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by jodrellblank
484 days ago
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I wonder if the origin of the question is the religious idea of a separate immortal soul which popped into this body and not into some other body - but in some way could have. This concept is in popular discourse like “what if I had been born in Italy in 1420?!” as if that were a thing thats plausible - an “I” separate from this body/place/time/life experiences/memories/language/family/etc but somehow still ‘me’. Boring materialism view is that a brain with genetics mixed from my parents and raised in the way I was raised, with the experiences I had here and in this time, is what makes “me” and I couldn’t be anywhere or anyone else. Or another way, we are all everyone else - what it would be like if I was born to your parents and raised like you is … you. What you would be like here is… me. |
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I don't think so. This is a profound question in philosophy, and it may even predate religions, even though it is hard to separate philosophy from theology. The answer (if there is one) doesn't have to be metaphysical.
Also the question is not about your genetics, your character, or "being someone like X" per se. Your twin brother could be genetically (let's say 100%) identical, but still you are you and he is he. There is only one "I" and everyone else is, well, other people. Being "I" has nothing to do with my experiences. No matter what I will experience in the future, I will still see the world through the same pair of eyes.
If you change the question from "I vs someone else" to "person 1 vs person 2" it stops making sense. From your point of view "p1" and "p2" are interchangeable and you wouldn't know which one is which. When one of the subjects is "I" then the symmetry disappears and the vertiginous question appears.