ask a question

recent responses

all topics

info

⚲

Identity

You have no doubt heard this example of the problem of identity before, but bear with me. Say you are given an axe for your birthday. Upon using the Axe on a length of wood you smash the axe head on a rusty bolt. You venture to get another Axe head from your local hardware store, return home and replace the damaged part with the new. Upon striking the wood a second time you consciously avoid the bolt to no avail as now the Axe handle shatters. You, for a second time, venture to the hardware store to get a replacement handle, return home and install it. Now, the question you probably saw coming is – is this still the Axe you were given for your birthday? I say yes, because you attached the replacement parts with respect to its original condition, not with intent to modify or improve. The deeper problem with saying that, indeed, the Axe SHOULD now be considered a different Axe is that the human body replaces all its atoms every 7 years (or so), yet nobody says that we are doppelganger (many times over)...

I think that it depends upon what your criteria are for identity.
Identity

What makes me the same person today as I was any time in the past? I have new memories and experiences, so why aren't I someone else?

This is, indeed a matter of great controversy, and one that has generated a vast literature. There are those who argue that it simply wrong to say that you are REALLY the same person you were before, because there are so many differences; others who argue that because it is correct to say that you are that there must be SOMETHING about you, or the continuum that constitutes you that undergirds that fact. Others suggest that you identity is a kind of very useful fiction or construct, and so that while it is true that you are the same person now as you were when you were 2, that is true in the same sense that it is true that Ahab was captain of the Pequod, that is because we say so, and this is the kind of thing that can be made true by say-so, as opposed to by discovery. You might enjoy reading, from the Buddhist literature, the QUESTIONS OF KING MELINDA, relating a lovely dialogue between a king and a Buddhist philospher regarding this point, or David Hume's discussion in A TREATISE ...