Topics Identity

Question What makes me me? That is to say, what makes me different from another person? It's easy to answer in a general term. You are you, with different thoughts, emotions and DNA. But it's at DNA where the answer becomes confusing and tricky for me. As far as I am aware, DNA is the information of you, of which everything about you is first started, and where what you're current situation is stems from. Then, of course, it is probably correct to say that an exact matching strand of DNA will lead towards the exact same results after you are "born" or created (at least, to stuff that are not environmentally depending). Now, as far as i know, your brain, thoughts and consciousness all derived genetically and are not affected environmentally. So, and I'm sure this has been discussed a lot, if you where to clone yourself, you would expect somebody who looks exactly the same as you to be born. But then, what about the psychological side of it? Seeing as we both come form the same source, and all the information that makes us us is the same, how come he has a different consciousness than me? Why is it that he makes decisions independently from me, even though we are, in theory, the same? In short, what is it that makes him him, and not me? Why can I control myself and not control him? Why can I see my thoughts and not his? There must be something that he has that I do not have, yet, we are identical, because our DNA was the same. It's almost a kind of separate presence that allows me to be me, which allows me to see through my eyes and here through my ears, think my thoughts and control my hands. This exact clone of me must somehow have this as well, but it's not me, because I am not him, I am me. And seeing as he has my DNA, I can't get my head around why he would be different. Something must have changed, something must be different between us to make him different. Thanks in advance.

Accepted:
May 28, 2008

Comments

Some of your difficulty -- very reminiscient of Leibniz, by the way -- may be caused by the word "different." Take a very simple case, two water molecules perhaps. Are they different? In one sense, they are exactly the same. Yet in another sense they are different or (perhaps better) distinct. You can tell that they are not the same in this second sense by counting: there are two, not one. And you can tell this, in turn, by attending to their space-time locations.

Similarly with your more complicated example. At any given time, there are two distinct locations at which a human being with this DNA is located: you at one place and your clone at the other. If he is living on earth, he's likely to be a bit different from you due to what the two of you have eaten and experienced. But he may be living on a planet that is an exact replica of this one, and his life may then mirror yours exactly with him thinking and doing exactly what you think and do, perhaps even simultaneously. He would still be distinct from you by virtue of his location. You are here and he is there.