Identity (Identity)

by dhw, Monday, August 17, 2009, 12:46 (5576 days ago) @ George Jelliss

George and David have replied to my post, but interestingly it's David's post on evolution (15 August at 14.20) that comes closest to approaching (though not solving) the problem I'm grappling with: "One of the biggest jumps in evolution was the development of the nerve cell, the ability of living animal material to produce ions that would travel along branches of the cell and impart information that created an activity." And the ant brain "is of itself a tiny living computer made up of nerve cells." I'll come back to this in a moment. - George, I agree with most of your comments, but they end one level away from what I'm questioning. You say dreams "represent a sorting out process by which the brain tries to file them away and make sense of them." But are the dreams and the brain independent of you? Don't answer that yet. You say you're not sure if you're the same person as you were, possibly a minute ago, "since new thoughts have occurred to me". Where did those thoughts come from? Don't answer that either. You go on: "thoughts occur in our brains in the form of connections between the neurons, or possibly as electric or chemical potentials." Do the neurons, or electric or chemical potentials activate or control themselves? Don't answer that either, because now we come to the crunch. - You say: "There are parts of our brain where we have some control over our thoughts (probably the frontal lobes) and there are other parts that work subconsciously, as in dreams." David agrees. So do I. And that is where my problem begins. What is this "we"? WHAT controls the thoughts? What is it that intentionally impels the ions to "travel along branches of the cell and impart information that create an activity"? What makes the "tiny living computer" function? And as regards the parts that work subconsciously, what is it that involuntarily sparks the electricity and translates it into thoughts and images? - I tried to describe the problem when I wrote: "What I do not understand is the mechanism that moulds these different influences into 'me'". You responded: "Mechanism is one of your fetish words! No machine is needed, just individual experiences. Why would you develop into some else!" And yet, George, you don't think you are the same person you were possibly even a minute ago. The experiences are the influences, and I'm asking what it is that processes them in the individual manner that is ours. I agree when you say there is continuity, and I agree when you say that what "I" am evolves. My question concerns the source of that part which is continuous. That "we" have some control, "we" process our experiences, "we" think thoughts, or thoughts occur to "us" is a statement of fact, but explains nothing. The mystery is not what tools are used, but how they work and, above all, what is using them.