First of all: let me apologize for any mistakes I made in grammar or style (English is not my first language).
The traditional atheistic worldview regarding personal identity:
YOU are a distinct person. There might be some (unknown) unique property that constitutes YOU and clearly distinguishes YOU from other people (a mortal "soul"). Either that, or there is a (unknown) threshold in the amount of changes that can be applied to your brain-wiring from one moment to another before you stop existing as a person. Meaning: if your personality/memories were changed enough from one moment to another (e.g. by some outside event), you would simply cease to exist. Your "existence" is now in the same state as it was before you were born and so is your perceived self. Naturally the same happens when you die.
In any case, there is a clear distinction of the subjective personalities between each of the 7 billion humans on earth.
I think this sums up the worldview of most atheists pretty well (Daniel Kolak calls it closed individualism). This was also my personal view until a few years ago, but the more I thought about it the more I came to the conclusion that it is fundamentally flawed. It cannot even explain why we perceive ourselves to be the same person we were 5 years ago without invoking the "soul" concept (contradicting materialism) or something similar, like some equally mysterious "continuity". And of course it gets into serious trouble when it comes to any of the infamous thought experiments involving transporters or twins.
Now to those explanations of self that I consider much more likely:
There is no qualitative difference between the subjective persons of you, me, any other human or even the chimpanzee in the zoo down the street. Only our memories and mindsets discriminate us from each other. No sharp boundaries between persons, no threshold, no continuity issues. Because of that, in a certain sense "you" are (and "I" am) all conscious beings that live, have ever lived or will ever live in all universes that allow for consciousness (but each one with its distinctive memories and personality). This is open individualism in Kolak's terms. It easily explains why you perceive yourself to be the same person that you were 5 years ago: because "you" are all persons in existence anyway (and have always been from the get-go). For the same reason it can cope with the thought experiments mentioned above.
Another way to look at it is empty individualism (no-self theory): the self does not exist at all, it's just an illusion created by the brain. As I understand it though, open and empty individualism are just different but equally valid views on the same model. The consequences regarding perception of self are equivalent. The crucial point shared by both is the lack of a qualitative difference between persons.
None of those thoughts are new, of course. It is a pretty obvious solution to the identity problem - once you get rid of religion and the soul concept. It's simple enough that most people who think a lot about the topic should come to this by themselves at some point (so did I). This is what worries me a little: why do most atheists cling to the traditional view?
Isn't open/empty individualism THE truly materialistic perspective? IMHO it is more conclusive and simpler (though counter-intuitive) than closed individualism and therefore is clearly favoured by Occam's Razor as the default view.
So why does it seem that this worldview is hardly discussed outside of philosophical circles? Is it because debates about identity and existence are so centered on the religion vs. atheism issue? Or is it because the consequences would be so outrageous (subjective immortality for every conscious being by default if the universe is extremely big or infinite or if there is a big enough or infinite multiverse)? Or am I missing something important and there is substantial evidence against it?
The traditional atheistic worldview regarding personal identity:
YOU are a distinct person. There might be some (unknown) unique property that constitutes YOU and clearly distinguishes YOU from other people (a mortal "soul"). Either that, or there is a (unknown) threshold in the amount of changes that can be applied to your brain-wiring from one moment to another before you stop existing as a person. Meaning: if your personality/memories were changed enough from one moment to another (e.g. by some outside event), you would simply cease to exist. Your "existence" is now in the same state as it was before you were born and so is your perceived self. Naturally the same happens when you die.
In any case, there is a clear distinction of the subjective personalities between each of the 7 billion humans on earth.
I think this sums up the worldview of most atheists pretty well (Daniel Kolak calls it closed individualism). This was also my personal view until a few years ago, but the more I thought about it the more I came to the conclusion that it is fundamentally flawed. It cannot even explain why we perceive ourselves to be the same person we were 5 years ago without invoking the "soul" concept (contradicting materialism) or something similar, like some equally mysterious "continuity". And of course it gets into serious trouble when it comes to any of the infamous thought experiments involving transporters or twins.
Now to those explanations of self that I consider much more likely:
There is no qualitative difference between the subjective persons of you, me, any other human or even the chimpanzee in the zoo down the street. Only our memories and mindsets discriminate us from each other. No sharp boundaries between persons, no threshold, no continuity issues. Because of that, in a certain sense "you" are (and "I" am) all conscious beings that live, have ever lived or will ever live in all universes that allow for consciousness (but each one with its distinctive memories and personality). This is open individualism in Kolak's terms. It easily explains why you perceive yourself to be the same person that you were 5 years ago: because "you" are all persons in existence anyway (and have always been from the get-go). For the same reason it can cope with the thought experiments mentioned above.
Another way to look at it is empty individualism (no-self theory): the self does not exist at all, it's just an illusion created by the brain. As I understand it though, open and empty individualism are just different but equally valid views on the same model. The consequences regarding perception of self are equivalent. The crucial point shared by both is the lack of a qualitative difference between persons.
None of those thoughts are new, of course. It is a pretty obvious solution to the identity problem - once you get rid of religion and the soul concept. It's simple enough that most people who think a lot about the topic should come to this by themselves at some point (so did I). This is what worries me a little: why do most atheists cling to the traditional view?
Isn't open/empty individualism THE truly materialistic perspective? IMHO it is more conclusive and simpler (though counter-intuitive) than closed individualism and therefore is clearly favoured by Occam's Razor as the default view.
So why does it seem that this worldview is hardly discussed outside of philosophical circles? Is it because debates about identity and existence are so centered on the religion vs. atheism issue? Or is it because the consequences would be so outrageous (subjective immortality for every conscious being by default if the universe is extremely big or infinite or if there is a big enough or infinite multiverse)? Or am I missing something important and there is substantial evidence against it?
