivide into two different forms of consciousness; namely known as phenomenal consciousness (P- consciousness) and access consciousness (A- consciousness). P-consciousness would simply be the metaphysical intuitive experience- as according to Wikipedia, it is moving, colored forms, sounds, sensations, emotions and feelings with our bodies and responses at the center. These experiences, considered independently of any impact on behavior, are called qualia. On the other hand, A-consciousness would be the phenomenon whereby information in our minds is accessible for verbal report, reasoning, and control of behavior. Note that P-consciousness is very metaphysical (ontological) while A-consciousness is one that is more logic dependent.

The integration of both types of consciousness would of course piece together the conscious self; but now that we have addressed the metaphysical and logical aspects of consciousness, we have inadvertently alluded to the concept of the rational mind, or the seat of the assumption why do we consider why humans in general are identifiable to the concept of rationality. Indeed, we have touched many a times that logic and feeling are essential for the rational being of ourselves, but I have always yet to give a satisfactory derivation of this assumption. We are rational because we are conscious, and consciousness entails both metaphysical and logical faculties.

But do note that our identities are not completely based at the very point of time when we are conscious and aware of ourselves. Dreams are particular to the identity of the individual, and so are memories, but both of them are independent of the conscious mind. We dream when we are actually asleep (or unconscious), and our memories and moods transcend the ‘now’ of conscious reactions to include past experiences and thoughts that ‘just flared up again somehow during the heat of the moment’. How can those be addressed by the concepts of consciousness and biology which we have touched on the past two pages?

Sigmund Freud believed that active-consciousness (both P-consciousness and A-consciousness) was not truly accountable for all conscious behavior and thought. He believed that there was one more aspect, namely the unconscious mind that was lacking. His unconscious mind was not one independent of the conscious mind, but one more of sub-consciousness and pre-consciousness. From there he had developed theories on repressed memories, and explained background tendencies of many individuals- including The Psychosexual Development (the jealous phallus), the Id, Ego, and Super-ego; and The Life and Death Drives.

Of most the noteworthy should be the concept of the Id, Ego, and Super-ego. Unlike convention, the ego is defined as the personality structure which included defensive, perceptual, intellectual-cognitive, and executive. It is a balance of the id and the Super ego- which refers to the impulsive (basic drives) and the egoistic ideals. In a very crude form it may take after the concepts of the Material and the Ideal; Sigmund believed that everybody possesses a characteristic ego, and this ego is the balance of their impulses and ideals.

There are a lot of other things to discuss about the theories of Sigmund Freud, but they require a lot of background knowledge and association. Unfortunately, we can hardly do his works justice if we were to summarize such complex concepts into a couple of paragraphs, I would thus encourage all readers to undertake their own further reading into his theories to understand how the unconscious (or subconscious) comes into play to form our Identities.

Biology, consciousness, and unconsciousness- The biological aspect (I re-iterate) we will not be touching much in great in detail, the un-conscious mind and the conscious mind very dependent on thoughts and experiences. These are the three major bases that form up our personal identities, and from there grows most thoughts, feelings, moods, tendencies, memories, and dreams. We can attempt to multiply and explain all of the above (aspects?) covered today the next time someone asks us who we are to infinity, or we could integrate all of the above to a metaphysical intuition of our personal lives that no one but us can understand- either way, this is us: our selves, and our personal identities that is unique to no one but ourselves.