Are You the Same Person as You Were Yesterday?

North Cali Sammy

North Cali Sammy

Registered Senior Member
We are perfectly imperfect, flawed humans from the start. I believe we change as life's experiences wash over us over time. I cannot say I am the same person of 20 years ago.

Does age make us wiser and better people? Or do we grow thorns?
 
North Cali Sammy said:
We are perfectly imperfect, flawed humans from the start. I believe we change as life's experiences wash over us over time. I cannot say I am the same person of 20 years ago.

Does age make us wiser and better people? Or do we grow thorns?
Click to expand...
I'd go along with both. Two kids joined the company recently and that gave me a nice change of perspective. Seeing, young perspective, energy, optimism and passion. Great!
I respect my instincts and experience but it is nice to be open to new ideas too.
I hope I can stay open to that.
 
North Cali Sammy said:
We are perfectly imperfect, flawed humans from the start. I believe we change as life's experiences wash over us over time. I cannot say I am the same person of 20 years ago.

Does age make us wiser and better people? Or do we grow thorns?
Click to expand...
I feel that we (well I) are biased to feel that we have a core identity that somehow navigates through life's changing circumstances.

I am trying to understand that the interface between this identity and its environment is a much more grey area fundamentally and it is the environment that is responsible for the feeling (and being) of who we are as an individual.

Age ,insofar as it is a development process should improve our understandings and actions but ,of course it brings its own limitations such as inflexibility (which is a curse at any age)

It is strange how this feeling of being the same person as that from many years ago persists when the actually link back to those times is gosamer thin.
 
geordief said:
It is strange how this feeling of being the same person as that from many years ago persists when the actually link back to those times is gosamer thin.
Click to expand...
How memories are made, recalled and modified is a complicated business. I think I've posted on it on SF
 
Pinball1970 said:
How memories are made, recalled and modified is a complicated business. I think I've posted on it on SF
Click to expand...
When it comes to identity is a false (degraded) memory as real as an "accurate" one?

When I was very young I had the idea that I had been "parachuted" from another existence (a bit like Bowie's presentation) and had a history of running/wandering away from home.

I was watching Scorcese's ''Back Home" film (for the first time as a whole) and it was interesting how Dylan seemed to draw a clean slate ,when he left his home town as if he was a completely different person with no attachment to that past(Think it was in response to why he changed his name-some suggested it was because it was a Jewish name )
 
geordief said:
When it comes to identity is a false (degraded) memory as real as an "accurate" one?
Click to expand...
I don't know how identity and memories are compartmentalized. I have bits and pieces on it and just the memory part is really complicated.
There was a study on students regarding their memory of 911. Crazy results.
 
Pinball1970 said:
I don't know how identity and memories are compartmentalized. I have bits and pieces on it and just the memory part is really complicated.
There was a study on students regarding their memory of 911. Crazy results.
Click to expand...
Does the fact that we have an impression that we exist (as opposed to not existing) when allied to having had that same impression all those years ago count as a memory that has not degraded insofar as the impression is so unqualified?

(it is there but cannot be described in any way -in fact it is so undescribable as to make one wonder if it really exists at all but for its persistence)
 
geordief said:
Does the fact that we have an impression that we exist (as opposed to not existing) when allied to having had that same impression all those years ago count as a memory that has not degraded insofar as the impression is so unqualified?

(it is there but cannot be described in any way -in fact it is so undescribable as to make one wonder if it really exists at all but for its persistence)
Click to expand...
We have other people to tell us who we are, if we have changed. Our personality is so called "hard wired" but years and experience can modify it.
Our memories change because the machinery reading them changes as does the storage machinery.
 
Pinball1970 said:
e have other people to tell us who we are, if we have changed
Click to expand...
You think it is possible to have an idea how other people really are (rather than how they behave)?**


Is everyone the same "behind" the different personalities and needs.?

Or is that "same thing" like the grin of the Cheshire Cat-only inferred but actually inexistent when push comes to shove.

**is that allied to the nature vs nurture debate?
 
geordief said:
You think it is possible to have an idea how other people really are (rather than how they behave)?**
Click to expand...
Ask your wife, mother, son, sister. We pick up on things, when someone is out of sorts.
You ever met an old pal you have not seen for years? "You've not changed?"
 
Pinball1970 said:
Ask your wife, mother, son, sister. We pick up on things, when someone is out of sorts.
You ever met an old pal you have not seen for years? "You've not changed?"
Click to expand...
Yes I can see when someone is diminished (frightening) and I can sense it in myself.

I get the feeling that these questions are unproductive in a sense and we all just have to accept that things are as they are ,that we will never fully understand them and it is a low grade kind of madness to think that we can.

Still ,perhaps they act as a kind of counterbalance to the hybris that fools us into thinking that we can attain satisfaction by over manipulating the material world around us.

eg?
"You’ve been fooled into thinking
That the finishin’ end is at hand"

To Ramona | The Official Bob Dylan Site

www.bobdylan.com www.bobdylan.com
 
geordief said:
Is there a level where those two components fuse?
Click to expand...
I don't know. If you would have asked me as a kid I would have said nature first and foremost.
It is much more nuanced than that.
However I would take Richard Feynman's brain genetics over mine any day!
The brain is not my forte, I only know about the studies on memory because of Bart Ehrman.
He researched oral traditions in the ancient world.
The reading I have done on memory surprised me, how malleable they are.
What is my recollection of the past and how accurate is it?
 
Hope I’m not off topic…
When at Secondary school (UK) back in the day, I wanted nothing but out of the place.
Yet now, I watched a drone video (YouTube) flying over and around my old school for the purpose of showing off the solar panels to the kids. For some reason I had a lump in my throat and watery eyes.
I must have changed somehow??
 
geordief said:
Does the fact that we have an impression that we exist (as opposed to not existing) when allied to having had that same impression all those years ago count as a memory that has not degraded insofar as the impression is so unqualified?

(it is there but cannot be described in any way -in fact it is so undescribable as to make one wonder if it really exists at all but for its persistence)
Click to expand...
Qualia.

The feeling of a headache pain is one.
Consciousness itself is another.


Another interesting one to explore is the colour blue. Is what I see as blue the same as what you see as blue?
 
foghorn said:
Hope I’m not off topic…
When at Secondary school (UK) back in the day, I wanted nothing but out of the place.
Yet now, I watched a drone video (YouTube) flying over and around my old school for the purpose of showing off the solar panels to the kids. For some reason I had a lump in my throat and watery eyes.
I must have changed somehow??
Click to expand...
Good example
Not only what we remember changes but how we feel about what we remember can change.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top