When I read Nikipedia’s question yesterday about Sorites’ “pile of sand” paradox, it occurred to me that this is a perfect metaphor for the self. We can start systematically nibbling away or changing all of those elements that we consider to be constituents of our identity—memories, station in life, physical being, knowledge, personallity, etc.—and presumably arrive at a point where that identity is compromised, but what would that point be?
Do the changes that an Alzheimer’s patient goes through of progressive loss of any sense of personal history mean that at some point they are no longer who they were? If so, then are we ever who we were? What are the implications of the fact that the details of my own sense of personal history come and go and mutate like some crazy dream? How real is the past, anyway? If our identities derive from it, that question bears asking.
The same kinds of problems arise when we consider the physical components of identity. For a lengthy but fascinating exploration of this aspect, take a look at Oscar Falconi’s thought experiment in which he imagines a machine capable of perfect dissolution and reconstitution of a human.
In the interest of full disclosure, my approach to this question is colored by many years of Zen practice, which constantly rubs one’s nose in the question of the reality of the self. It’s impossible to emerge from that process fully believing that there is any durable self-essence, a basis of identity that carries over from one moment to the next. At best, we are a process that moves through the world like a wave moves over the ocean. What makes that wave the same as it was 5 seconds ago?