Identity

I am who I am and always have been, at least since my birth, and always will be, at

least until my death. I will always be who I am; how could I not be? I mean, who else

could I be?

If I were not me, then either I would not be at all, bummer, or I’d be someone else. If I

didn’t exist at all, oh well; but if I were someone else then that someone else would be

who I am. So, any way you slice it, I am who I am. No matter what I am, I am always

myself. Sum, ergo ipse sum.

I never change no matter how much my circumstances (e.g. age, health, experience)

may change. Gertrude Stein was perhaps the first modern thinker to point out that we do not undergo metamorphoses of any kind. As she explained it, “We are always to ourselves young men and young women.” Our conception of ourselves never changes, never varies; who I am to myself is always the same.

So I am who I am, but what about U? Presumably, U R who U R. I am I, U R U, but

why? Why am I, I? And why are U, U? Why am I not U? Well, suppose I were U and U

were I. What would be different? Something? Everything? Or nothing?

Answer: nothing! Nothing would be any different than it is now. In fact, it would not be

possible to distinguish in any way between a world in which I am U and U R I and a

world in which I am I and U R U.

The two states-of-affairs would be identical because nothing would have changed. In

either case, I would be I and U would be U. I would know then what U know now, and U would know what I now know, but neither of us would know what the other one knows. Each of us would still know only what each of us knows. I would know that I am I and not U and that U are U and not I, just as I do now. U would know the same.

So, R U U or R U I? Am I, I or am I U? Obviously, these questions make no sense now.

Wittgenstein would label the underlying propositions ‘meaningless’. They appear to be

meaningful English sentences, but they are not. They are well formed pseudo-

propositions, but they are nonsensical. We live in an Edward Lear world.

So if nothing changes, if nothing is any different, if there is no way to distinguish ‘I am I’ from ‘I am U’ or ‘U R U’, then do we have one state-of-affairs or two? Answer: one! It is a fundamental principle of metaphysics that no two things can be identical because identical is identity. Two pseudo-things turn out to be one actual thing.

Equality is not identity. We say A = B when A is not B but where A and B share

something in common (e.g. quantity). Quantity is abstracted from concrete things. I

have a pair of shoes; you have a pair of song birds. We can abstract quantity and, when we do, we find that the shoes and the birds are equal…but not identical; shoes do not

sing!

If U and I can be swapped freely and without consequence, then is it not the case that I and U are identical, i.e. one and the same? If two ordered pairs (a,b) and (b,a) are identical then a must be b, not in an abstract quantitative sense but in a concrete existential sense.

It is possible that the first thing a baby learns after birth is the distinction between me

and not-me and then secondarily the difference between me and U. Is it possible this

bedrock distinction that forms the basis of a lifetime of cognition is utterly false?

You bet it is! Talk about your original sin. Everything we think we know is an elaboration of a totally false premise; Everything we imagine we know is an elaboration of that premise By this account, knowledge is a ‘negative quantity’ with zero as its upper limit.

If U and I are indistinguishable and therefore interchangeable, it doesn’t make any

sense to speak of ‘U’ or ‘I’ in the first place, does it? But how so?

“Indistinguishable” – I’m a short, fat senior age male, you’re a tall, slim, 20 something

female; how can we be indistinguishable? Because either way, the world is left with one old man and one young woman, and because U have the exact same relationship to what U R (young and…) as I have to what I am (old and…).

“Interchangeable” – if U and I are indistinguishable in what sense is one of us different

from the other? Answer: in no sense! So why distinguish between us? It is a distinction

without a difference, so we are interchangeable.

This is not a new epiphany. A guy named Jesus said much the same thing 2000 years

ago: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and he was quoting Leviticus, one of the five

books of the Old Testament attributed to Moses himself (aka, the Torah). Not like yourself: U = I; as yourself: U R I and I am U and ‘that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know’ (Keats).

Four 20th century prophets (John, Paul, George & Ringo) expressed the idea even more directly: “I am he as you are he and you are me and we are all together” (I am the Walrus). I and U and he are indistinguishable.

So, ‘shake me up, Sally’, it won’t matter; nothing will change. Everything will be exactly

the same, identical to how things are now. Nothing would have changed. I would still be I and U would still be U.

I would know then what U know now, and U would know what I now know, but neither of us would know what the other one knows or what we’d know if our identities were swapped. Each of us would still know only what each of us knows. I would know that I am I, and not U, and U would know that U are U, and not I. Ultimately, we would both know the same thing (I am I) but we would each know it individually. Common known,

uncommon knowing!

So, R U U, or R U I? Am I, I…or am I, U? Obviously, these questions make no sense

now. Wittgenstein would label the underlying propositions ‘meaningless’. They are well formed pseudo-propositions; they look like English sentences but in fact they are non-sensical.

I am who I am, always and forever, never changing. Likewise U R who U R. Since we

are indistinguishable and interchangeable (above), I am who U R and you who I am.

Our identities are identical.

On the other hand, what I am changes continuously over my lifetime as does what U R. Further, what I am and what U R never intersect. No part of what I am is ever part of what U R. We may share some phenomenal qualities, but common qualities do not constitute identity. Shoes are not song birds.

We imagine we live in a world where permanence and change exist dialectically in

perpetual flux. We don’t live in such a world. In our world there is but a single ‘I’,

manifested identically in uncountably many unique contexts. No context ever repeats.

Who I am or who U R never changes; who I am is who U R. On the other hand, what I

am varies continuously. What I am never duplicates what I was or what I will be. Nor

does it ever duplicate what U R, were or ever will be. What I am is perpetually novel and always unique.

To be is to be once and only once but to be is to be (not to not be). Being is not something that can be taken away from something that is. U R or U R not. Schoedinger notwithstanding, there is no in between,  there is no superposition, there is no becoming, there is no perishing.  Since the Enlightenment, our doctors of philosophy have been proud: they debunked the Scholastics’ ontological proofs for the existence of God by showing that Being is not a Quality. Exactly! Accept the implications of your own triumph: what is not can never be and what is can never not. That’s the world we live in…now if only we could get used to living here.

Perhaps Aletheia Today can help. Stay tuned for future articles that will elaborate on the wide and crucial implications of this one realization.

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Image: Frida Kahlo’s The Two Fridas (1939) portrays two versions of herself seated side by side, connected by a single exposed artery that joins their hearts. One Frida, dressed in European-style clothing, represents her broken, rejected self after divorce; the other, in traditional Tehuana dress, symbolizes strength and cultural pride. The dual figures reflect her inner conflict between vulnerability and resilience, as well as the evolving complexity of her identity.