Mental 02: Identity, Part 02: Towards a Solution

    As the title gives away, I am not ambitious enough to say I know a full solution to the problem of philosophical identity. I do hope, however, that I have laid sufficient groundwork, in identifying the problem, to point to a possible solution.

    I do wish to point out one more kind of identity important for our own self-conception before proceeding: conscious identity. For instance, consider our friend S. Another copy have been made of S¹. Both remember exactly what was on their minds at the time of the S-singularity, and to both it seems that was a moment ago. However, if we claim that both are consciously identical to the single-S, we get a violation of the principle of transitivity, as follows

1. S-Left is consciously identical (ci) to S-Single, hyp
2. S-Right is ci to S-Single, hyp
3. S-Left is ci to S-Right, 1,2, transitivity of c.i.
4. S-Left is not ci to S-Right, since the former is aware of being on the left, and the latter of being on the right, definition of consciouness
5. Contradiction, 3,4

    There are a few ways to go about analyzing this. For starters, we can consider that consciousness doesn't have an identity relationship defined on it. We could argue that conscious minds have the appearance of continuity, through access to memory (short and long)², but that we are not consciously identical to previous moments, because we weren't aware of the same experiences.

    This would be denying the sensibility of ci, and therefore hypothesis 1) and 2). The other approach would be to argue that either or both 1) and 2) were false, depending on whether S-Right or S-Left or both were constructed. If S-Right were the only one constructed, we might argue that while S-Right believes themself³ to be the same self as S-Single, that in reality S-Right's consciousness only began at the moment of construction. You could do this by arguing that conscious identity is linked to animal identity, or that a significant break of consciousness, like deconstruction/reconstruction, cannot be bridged by the ci relation.

   To those whom believe the first: do you believe you are consciously identical to yourself at age 3? 5? 15? a year ago? If so, how do you define ci? (Remember that I have made a distinction between personal and conscious identity, so if you're argument relies on being the same person, you have to refute that first). To those whom believe the second: how do you qualify the "break"? Does it occur when we pass out? sleep? are knocked unconscious? How about when we shift our focus of attention?

    I wrap this discussion up with two more things. First, I don't think, despite what some Eastern philosophies may hold, that identity through time doesn't make sense for people. This simply requires a highly nuanced understanding of ourselves, especially our psychology and biology, one I think we do not yet have. The identity relation we're looking for may not take the form we expect. Do you remember my "in the same room" relation? That's not at all like an identity relation we're accustomed to, yet it does satisfy our intuitive definition of what identity is.

    Finally, I want to offer a tool for use while we lack (and may always lack) an exact model: fuzzy logic. Fuzzy logic is like mapping 'true' and 'false' to numbers 1 and 0, and allowing all versions of grey in between. We might re-state the requirements of identity relations like so.

For objects x,y,z and for fuzzy margins f,u,v each between 0 and 1, inclusive

1. x is identical to itself, with fuzzy margin 0, (where f  > 0, of course)
2. If x is identical to y with fuzzy margin u, then y is identical to x with fuzzy margin u, where
   f  > u
3. If x is identical to y with fuzzy margin u,  f  > u, and y identical to z with fuzzy margin v, 
   f  > v, then x is identical to z if and only if  f > u + v

    I encourage you to look this over. Notice how fuzzy margin f is "policing" identity. That is, our proposed identity function, if it were to use fuzzy logic in this way, would require some value to distinguish "threshold identity", as well as a way of numerically assigning identity. This might be too tricky to actually implement, but the idea of relaxing our identity relationship might be of help in future discussions about what it means to be ourselves.


1: This is the version in which S is not deconstructed, only constructed at the other end
2: I concede that working memory might be necessary for consciousness to occur at all
3: Before you get upset about my bad grammar, allow me to justify myself in a later post for this intentional decision.