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Personal Narrative: What Is A True Identity?

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Personal Narrative: What Is A True Identity?
I would consider it quite a trivial matter if I were asked: who are you? I could of course answer the question without hesitation in elaborate ways, drawing elegant facts and examples from my experiences, hobbies, alignments, et cetera. I can do this, because I am the sole expert who has constant and instantaneous access to the library that is my endeavors in this world. But this response does not fundamentally answer who I am, merely give examples of what I could be (e.g. I am a member of the Homo sapiens species; I am Canadian). What is my true identity, which separates me from all others who also inhabit this world? A more precise question is how my self – whatever it is – is maintained across time: that I have some identity “A” at one instant in time does not automatically entail my being “A” at another. Therefore, it seems that to define my identity, I must first ascertain that I have a temporally continuous individuality. The appearance of simplicity clearly …show more content…
However, do B1 and B2 truly have the same psychology? Indeed at the instant of transmission from A to B1/B2; but one cannot assume that because the psychologies are identical at a point in time, that they are temporally continuous and will not diverge into distinct lines later on. Since B1 and B2, having separate bodies, must take up slightly different spatial locations, B1/2 will each experience the world slightly differently post duplication: perhaps, for example, B1 has a visual perception of the world slightly to the right of B2. B1’s psychology plus the changes that occur to it only entail the psychology of the future B1; there are no connections between B1’s experiences and how B2’s psychology will change, and vise versa. Hence, B1 and B2 are psychologically identical only at a point in time; they are not temporally continuous in any of body, soul, or psychology, and are thus discrete

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