Identity

[SilentPony]

Am I real? Yeah, sure. Does that matter to anyone or anything, including myself? No, not really.

 

[Silvanus]

I'm a cat walking back and forth across a keyboard, in such a way that by pure coincidence I have managed to type out 1,190 coherent posts and submit them to the forum, without the faintest idea of what I'm doing.

 

[EvilRoy]

I guess it depends who you ask. If you ask people who are not me, I am my actions. If you ask people who are me, I am a bunch of information taken from things out of my control - the actions of others and/or nature such as it is - that I have cobbled into a personality that determines my actions. I'm lucky, because the information dumped into me has also left me with the ability to take action to find new information to adjust my personality as necessary; although aspects of my personality automatically resist those actions. So I can act against myself if parts of myself aren't what I want, but those parts will defend themselves.

Reading through your post I think you're getting a little hung up on labels, and that might be why you're struggling to define yourself. You detail increasingly granular labels for each aspect of yourself you can think of - but that's like defining colour by sitting and listing every single colour you can think of. That's not what colour is, that's just a bunch of examples.

The reason I bring this up is because I can see you applying a label, and then struggling against it because the label doesn't quite match what you feel internally. That's because you're describing a bunch of things that happened to you and the implied effects of those things, but they aren't 100% accurate because the assumed effect of each of those things is not 100% accurate to the actual effect.

Think of it this way, if you were tasked with describing colour to a person blind from birth, how would you do it? Labels won't work - it doesn't matter how many examples you list because there's no automatic shared experience to work off of. What's yellow? It looks like the sun. So its hot? No, lemons are yellow too. So it smells nice? No, some mold is yellow too. The only way to do it is to go to fundamentals. Colours are wavelengths of light. Wavelengths are vibrations. Sounds are vibrations. Colour is a sound that we hear with our eyes, that elicits feelings like sounds elicit feelings from being heard with ears. That's why I say my identity is the things I do, as they came about as the result of a million things that happened to me prior, and they are the only pure representation of the 100% true results of the amalgamation of all those actions. Even when I lie, that lie is honest because it is an accurate representation of how everything in my life has effected me. I can't say "I'm a guy who has worked in isolated places doing technical things" and expect that to explain my identity to you because its leaving out a lot of important stuff.

There is so much to this. No philosopher is really considered an authority on Identity, but its explored endlessly and I really suggest you look up some stuff on it to help you refine your own definition. Hegel is a good starting point, but consider just basic wikipedia-ass general definition of Identity that states it is the relation each thing bears only to itself. That definition all by itself is hard to digest - its very rare for a person to look at that sentence and say "oh yeah, I get it, I am only what I am, dur".

 

[Shadyside]

I Am that I Am

So I've been wondering what it means to be for quite a long time and I do wonder what people think about it, particularly what makes someone themselves.

So before I go into an inevitably long rant that will surely still fail to convey that my feelings and thoughts properly, I wanted to ask who are you?

As in what is it that makes you, well yourself.

And yes I guess that operates under the premise that you are real, which is arguable, but even if you're not a convincing simulacrum of a person should have some script as to what they are so likely a question worth asking.

Spoiler: Rant.

I'll try to keep this short since I could probably go on forever (And likely will if anyone asks me) about this topic.

After thinking about it for a long time I've realized that the answer has changed a lot over time, for example way back in the day I would've held things such as the fact that I was a thief, ridiculously short, tough and "scary", some of these were true at the time but no longer apply for example I went from thief to "vigilante" to neither and I felt very strongly about those things in regards to who I am, I also grew up and my height is now average and I realized I was delusional and while it takes a lot to make me cry in front of someone I'm hardly tough and definitely not scary, especially not then that was simply a delusion I convinced myself was real just because I have a scar on my face, but I'm a soft-skinned, skinny and sexually ambiguous thing, certainly something that makes some people uncomfortable but hardly scary.

Then there's the issue of ethnicity, which is simpler but not quite, I was born and raised inside the country of México, so obviously I'm Mexican but for example my dad's mom was British and very white her husband was Mexican but of Spanish and French descent, while my mom's dad was very brown and supposedly of Aztec descent and her mom was of Spanish and Turkish descent, so genetically I'm barely Mexican though my skin is yellow, which is weird and different from both my parents and my siblings, so I guess I'm a mutt of sorts, regarding just geographical origin is also weird, physically I was born in a small beach town in Jalisco, legally I was born there and simultaneously in Zacatecaz and I'm technically two different people with even two official social security numbers, so I gess even legally I'm an existential mess, fitting I guess, the other thing is that I also moved a lot, sometimes living in places for less than a year and as a result I don't really feel like I'm from anywhere.

There's the topic of sexuality and gender too I guess, one that I decided to ignore for most of my existence, probably because I have a complicated history with sex, which I won't get into in this post but I've mentioned it before, but the point is that even my claim that I'm asexual could be argued against as I could be just traumatized and suffering from PTSD, though both my therapist and I think of that as unlikely at least now, but I definitely had untreated PTSD at some point, with gender it's just weird, I've never really felt like anything but nevee gave it any importance because I'm not interested in Sex so it shouldn't matter, there are many things that make it complicated such as the fact that people often assume me to be female, particularly online but it has happened IRL too since I tend to present androgynous, I also tend to find female characters far more relatable than male ones, but I don't really feel like a woman, however while I don't find the body I inhabit to be disgusting nor do I hate it, but it just doesn't feel like it's mine and there are parts of it I'm uncomfortable with, to be honest while it is impossible if I could I would leave it behind and just be a consciousness without a body or at least move into a different one, but I guess that just speaks to how crazy I probably am.

This leads me to the topic of names, the truth is Ive never liked my name I've always expressed desire to change it, like even a decade ago but the truth is that I don't know to what, I've gone by many names, I have a different name in almost every online community and none really feel right and I often wish I didn't have to have a name, maybe I'm being arrogant but I don't feel like I can be a word, I guess that perhaps it's that I've dissociated from reality so much that I can only think of myself as a collection of thoughts and feelings, to the point that all else feels quite alien, I guess I should mention pronouns here too, I don't get it, any pronouns are fine because I male such little sense that it doesn't matter.

To be honest I could go on, I do little else but think about these kinds of things and I haven't gotten to how I'm not sure what being human even is or if I should be considered one, but basically I want to know about other people because I'm not even sure what it means to be and maaaany other things.

Honestly if there's one thing I know is that if mind reading was a thing, mind readers would go mad whenever they tried to read my mind.

You are who you choose to be.

 

[Kae]

-Snip-

To be honest I don't in reality care much about labels, I was just going through them in an effort to relate how little connection I feel to the aspects of identity that people generally emphasize, I was originally going to explain it further but I got distracted and kinda forgot.

In any case I'm not really trying to fit into any particular label as I feel that's foolish, the only useful aspect of a label is as a descriptive, so it's more that one must figure themselves out and then see if that's already been defined and if there's a word that can be used to explain it, rather than having to describe the whole thing from 0 since a lot of things are extremely hard to explain.

In any case the core of my particular problem is that I have been having problems distinguishing between dreams and reality lately which when combined wirh other stuff such as my disconnect from things that many claim are core to the human experience, things like sex, a sense of belonging, a need for companionship and so on and a relationship to my body that is mostly disconnected, to the point where I no longer even feel pain when it's hurt and add to that mental health issues such as severe insomnia not only alters my perception of time in a very unhealthy manner but also causes hallucinations directly casting my fundamental perception of reality into doubt and adding in the fact that my memories are unreliable, to the point where I've found out some things I believed to have happened never happened or happened differently from how I remember them, but also some of the strangest most absurd memories I have, actually being real even though they don't sound like it at all and others I was convinced were dreams turning out to be real, and well let's be fair with all these factors combined it'd be stranger if I wasn't in a constant state of existential doubt.

So in my case it's more that I'm looking for something to ground and bring me back to reality before I completely lose my grip on it, something notoriously difficult when the only parts of me I perceive as actually a part of me are my current thoughts and feelings, as everything else is dubious, I can't even call on my previous experiences and have them define me as they are doubtful.

Honestly, the only reason I made this thread is because my therapist asked me to write the history of my life so far and it's something that's proven to be quite difficult.

 

[Kae]

I am nothing and no one important.

Ah yes, a fellow nothing, may the void bring peace to us all.

What makes me myself is the combined total sum of my experiences, as it is my reaction to those experiences that have shaped my opinions, my disposition, my biases etc. In that regard, like every human being, as life continues and I gain new experiences, so I shall continue changing.

Seems logical, but that would mean that one only exists for a tiny fraction of one's lifetime as new memories are formed and old memories get altered in order to suit whatever narrative one subconsciously wants, I know my memories for example always seem to suspiciously fit whatever narrative I have at the moment for myself, which is weird considering I've been many different things.

Therefore does that not mean that one is at least partially a work of fiction?

Does that not mean we're not real?
I mean at least not fully, that being said it could be that the way I experience memories it's not the same as what others do.

Who am I? I think that's a question that can only be answered by comparing myself to people who aren't me. If I say I'm a human being that lives on the planet Earth, that's true, but not a useful answer, because that's true of everyone.

But only being myself, my understanding of other people is limited, there's probably lots of things about me that I've just assumed are the case for everyone, which is always a problem.

Interesting, does that mean that we only exist when other people are there to perceive us?

Everything else being dubious as all introspection is simply comparing to the other...

Could be.

 

[ObsidianJones]

No, that's my point, literally everyone is powerless to choose their identity because it is comprised of a myriad facets, most of whom are unknowable. You're over-focusing on this one aspect that impacts you more strongly than the others but that isn't actually what is responsible for your identity, even if it feels like it is.

You're being hit on the head by a landslide and you're blaming the rock that hit you when in fact you're on the receiving end of an event that was set in motion when the earth was still a ball of plasma and happened to solidify in a way that would in billions of years in the future form a crumbling mountain near where you're now standing. To just ignore all of that trillions upon trillions of events that lead to it and be mad at the individual rock without looking at the bigger picture is not rational, even if it feels cathartic and justified.

That might be your perception of it. The landslide, to me and others, is the viewpoint hoisted on me due to my race. The rocks are the casual things, like the white women who want to date me due to stereotypes or something benign like that.

https://twitter.com/search?q=black%20and%20brown%20stay%20home&src=typed_query

When Twitter takes today to remind Black and Brown folks to stay indoors because of fear of how today's events will play out, it's not us "choosing to see it". It's actually simply remembering the past actions.

 

[Baffle]

Certainly, I exist.

I'm in the fortunate position to adhere to mainstream concepts of identity, which makes my life easy. I'm a mostly straight white British man (my grandmother was Irish, but I know nothing about the heritage on that side and I don't have a great deal to do with them since my dad died -- I did not enjoy being Catholic). That's it. In the tick boxes, that's my identity.

I'm middle class, but I come from the working class. I'm not sure how you define it, but I have middle class earnings, but am deeply uncomfortable around other middle class people, with all their conversation and their shoes and such. Also, I drink lager, like a proper grunt. I drink wine too, but I don't swirl the shit. Just BANG, it's gone.

My interests are not eccentric, but were I to go on a blind date (I probably shouldn't, I've been married for 14 years), I would worry about discussing them. They aren't taboo, just boring ('But if you move this vertex....', 'Autoflowering is okay I guess....', 'Fuck the Tories because .... ').

Eh.

 

[Kae]

Identity is infinitely complex and any effort to narrow it down or to emphasize certain facets of it while de-emphasizing other ones is an arbitrary exercise in control and power. Literally every single experience in your life is a component of your identity, and irrespective of your feelings on the matter, all those experiences, and every factor that contributed to you having these experiences, stretching back billions of years, are integral components of making you who you are, whether you like that or not.


Too often people just...pick one tiny facet out of this unending sea of elements and put it on a pedestal, they treat it as though it matters more than all those other ones. They even act as though they are unaware of all of those unknowable factors that are allowing them to be as they are, and treat this one thing they picked out as if that is what is doing that work instead.


It's like with the butterfly effect in time travel stories. If you go a million years in the past and kill a butterfly, humanity may be extinct in the present out of an unforeseen series of events stretching out from that one action. Identity is like that, if you just alter one tiny thing, who knows who you'll be now. So to pretend that this one thing you choose to put on a pedestal is all-important just because you feel that it is, when in fact you have no way of knowing that, is the height of folly.

Well I've explained already why I'm interested in the topic, however I don't disagree with this.

That being said I think it's important to have a sense of self, otherwise one might devolve into maddening existential doubt as I'm currently doing, so the question is more about seeing which aspects of themselves are the ones that give people that feeling pf reality that I personally lack.

Well said. People consider their identity by looking at oneself through the eyes of others. It is a cultivated belief in one's mind, a reference model. This can indeed come into conflict with thoughts and feelings that contradict this cultivated belief. It is ultimately a coping mechanism for opportunities not acted upon and coming to terms with having to let go. Life is that moment between two eternities that flickers then fades.

No one will think about sexuality or identity 30 years from now. They will think about lost youth.

It's not about whether it will matter in the future, let's face it most people won't matter and will be entirely forgotten, it's more about finding out what is it that people consider to make them themselves.

Like I've mentioned, my experiences are based a lot in my fundamental disconnect from reality, likely from undiagnosed mental illness that I'm currently seeking therapy for, but maybe psychiatric help would be more appropriate, so for me it's fundamentally to center myself as when I dissociate from the body I inhabit I become completely unable to tell if it's hungry, thirsty or in pain, something that when combined with a complete lack of notion of time can be pretty disastrous.

So while Identity may not be relevant to the future I'd argue is relevant to the present, though it depends on the individual.

 

[happyninja42]

That being said I think it's important to have a sense of self, otherwise one might devolve into maddening existential doubt as I'm currently doing, so the question is more about seeing which aspects of themselves are the ones that give people that feeling pf reality that I personally lack.

This might not be something you can just talk you way into. Given some of the things you've said in other posts, it sounds, to me at least, that you are suffering from biological/chemical problems, that are causing this lack of sense of self. And just like people who are suffering from mental disorders, thinking that they can be fixed by religious bullshit, I don't think you trying to philosophy yourself into a sense of self, on a video game forum, is the best method of doing it. You need to speak to a professional. I know you said you are scared your family will mock you for "being weak" or whatever. But seriously, if your family acts like that, FUCK THEM. They are not helping you, if they are that confrontational, and anti-supportive to your health, and attempts by you to have them support you, are met with mockery and scorn. Seriously, FUCK THEM. Don't let them shame and bully you into misery in your own head. Seek help, figure out what the problem is, and try and find actual, tangible solutions to it.

But, since you seem obsessed with trying to think this out, let me put it to you from my brainjar perspective. (I'm going with your solipsism concept, mainly just for humor value) There is no tangible reason, from my vat, to have a fictional person, namely you, use up my time and life, to debate on if THEY are just a brainjar. It serves no purpose. It's not torturing me, it's just words on a screen. So the idea that you were made up, in your own state of crisis, to just fuck with me, in my own little brain jar, seems.....highly unlikely, and frankly, a waste of energy from the...whatever it is you think is bothering to brainjar us in the first place. It's a lot of masturbatorial wankery going on, on the part of that entity, for no tangible purpose. So, based on the sheer silliness of 2 brainjars, debating whether they ARE brainjars, in a system, I'm going to say you ARE REAL, and so should you.

Get help, get therapy, get medication, and for fuck's sake, get away from your family who are apparently making your situation worse.

Or, for another direction to think on this. Let's say you aren't real. Well, if not, then why not just reshape your outlook to something that you actually enjoy? I mean what's stopping you? You have full agency in controlling vast aspects of your life, and you can shape a lot of what happens around you, by finding people who help you, support you, and care for you. You can do things that make your day to day life more enjoyable. It's not hard. You just do it. If you want to not feel terrible, find out some of the variables that are making your life worse, and work to change them. Some things will always be out of your control, as they are from outside forces, not you. But you can do a lot yourself, FOR yourself.

 

[Dreiko]

That might be your perception of it. The landslide, to me and others, is the viewpoint hoisted on me due to my race. The rocks are the casual things, like the white women who want to date me due to stereotypes or something benign like that.

https://twitter.com/search?q=black%20and%20brown%20stay%20home&src=typed_query

When Twitter takes today to remind Black and Brown folks to stay indoors because of fear of how today's events will play out, it's not us "choosing to see it". It's actually simply remembering the past actions.

It is human nature to ascribe motives and see patterns so it's unavoidable for you to feel this way. I don't think we disagree. I'm not saying how you feel about it isn't valid, I'm saying it's just more complex and more deep-rooted than you're giving it credit for.

Well I've explained already why I'm interested in the topic, however I don't disagree with this.

That being said I think it's important to have a sense of self, otherwise one might devolve into maddening existential doubt as I'm currently doing, so the question is more about seeing which aspects of themselves are the ones that give people that feeling pf reality that I personally lack.

Oh, definitely. I'm no nihilist.

Consciousness is the way the universe seeks to learn about itself, and we are manifestations of that. So in that sense, the human instinct for discovery and knowledge, an instinct that is not hampered by merely achieving subsistence, is where I ground my sense of self.

Basically, finding out the value of cool, interesting stuff. An appreciator of the glory of existence, that's kinda the role I identify with.

Existentialism is useful before you reach this stage, and some people who seek a more structured sense of meaning get discouraged so you're right in raising that concern.


So yeah, the aspects are things like curiosity, fascination, gratitude, admiration/awe, passion. Those kinds of more primal things that are cornerstones of all fully human identities, as opposed to the seasoning over the top that is nation and religion and and race and gender, stuff like that which was generated by humans embodying the above stuff.

 

[EvilRoy]

To be honest I don't in reality care much about labels, I was just going through them in an effort to relate how little connection I feel to the aspects of identity that people generally emphasize, I was originally going to explain it further but I got distracted and kinda forgot.

In any case I'm not really trying to fit into any particular label as I feel that's foolish, the only useful aspect of a label is as a descriptive, so it's more that one must figure themselves out and then see if that's already been defined and if there's a word that can be used to explain it, rather than having to describe the whole thing from 0 since a lot of things are extremely hard to explain.

In any case the core of my particular problem is that I have been having problems distinguishing between dreams and reality lately which when combined wirh other stuff such as my disconnect from things that many claim are core to the human experience, things like sex, a sense of belonging, a need for companionship and so on and a relationship to my body that is mostly disconnected, to the point where I no longer even feel pain when it's hurt and add to that mental health issues such as severe insomnia not only alters my perception of time in a very unhealthy manner but also causes hallucinations directly casting my fundamental perception of reality into doubt and adding in the fact that my memories are unreliable, to the point where I've found out some things I believed to have happened never happened or happened differently from how I remember them, but also some of the strangest most absurd memories I have, actually being real even though they don't sound like it at all and others I was convinced were dreams turning out to be real, and well let's be fair with all these factors combined it'd be stranger if I wasn't in a constant state of existential doubt.

So in my case it's more that I'm looking for something to ground and bring me back to reality before I completely lose my grip on it, something notoriously difficult when the only parts of me I perceive as actually a part of me are my current thoughts and feelings, as everything else is dubious, I can't even call on my previous experiences and have them define me as they are doubtful.

Honestly, the only reason I made this thread is because my therapist asked me to write the history of my life so far and it's something that's proven to be quite difficult.

Fair enough, although I think I would still suggest getting into philosophy a little given what you've said. Stay away from some of them - what you're describing are issues surprisingly common among certain types of philosopher for sure - but you may find some of those that get into the weeds a little on topics like identity, anxiety, or self might help you coalesce some of your feelings and ground you a bit.

I used to suffer from pretty serious anxiety, completely unmedicated due to social stigmas surrounding mental health care where I grew up, and I found studying Keirkegaard and Kant on anxiety and existentialism, and reading Sartre and Camus argue with eachother about existentialism to be very helpful. None of these guys held an individual answer that made me feel better, (Keirky can get downright depressing at times,and Kants dependence on a higher power was often frustrating), but understanding that people have struggled with and against forces very similar to those that were eating me alive for decades was very helpful. Eventually through the balance of the reading I did I managed to cobble together enough concepts, positions, and outlooks that helped me gain control of myself and my emotions in a way that I had never had before. I'm not some perfect Stoic avatar now or anything, but though understanding I was able to take some control.

 

[Shadyside]

So I've been wondering what it means to be for quite a long time and I do wonder what people think about it, particularly what makes someone themselves.

So before I go into an inevitably long rant that will surely still fail to convey that my feelings and thoughts properly, I wanted to ask who are you?

As in what is it that makes you, well yourself.

And yes I guess that operates under the premise that you are real, which is arguable, but even if you're not a convincing simulacrum of a person should have some script as to what they are so likely a question worth asking.

Spoiler: Rant.

I'll try to keep this short since I could probably go on forever (And likely will if anyone asks me) about this topic.

After thinking about it for a long time I've realized that the answer has changed a lot over time, for example way back in the day I would've held things such as the fact that I was a thief, ridiculously short, tough and "scary", some of these were true at the time but no longer apply for example I went from thief to "vigilante" to neither and I felt very strongly about those things in regards to who I am, I also grew up and my height is now average and I realized I was delusional and while it takes a lot to make me cry in front of someone I'm hardly tough and definitely not scary, especially not then that was simply a delusion I convinced myself was real just because I have a scar on my face, but I'm a soft-skinned, skinny and sexually ambiguous thing, certainly something that makes some people uncomfortable but hardly scary.

Then there's the issue of ethnicity, which is simpler but not quite, I was born and raised inside the country of México, so obviously I'm Mexican but for example my dad's mom was British and very white her husband was Mexican but of Spanish and French descent, while my mom's dad was very brown and supposedly of Aztec descent and her mom was of Spanish and Turkish descent, so genetically I'm barely Mexican though my skin is yellow, which is weird and different from both my parents and my siblings, so I guess I'm a mutt of sorts, regarding just geographical origin is also weird, physically I was born in a small beach town in Jalisco, legally I was born there and simultaneously in Zacatecaz and I'm technically two different people with even two official social security numbers, so I gess even legally I'm an existential mess, fitting I guess, the other thing is that I also moved a lot, sometimes living in places for less than a year and as a result I don't really feel like I'm from anywhere.

There's the topic of sexuality and gender too I guess, one that I decided to ignore for most of my existence, probably because I have a complicated history with sex, which I won't get into in this post but I've mentioned it before, but the point is that even my claim that I'm asexual could be argued against as I could be just traumatized and suffering from PTSD, though both my therapist and I think of that as unlikely at least now, but I definitely had untreated PTSD at some point, with gender it's just weird, I've never really felt like anything but nevee gave it any importance because I'm not interested in Sex so it shouldn't matter, there are many things that make it complicated such as the fact that people often assume me to be female, particularly online but it has happened IRL too since I tend to present androgynous, I also tend to find female characters far more relatable than male ones, but I don't really feel like a woman, however while I don't find the body I inhabit to be disgusting nor do I hate it, but it just doesn't feel like it's mine and there are parts of it I'm uncomfortable with, to be honest while it is impossible if I could I would leave it behind and just be a consciousness without a body or at least move into a different one, but I guess that just speaks to how crazy I probably am.

This leads me to the topic of names, the truth is Ive never liked my name I've always expressed desire to change it, like even a decade ago but the truth is that I don't know to what, I've gone by many names, I have a different name in almost every online community and none really feel right and I often wish I didn't have to have a name, maybe I'm being arrogant but I don't feel like I can be a word, I guess that perhaps it's that I've dissociated from reality so much that I can only think of myself as a collection of thoughts and feelings, to the point that all else feels quite alien, I guess I should mention pronouns here too, I don't get it, any pronouns are fine because I male such little sense that it doesn't matter.

To be honest I could go on, I do little else but think about these kinds of things and I haven't gotten to how I'm not sure what being human even is or if I should be considered one, but basically I want to know about other people because I'm not even sure what it means to be and maaaany other things.

Honestly if there's one thing I know is that if mind reading was a thing, mind readers would go mad whenever they tried to read my mind.

Reading through your other comments just makes me think that most of your problems comes from your insomnia. I suggest you take some melatonin.

 

[Neuromancer]

Seems logical, but that would mean that one only exists for a tiny fraction of one's lifetime as new memories are formed and old memories get altered in order to suit whatever narrative one subconsciously wants, I know my memories for example always seem to suspiciously fit whatever narrative I have at the moment for myself, which is weird considering I've been many different things.

No, it does not mean that. Every human being goes through changes. To change is not to die. I have been an anarchist since I was 14. My perception of anarchism has changed throughout the years. I used to be a hot-blooded revolutionary. But I've read more, seen more, experienced more. And what I have experienced caused a shift in my disposition. I no longer believe just overthrowing the government would be enough to start something new. I believe for an anarchist revolution to be successful there needs be a shift in values in the general population, and I don't believe that has happened. I remain an anarchist, but my priority has changed towards helping build mutual aid networks and helping people that would not otherwise receive any help, or even persecution.

This does not mean that the hot-blooded revolutionary me died and was replaced by the tempered me. My experiences taking part in anarchist networks themselves lead to a greater understanding, and that understanding lead to a shift in how I see things. Change is a gradual, natural thing, and it happens because as human beings we constantly come into contact with new experiences, and what we gain from those experiences leads to us re-evaluating our older ones. But if you were to ask me, I could tell you why I used to be a revolutionary. I could give you the reasoning and beliefs I held at the time. Your memories are not reshaped, you see them from a different angle. There is a large distinction between the two.

Therefore does that not mean that one is at least partially a work of fiction?

There is no such thing as being "partially" a work of fiction. One is either real or is not.

Does that not mean we're not real?
I mean at least not fully, that being said it could be that the way I experience memories it's not the same as what others do.

You consider us not being real because you believe that we "died" and are replaced by different us when our values change. But keep in mind, regardless of how you remember things, you still experienced them, and experiences change you regardless of how you remember them, and though you may have forgotten details or are remembering details differently, you are still, in essence, the sum of all your experiences. There is no disconnect in experiences. If you will, imagine life to be a river. It is a constant stream. "Thief" K. or "Vigilante" K. are not different rivers, they are different points of an uninterrupted stream. The only way you could claim that the "you" that you were let's say a year ago died and that you are now a different person is if you were to be completely disconnected from your experiences. Like, say, if you were to experience total, irrecoverable loss of memory. But even then, that person was real, and you would notice so because though you would have forgotten your memories, your body still has muscle memory and "remembers" how to do tasks that you would have, in this example, no way of knowing how to do.

 

[stroopwafel]

Like I've mentioned, my experiences are based a lot in my fundamental disconnect from reality, likely from undiagnosed mental illness that I'm currently seeking therapy for, but maybe psychiatric help would be more appropriate, so for me it's fundamentally to center myself as when I dissociate from the body I inhabit I become completely unable to tell if it's hungry, thirsty or in pain, something that when combined with a complete lack of notion of time can be pretty disastrous.

So while Identity may not be relevant to the future I'd argue is relevant to the present, though it depends on the individual.

You might find this video interesting. It address how dissociation is a form of trauma response.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Like I've mentioned, my experiences are based a lot in my fundamental disconnect from reality, likely from undiagnosed mental illness that I'm currently seeking therapy for, but maybe psychiatric help would be more appropriate, so for me it's fundamentally to center myself as when I dissociate from the body I inhabit I become completely unable to tell if it's hungry, thirsty or in pain, something that when combined with a complete lack of notion of time can be pretty disastrous.

So, I know diagnosing people on the internet is an inherently useless and unproductive thing to do, but I wonder if anyone has investigated the possibility that you might have a dissociative disorder. You mentioned having experienced PTSD in the past, but I'm wondering if anyone ever followed up on whether you might have something like complex PTSD, DDNOS or even DID. I mention this because, until recently, dissociative disorders were poorly understood and plagued with misinformation, which means that even now doctors who aren't specialists often don't have much understanding of them and can easily miss them, so it's worth looking into it yourself and maybe seeing if you can get an assessment from a specialist if you feel that the symptoms match your own experience.

I remember watching information videos with a close friend of mine when she was diagnosed with DID, and one of the experts they were talking to made a really interesting point about identity and dissociation. If you imagine someone driving home at the end of a long day, part of them is driving the car, but part of them might also be thinking about what they're going to cook for dinner. The former might be unconscious while the latter is conscious, but both are present at the same time within the same person. We are all "systems" rather than singular individuals, and we all have multiple different registers inside us all the time, which might have different emotions or thoughts. What dissociation does is to break down the communication between our different parts. So a subconscious part of you might feel pain or hunger, but if that part can't communicate with the part that is conscious then you don't necessarily feel it.

You mentioned grounding, and one thing that helps my friend when she is confused or has memory issues is, rather than trying to ground yourself in a particular sense of who you are (which is difficult for anyone), try to remind yourself where you are. Go around the room and identify all the objects around you. In particular, look for things which are familiar and focus on those things.

 

[Kae]

This might not be something you can just talk you way into. Given some of the things you've said in other posts, it sounds, to me at least, that you are suffering from biological/chemical problems, that are causing this lack of sense of self. And just like people who are suffering from mental disorders, thinking that they can be fixed by religious bullshit, I don't think you trying to philosophy yourself into a sense of self, on a video game forum, is the best method of doing it. You need to speak to a professional. I know you said you are scared your family will mock you for "being weak" or whatever. But seriously, if your family acts like that, FUCK THEM. They are not helping you, if they are that confrontational, and anti-supportive to your health, and attempts by you to have them support you, are met with mockery and scorn. Seriously, FUCK THEM. Don't let them shame and bully you into misery in your own head. Seek help, figure out what the problem is, and try and find actual, tangible solutions to it.

I mean I'm not really expecting to solve the problem by way philosophy, I just want to figure out how I truly feel because I'm not entirely sure how I can put that into words, and for example the therapist can probably work better if I actually tell her what I feel rather than continuing to spew cryptic bullshit that's probably much harder to diagnose.

That being said I am considering starting to see a psychiatrist too, but without dropping the psychologist, my wallet's going to be empty though, specially since social security doesn't cover mental illness which is bullshit, but whatever.

But, since you seem obsessed with trying to think this out, let me put it to you from my brainjar perspective. (I'm going with your solipsism concept, mainly just for humor value) There is no tangible reason, from my vat, to have a fictional person, namely you, use up my time and life, to debate on if THEY are just a brainjar. It serves no purpose. It's not torturing me, it's just words on a screen. So the idea that you were made up, in your own state of crisis, to just fuck with me, in my own little brain jar, seems.....highly unlikely, and frankly, a waste of energy from the...whatever it is you think is bothering to brainjar us in the first place. It's a lot of masturbatorial wankery going on, on the part of that entity, for no tangible purpose. So, based on the sheer silliness of 2 brainjars, debating whether they ARE brainjars, in a system, I'm going to say you ARE REAL, and so should you.

I mean sure but what if you're simulation designed with the specific purpose of fooling me into thinking I'm not a simulation, then you're actions make sense.

Joking aside I'm pretty lucid today so I'm not like particularly esoteric today, with most of the existential dread being relegated to my physical form and my fairly confusing relationship to it and my way of thinking, as well as some other stuff, but you know I'm never not having some form of existential doubt, if it wasn't that I'd go back into what makes one good or evil and how we define that, or some other bullshit I haven't thought about yet, I guess it's just my natural state of being.

Get help, get therapy, get medication, and for fuck's sake, get away from your family who are apparently making your situation worse.

It's what I'm trying but help is expensive and also it's really hard to build up the courage to do it, as for my family let;s just say there's a reason I normally only see them for the Holidays which is like 4 days in the whole year, typically at least.

Or, for another direction to think on this. Let's say you aren't real. Well, if not, then why not just reshape your outlook to something that you actually enjoy? I mean what's stopping you? You have full agency in controlling vast aspects of your life, and you can shape a lot of what happens around you, by finding people who help you, support you, and care for you. You can do things that make your day to day life more enjoyable. It's not hard. You just do it. If you want to not feel terrible, find out some of the variables that are making your life worse, and work to change them. Some things will always be out of your control, as they are from outside forces, not you. But you can do a lot yourself, FOR yourself.

Talking to people I don't already know is super hard, talking with people I already know is super hard, if hypothetically I was real and were capable of fixing this just by thought, it's still something that's hard for me to imagine, I've been on my own almost all my existence and I can't really picture something else, honestly it's likely that a lot of these problems stem from isolation, something which BTW was a huge factor last year and also last time something like this happened, so likely not a terrible hypothesis.

Oh, definitely. I'm no nihilist.

Consciousness is the way the universe seeks to learn about itself, and we are manifestations of that. So in that sense, the human instinct for discovery and knowledge, an instinct that is not hampered by merely achieving subsistence, is where I ground my sense of self.

Basically, finding out the value of cool, interesting stuff. An appreciator of the glory of existence, that's kinda the role I identify with.

Existentialism is useful before you reach this stage, and some people who seek a more structured sense of meaning get discouraged so you're right in raising that concern.

So yeah, the aspects are things like curiosity, fascination, gratitude, admiration/awe, passion. Those kinds of more primal things that are cornerstones of all fully human identities, as opposed to the seasoning over the top that is nation and religion and and race and gender, stuff like that which was generated by humans embodying the above stuff.

Interesting so what you're saying is that aspects of one's personality are the only things that are relevant existentially and everything born from the physical or material world is completely irrelevant to one's identity including beliefs and ones own physical characteristics?

Basically if one seeks answers to questions it's relevant but not necessarily the questions they seek to answer isn't necessarily relevant, the problem I have with this outlook though, it's that it could really only work if there was no material existence, if we were for example amorphous being floating through the endless void of the cosmos, which I mean we might be, but assuming that the material world is real and tangible, what you're saying seems a bit like cowardice, basically only uncontroversial statements can ever define you, but anything that draws a bit of controversy can't, ironically those things are the ones that actually have relevancy to ones own material existence and influence how one is treated in the world at large by other people, that's not to say that personality characteristics should be dismissed as an identifier, but you never see someone say they're proud of being curious because no one would oppose that statement as it has little relevancy to how one is treated.

If anything wouldn't you say that it makes more sense to identify yourself as those characteristics that hold relevancy to your own existence?

If you're treated differently for being gay for example, it only makes sense that one would feel more strongly about being gay than passionate for example, or maybe because one is passionate one would identify more strongly as being gay since the individual would be passionate about it, the same could be said of something less controversial like a proffession, like a doctor that's passionate about being a doctor, whether that's because he feels pride in being able to accomplish things others can't or derives satisfaction from being able to help people in need, there are surely many other factors that go into making them who they are but if they feel being a doctor is central to who they are can we really argue that it's not? We could argue that they are a doctor for other reasons such as a desire to help people or raw passion for knowledge that they happened to channel into medicine, but surely we don't know if they would've gotten the same level of fulfillment from and identity from a different proffesion since only they can know that.

But at least that's my take on it, kind off weird considering I'm the one claiming we're incorporeal and possibly non-existent, but then again I am nonesense.

 

[Kae]

Fair enough, although I think I would still suggest getting into philosophy a little given what you've said. Stay away from some of them - what you're describing are issues surprisingly common among certain types of philosopher for sure - but you may find some of those that get into the weeds a little on topics like identity, anxiety, or self might help you coalesce some of your feelings and ground you a bit.

I used to suffer from pretty serious anxiety, completely unmedicated due to social stigmas surrounding mental health care where I grew up, and I found studying Keirkegaard and Kant on anxiety and existentialism, and reading Sartre and Camus argue with eachother about existentialism to be very helpful. None of these guys held an individual answer that made me feel better, (Keirky can get downright depressing at times,and Kants dependence on a higher power was often frustrating), but understanding that people have struggled with and against forces very similar to those that were eating me alive for decades was very helpful. Eventually through the balance of the reading I did I managed to cobble together enough concepts, positions, and outlooks that helped me gain control of myself and my emotions in a way that I had never had before. I'm not some perfect Stoic avatar now or anything, but though understanding I was able to take some control.

I've actually been looking to get into it but I'm unsure where to start, I was going to start with Hegel but the libary I normally go to doesn't exist anymore, I guess I'll have to buy online then.



Any books that you would recommend?

Reading through your other comments just makes me think that most of your problems comes from your insomnia. I suggest you take some melatonin.

It makes them worse, that's for sure, but I seriously doubt it's the source, most likely a symptom, and yeah I've considered getting sleeping pills but I guess I'm just resistant to the idea, since I don't want to be addicted to pills and I've heard they're very addictive.

No, it does not mean that. Every human being goes through changes. To change is not to die. I have been an anarchist since I was 14. My perception of anarchism has changed throughout the years. I used to be a hot-blooded revolutionary. But I've read more, seen more, experienced more. And what I have experienced caused a shift in my disposition. I no longer believe just overthrowing the government would be enough to start something new. I believe for an anarchist revolution to be successful there needs be a shift in values in the general population, and I don't believe that has happened. I remain an anarchist, but my priority has changed towards helping build mutual aid networks and helping people that would not otherwise receive any help, or even persecution.

This does not mean that the hot-blooded revolutionary me died and was replaced by the tempered me. My experiences taking part in anarchist networks themselves lead to a greater understanding, and that understanding lead to a shift in how I see things. Change is a gradual, natural thing, and it happens because as human beings we constantly come into contact with new experiences, and what we gain from those experiences leads to us re-evaluating our older ones. But if you were to ask me, I could tell you why I used to be a revolutionary. I could give you the reasoning and beliefs I held at the time. Your memories are not reshaped, you see them from a different angle. There is a large distinction between the two.

That makes sense I guess the core mistake I made was claiming that I meant all of us in general, I guess I more meant me, as in the way I experience memories, while there's certainly some of what you mention going on, it's notoriously convenient that some memories I had never recalled suddenly come to me and some others start having parts of the story completely changed but somehow I can still vaguely recall the other version as if to let me know that obviously one of them is fake, and if one fake memory exists who knows how many more of them are fake, this doesn't help when I've spent most of my life alone and a lot of them have no witness other than myself, so it's hard to know which ones are real.

There is no such thing as being "partially" a work of fiction. One is either real or is not.

Well some of me at least is definitely not real, or I guess who I am is informed by both reality and dellusion, whether that's just dreams that in my mind have been confused for reality or hallucinations, I don't know, but surely all of it can't be real especially when conflicting information exists.

You consider us not being real because you believe that we "died" and are replaced by different us when our values change. But keep in mind, regardless of how you remember things, you still experienced them, and experiences change you regardless of how you remember them, and though you may have forgotten details or are remembering details differently, you are still, in essence, the sum of all your experiences. There is no disconnect in experiences. If you will, imagine life to be a river. It is a constant stream. "Thief" K. or "Vigilante" K. are not different rivers, they are different points of an uninterrupted stream. The only way you could claim that the "you" that you were let's say a year ago died and that you are now a different person is if you were to be completely disconnected from your experiences. Like, say, if you were to experience total, irrecoverable loss of memory. But even then, that person was real, and you would notice so because though you would have forgotten your memories, your body still has muscle memory and "remembers" how to do tasks that you would have, in this example, no way of knowing how to do.

I have expressed that sentiment in the past, I'll admit that it's partly a way to rationalise why I don't want to take meds and why I keep postponing getting help though, but yes, I do feel that, as you explain it while there is some level of progression between my different states of existence there's such a huge philosophical variance between them and whatever I am now that I'd struggle to call it completely coherent, not to mention that the incident that triggered the change from one to another has a possibility of being false, hence, even if I'm real, it's likely some of my memories are false and therefore my personality isn't informed by reality.


Let's take on one difference between when I was a thief and when I was "vigilante", so when I was a thief (Which was until I was like 15) I was painfully aware of my physical characteristics, I was aware I was short (1.36 m, at 15 not even joking), thin and weak and very much aware I was girly looking considering I pretended to be a girl to get out of trouble a few times, but I would try to avoid physical confrontation because I knew I would always lose in a straight up fight, so I would try to avoid them, though my massive ego didn't allow me to back down, and I remember losing like all the fights, you could say I was able to perceive reality and use it to my advantage like normal people do, to a degree of course since I was completely delusional and saw people as nothing but tools for my amusement or obstacles and couldn't care about them since they were lesser beings, because of course, I've never not been delusional after all.

But in contrast when I was a "vigilante", keeping it mind that was roughly when I was 18 and that I was still a fucking twig because even now I'm still a fucking twig and while I did get much taller slowly since I ended up being like 1.78 m tall, but somehow I felt invincible, like absolutely nothing could defeat me or kill me, so I didn't really give a fuck and would just roam the street at night with a fucking baseball bat, wearing a ridiculous outfit of massive military style boots, black leather trousers, an untucked slim fitting shirt with like a shit-load of pockets, a black trench-coat and a red scarf with a black star pattern to cover my face, damn I cringe just thinking about it (Who am I kidding I totally would still wear that), not only that but somehow I thought I was very intimidating, just because I saw my size as massive (To be fair I was tiny most of life until then, so I was huge in comparison at least) and since my face is also scarred over the left eye I thought I was super scary, but let's face it I wasn't, but I could feel it people getting scared of me in the street, like seriously I've found old posts of me complaining over how scary I legitimately thought I was, even though I was never scary, my life was fiction nothing but a delusion, I know what I felt and saw and it was wrong, it wasn't reality, does that not make at least part of myself not real at all?

It's like I have to pay extra attention because my own senses could be lying to me.

You might find this video interesting. It address how dissociation is a form of trauma response.

Interesting enough, I do have to say that it's clear that I'm already at the stage when I'm spending time with my "self", as I guess should be indicative from me finally seeking psychological help and recognising that my memories make no sense at all, not to mention that I actually spend most of time staring blankly into space contemplating what it even means to exist, which to be honest hasn't worked out super well for me other than to convince me that I'm probably insane.

 

[Kae]

So, I know diagnosing people on the internet is an inherently useless and unproductive thing to do, but I wonder if anyone has investigated the possibility that you might have a dissociative disorder. You mentioned having experienced PTSD in the past, but I'm wondering if anyone ever followed up on whether you might have something like complex PTSD, DDNOS or even DID. I mention this because, until recently, dissociative disorders were poorly understood and plagued with misinformation, which means that even now doctors who aren't specialists often don't have much understanding of them and can easily miss them, so it's worth looking into it yourself and maybe seeing if you can get an assessment from a specialist if you feel that the symptoms match your own experience.

Could be plausible, really that's the reason I started going to the psychologist, trying to find out what the hell this is, since it clearly is something, but yeah I used to be unable to touch people without panicking, which would either reflect by me violently pushing them away or just freezing in terror and trembling, like even handshakes were hard for me to do but hugs were the worst, I still don't like them they make me feel awkward but they're not scary at all anymore, I find this curious because at the time I had completely blocked the memory of why I was like that and all I knew was that it terrified and I didn't know why, I kinda got over that on my own because i'm too stupid to ask for help most of the time, but that was a journey, a really bad one, also it's not really something I like to talk about, pretty sure I started being more open about that until last year, but I have implied it several times.

I remember watching information videos with a close friend of mine when she was diagnosed with DID, and one of the experts they were talking to made a really interesting point about identity and dissociation. If you imagine someone driving home at the end of a long day, part of them is driving the car, but part of them might also be thinking about what they're going to cook for dinner. The former might be unconscious while the latter is conscious, but both are present at the same time within the same person. We are all "systems" rather than singular individuals, and we all have multiple different registers inside us all the time, which might have different emotions or thoughts. What dissociation does is to break down the communication between our different parts. So a subconscious part of you might feel pain or hunger, but if that part can't communicate with the part that is conscious then you don't necessarily feel it.

I personally don't watch videos about that because I'll probably end up misdiagnosing myself and that's not really helpful, like for example last month I read a book in which the main character had a lot of similar experiences to how I perceive reality and memories in particular and in the after-word of the book it said it was based on the author's experiences with psychosis, which has left me wondering if maybe I'm psychotic, which again isn't really helpful towards anyone, as it runs the risk that I might not trust the doctors if they give me a diagnosis that doesn't match my own, that doesn't sound like something I would do but I'm not sure I know what I would do, but regarding the other thing, yeah, I guess that makes sense most of it is confusing because I've always been like this it's just that the level of intensity varies depending on which stage of my life I was at, my life has been shit though, there's no shortage of possibly traumatic experiences so it'd be hard to know what the cause is.

You mentioned grounding, and one thing that helps my friend when she is confused or has memory issues is, rather than trying to ground yourself in a particular sense of who you are (which is difficult for anyone), try to remind yourself where you are. Go around the room and identify all the objects around you. In particular, look for things which are familiar and focus on those things.

I mean that could theoretically work, I'll try it, next time, I mean if I'm conscious enough to remember.

 

[EvilRoy]

I've actually been looking to get into it but I'm unsure where to start, I was going to start with Hegel but the libary I normally go to doesn't exist anymore, I guess I'll have to buy online then.



Any books that you would recommend?

I'll start by plugging a podcast that I like. Philosophize This by Stephen West is a really good resource for getting introduced to different philosophers. He tells you who they were, what they were about and what was happening around them in their lives to give you more context as to their writings. He also links up philosophers in terms of their ideas, so you can go from reading one guy on how the universe is constructed, and then read another guy who completely disagreed to help widen your perspective. Without hesitation I'll tell you that I use this guy to really inform my reading choices and introduce me to new philosophers. I'm not a philosophy major, and I have limited discretionary time, so I'm not going to just pick up an essay at random and study it for a week. I find out about philosophers through the podcast, then I read the works, then I read cliff notes on them to help me understand - I am by no means an expert.

Hegel wouldn't be a bad starting point for you judging by what you've talked about earlier in the thread, but his writing is fairly dense and it can be a bit of a chore to get through. Honestly I haven't dug too far into him myself just based on that alone. His Phenomenology of Spirit is a work that might be interesting to you, since I think that's where he talks about identity as a philosophical concept.

Another beginning point could be Sartre and Camus. These two started under similar philosophical views but ended up diverging pretty significantly toward the end of their lives, and wrote responses to the others essays. There are a couple notes I'll throw in here though, just to address some common criticisms of their writings.

The first, you'll hear the word derivative thrown around a lot. These guys don't get into the weeds as much as some others do, and they clearly draw from earlier philosophers in developing their own works. That isn't really a bad thing to my mind - everybody has to start somewhere and throwing someone directly into Leibniz attempting to re-derive the universe is unnecessarily cruel unless he specifically spoke on a topic you're already interested in. The second is their unpleasant friendship-breakup. This doesn't make either of them not worth reading, and part of the reason I suggest them is that you can read the Myth of Sisyphus and then you can read Sartre's review of it. You get opposing views written in the same era to help explore the ideas presented without the automatic distance created by one philosopher writing an essay on anothers work from 200 years prior.

I suggest The Myth by Camus, a work on the concept of the Absurd and the apparent meaninglessness of existence, and Nausea by Sartre, a work on the concepts of existence and essence - basically the "thing" that you see, and the "labels" (colour, size, use, shape) you then apply to it. If you purchase a compendium of essays then you'll probably get the responses included - often Camus and Sartre are considered a unit thanks to their punchup and you can get collections of both together.

Another option is Nietzsche, also with caveats. The first is that if you see anything about Nazi supremacy beliefs then you have accidentally stumbled upon bullshit. All that came from his dear Sister intentionally re-interpreting and adjusting his works to align with her political views. After he died. Very cool of her. The second is that tone is super important when you're dealing with him. There's this common misunderstanding that "God is Dead" was celebratory. That's not accurate - he was basically saying that the time where we could blame god for humans being the way they are is now over; people are people and we have no one to blame but ourselves. That's a simplification, but its kind of important to know that he was really subtle in expressing views at times and he loved using irony, so the first literal read of a statement won't necessarily reflect what he was getting at.

My suggestion here is Thus Spoke Zarathusra. Its easily his most famous work but, probably more importantly for we who took degrees in things that aren't pure philosophy, its written as kind of a morality tale where the main character, Z, acts as a kind of stand-in for Nietzsche and espouses his views and ideas as he roams around the world meeting people. Its just a lot more digestible than a pure philosophical essay. More or less the book is about humanity growing up and evolving in a philosophical sense, leaving behind concepts like pure good and evil. That's a simplification, again, and honestly I'm currently working on it so it's tough for me to give a good synopsis.

Oh and a final note - if you're ok with digital copies a lot of these guys fall under public domain because they have no estate or copywrite owner, so you can read online if you prefer to avoid the price of a book.