Are you the same you that you were

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Zephyr, Dec 31, 2006.

  1. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Not only that. Many of the atoms of which your body roughly consists of change all the time.
    If you could see on an atomic level, it would all be in one soup - the atmosphere you breathe, your body, rain, food, etc.
     
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  3. redarmy11 Registered Senior Member

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    Ask Microsoft about this.

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  5. Meanwhile Banned Banned

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    The memories you speak of are dependent on a chain of events that follow in sequence to one another. All those events are obligated to refer to a storyline—your identity. And what is your identity but your personality—how you feel, how you think, how you react; your self-awareness of your personality reassures for a waterproof pattern, hence your dependency on the predictability of personality.

    Now, dismiss that personality and all of its memories, or at least the predictability of that personality, and what are you left with? An intrinsic bedrock from which a peculiar you will evolve again and again and again. The only thing that changes are its facets—the role-acting surface that is you. What I'm interested in is the part that doesn't change—the fountainhead, the intrinsic bedrock, the unpolluted you.
     
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  7. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    I suspect that this unpolluted "you" is the sum of the fundamental operating modes of your brain. The way your brain reacts to any external stimuli (your temperment), the weight your brain gives to various inputs, etc.

    Studies of identical twins raised apart seem to support the idea that the same basic person will emerge, even with different lifelong inputs. This argues strongly for the brain architecture being largely responsible for you being "you". The other ingredient - continuous memory - gives this "you" a sense of unique "selfness" and orientation in time.

    The individual elements make no difference as long as the operational modes and stored patterns (memories) are maintained.

    These two things - fundamental brain architecture and continuity of memory - seem to be enough to make you "you".
     
  8. imaplanck. Banned Banned

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    So in other words you are talking of the nature part of you unpolluted by the nurture part? Even though the former may have the biggest impact, the thing is that both nature and nurture have an impact on who you are and what decisions you will make to a given environmental input. Anyway I dont see how ignoring one of these two factors makes the arguement of 'free will' any stronger anyway, Its irrelevant!
     
  9. draqon Banned Banned

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    mostly expierences in life have not changed my view of life since birth.
     
  10. TruthSeeker Fancy Virtual Reality Monkey Valued Senior Member

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    Are you the same you that you were
    In terms of awareness... yes. Everything else.... no!

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