[yomly]

What even is "personality" - leaving aside technical and dictionary definitions, if you --the person-- are the sum of your life experiences, can you ever truly not be you?

I pose this because I encounter resistance from people to the notion that they can change themselves, lest they lose some notion of their "self", and personality is often equated with "self" from my experience.

[gnode]

> can you ever truly not be you?

You can stop being the you that you were, and people often do so.

Personality can change slowly over time as we develop through experience and reflection, or it can change rapidly due to post-traumatic stress, drugs, electroconvulsive therapy, or traumatic brain injuries.

I think the conceptualization of self as immutable is tautological, as we tend to thus discount aspects of personality which we find to be mutable from being considered part of the self.

[AndrewDucker]

"can you ever truly not be you"

It's a question of degree. There's a clear line from me yesterday to me today, with a massive amount of similarity. I'm comfortable about my wants and needs and how my life is set up, because the "me"s of the past set things up, and I'm similar enough to them to fit into the niche they worked on.

That personality can change over time - I'm not who I was when I was 20, and I'll be different again when I'm 60. But with a slow set of changes that's easy enough to cope with - and indeed, people generally don't even notice the changes.

But if I woke up tomorrow with a vastly different personality, the change having happened all at once, it would affect all of my relationships, my working situation, my home life, etc. It's wouldn't be a slow transformation from one person to another, it would be the instant death of one personality and their replacement by a different one. And that feels very uncomfortable to people.

[yomly]

> it would be the instant death of one personality and their replacement by a different one. And that feels very uncomfortable to people.

That's a salient observation, but it's a definitely a curious aversion and possibly linked to a similar underlying thought pattern that "growth mindset" vs "fixed mindset" tries to capture:

Notions like "I can become more confident in everything I do" and "I can learn to be better with people" terrified a friend as some kind of type of desire to deceive others with some inauthentic persona that was disingenuous because you had changed your personality

[AndrewDucker]

I guess it depends on how core you view certain parts of your personality as being.

If "you" is "an introvert who isn't good with people", then "learning to be good with people" must be some kind of faking it. Rather than a change in view/approach which actually makes you like people and not be afraid of them.

[ta1234567890]

Agree with your sentiment. At that point is a philosophical issue though. What exactly do you mean by "you" and "self"?

There's a special network in the brain called the Default Mode Network (DMN), which is responsible for our sense of "self" or ego. The DMN can be shut down and you can feel what it's like to not be "your self".

If you are curious about this, lookup Gary Weber on YouTube. Michael Pollan's latest book (How to change your mind) is also very good.

[gwd]

I've always thought that "Neuroticism" was kind of a weird thing to include in "Personality". Sure, it's a long-term behavioral trait that typically doesn't change; but I wouldn't call that a part of who somebody is, any more than (say) an intense fear of spiders is a part of who somebody is.

To say that making someone less "neurotic" changes their personality is about like saying giving someone a prosthetic leg which allows them to walk again changes their personality. It may certainly change the kinds of things they do on a regular basis, but it didn't change the basic concept of self we commonly think of as "personality".

[jonahx]

> Sure, it's a long-term behavioral trait that typically doesn't change; but I wouldn't call that a part of who somebody is

This seems like an excellent definition of "who somebody is"

> any more than (say) an intense fear of spiders is a part of who somebody is.

That, too, is definitely part of who somebody is. It is, eg, exactly the kind of trait used in novels or movies to convey something about a character. And it's something that others would notice and use to describe you in ordinary life.

How is that not part of who you are?

[specialist]

I was deeply influenced by Marvin Minsky's Society of the Mind as a kid.

That along with my readings in Zen, Taoism, Buddhism, and the notion of paradoxes, I gave up trying to precisely define who I am and accept that it's contextual.

(Also Shakespeare's "All the world is a stage" and Ministry's "(Every day is) Halloween". Life is performance art. We're all wearing costumes.)

Just try to keep your different personas (son, father, coworker, lover, frat brother, gamer geek) separate in real life.

[doboyy]

On the last part, I think a major part of why therapy can be helpful is because you have the choice to not adopt different personas, which makes me wonder that issue is a large source of problems.

I'm not the first to say this, but I feel most like "myself" when nobody is watching.

[neom]

There are also some interesting aspects of spirituality in this question. If you are a spiritual person you might look at how the ideas around akhlaq or samsara impact personality, it's an interesting philosophical thought experiment. :)

[RivieraKid]

> if you --the person-- are the sum of your life experiences

There's also DNA and early childhood development which is hard to change in adulthood.

[asdf21]

Formative years are more important.

Basically we imprint, like most mammals, between the ages of 8-12.