Dean Zimmerman - The Mystery of Personal Identity

Personal identity seems so strong. We have the same sense of ourselves throughout our lives, even though everything about our physical bodies and brains is changing constantly. What then causes the continuity of personal identity? Some say personal identity is an illusion, but that seems like cheating. Others credit a nonphysical soul. That seems as though it’s cheating too.

Dean W. Zimmerman is a Distinguished Professor of philosophy at Rutgers University specializing in metaphysics and the philosophy of religion.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[bobcabot]

ja this one is tricky since we know of mental states/disorders e.a. multiple personality disorder where exactly that illusion of being one coherent identity is not the case - which leads to the conclusion that we just need it be functional in this world or just survive, back in the days...

[evaadam]

People who recognize the existence of their souls are kind, compassionate, and humble feeling equal to all souls... This equality also means that we all have equal chance to go to Heaven by simply having faith in a loving GOD...

...feeling equal as souls has no sense of superiority nor inferiority unlike those who think they are just physical animal bodies who identify themselves with their physical and mental attributes which is the common source of discrimination, bigotry, ego-maniac feeling superior, depression feeling inferior, indifference, etc etc.. depending on the quality of their physical attributes..

[irfanmehmud]

I don't understand the argument people often make that everything about our bodies changes over years, yet we feel the same person. Is it not clear that during cell division, cells of our bodies make there exact copies with all the genetic info transferred to newly formed daughter cells. So what's there to wonder why we have this sense of continuous identity? Moreover, our brain cells even don't change in our lifetime, so we have preserved memories of our self.

[enriquemartinez]

Temporal parts metaphysics.. what is the theoretical framework for it and origins? What about Self States? Are a legion? What am I? Who am I? What should I want to be, do and have? That would be more worthwhile topic and conversation.

[ulrikfriberg]

I am confused. He spends the entire video breaking down why we are a completely new entity in each new moment (and I completely agree) but then he changes his mind at the end?

[bokchoiman]

Memory facilitates the illusion of persistence through time. I'd wager that as we give AI models more memory, they'll take on distinct identities and possibly acquire consciousness in the process. Is the illusion of consciousness just consciousness? How can one tell the difference?

[joaofernandes]

I was stupid when i was young. Now that im older, with different molecules, im still stupid!!!

[atul_gautam]

Bhagwat Geeta has said this all in one Yat jerrasye tat shareeram.... Everything that change with time die in time, and that is nothing but body.
But very well proposed..

[thomasridley]

If its not immaterial in any other use. Why would it be different for us ?

[williamburts]

I exist, and to know that you exist you have to be conscious that you exist. And it is this knowing that you "be" or "am" that experiences no change or deterioration and is thus only subjectively understood. So, this persistent condition is there because there is a difference between the subjective and the objective because consciousness belongs to the observer or knower and not to inanimate objects observed.

[shashankp]

Im elastic who knew how much i go change yet i remember my old me same time i know im something else now an will ever be changing in micro and macro levels every day even if i can't see it.

[edwardtutman]

He basically dismissed the Eastern moment-to-moment "presentivism" and promoted his Christian-based identity theory. Science has proven his view as false and jury is still out on the other one.

[akbar-nrkc]

Can anyone please tell me how you take this passage below in which ... Is chomsky is correct in describing hegel dialectical method dependent on experinece? or its opposite is true hegel dialectical method and thinking are independent of experience?
"freedom exists only in relation to constraint.For Chomsky, there is a severe limitation on the human aptitude for understanding and self-knowledge.

Perhaps one reason for Chomsky’s hostility to dialectical thought (beyond his devotion to Descartes) is an allergy to Hegel’s basic argument that self-consciousness may take shape through thought’s dynamic and ever-unfolding encounter with the world — and more significantly, Marx’s avowal of the unity of theory and practice.

In contrast with the dialectic, which operates as it were “without” us, Chomsky’s notion of mind is of a faculty that is limited like any other biological organ..

[callmeishmael]

When we fall asleep our self disappears until we dream, and then until we wake up. While we dream we still have our identity but we are not experiencing all of our senses, thus, we are not grounded in reality. When we wake up we know we are awake because we experience all of our senses and recognize the place and time of reality. Our same identity exists in both states—possibly—and usually seems to be the case. What is shared in both states that creates that identity? Each our personal conflicts of being human in our human culture, perhaps? Is it not the culture we live in that gives us our identity as humans? I don’t know how much my cat has a sense of identity as opposed to the basic sense that it is not that other cat that it chases off our property, although, it does have that sense of identity that the property is its domain and I am its benefactor. That is its culture. Otherwise, the basic sense of self is the same as the sense of identity.

[branimirsalevic]

You are what you do, by thoughts, speech, body. Nothing else.

When/while you do the "dad thing" - you are a dad.
When you do "angry dad thing" - you are an angry dad.
When you do "concerned dad thing" - you are a concerned dad.
So many shades of just that one identity...

And how many other identities are there... You are a husband, a driver, a pedestrian, a shopper, a thinker, a speaker, a worker, a boss....

So which one is "the true you"?

-

All those other things you identify with - name, address, diploma, job, possessions, preferences, beliefs, tastes, books you've read, films you've seen... none of them are you, none of them are yours .

Body & mind will die, cease to function, cease to act, but all of these things which you are clinging on to as "me, mine", all of them will remain in the world, because others are latched onto them too, others make them "me, mine" just like you do.

[evaadam]

"The Mystery of Personal Identity"

Your true identity is your aware immortal soul which is not part of the physical world and, so, has no organs, tissues, cells, or DNA to change... This is the reason why your sense of self remains the same always...

...however, if you define your whole being as all physical body who rejects faith in GOD, you are vulnerable to evil influence or, worse, to demonic possession... so, your personality can change from a well behaved religious child into an unaccountable criminal after graduating from Darwin's Schools of Evolving IGUANAS....

[jamesruscheinski]

maybe a causation that is continuous and subjective?

[christopherwall]

This one interview wins first place for most unclear on whatever the heck Dean is talking about...

[travisporco]

why do we think there is a core essence at all?

[MacWiedijk]

I always find it fascinating that a simple, and in my opinion correct, thought, namely that consciousness is the mechanism that observes the model of reality that we maintain, can degenerate into profound quicksand in seconds. Our memory gives us the continuous image of ourselves. The continuous observation of this ever-changing memory gives us the feeling of continuity.