38. Open Individualism as defined by Daniel Kolak in I Am You
claims that personal identity is always
the same for every conscious being. The conclusion is the same when
we consider that personal identity is
illusory and the subjectivity phenomenon is an uncountable phenomenon, even
if this phenomenon is happening contemporaneously in many separate individuals.
From the critiques of the concept of identity it follows that each occurrence should not be
considered to have a different identity, because each occurrence has no
well-defined identity. Consider also that
different time slices in the life of an individual can be equally regarded as
different occurrences of the subjectivity phenomenon. This may help us to
realize that it is not necessary to introduce differences in identity between
many occurrences of this phenomenon.
39. The main
obstacle to embracing Open Individualism is that
this view requires a new conception of time. In the last century, physics
has already revised the concept of time, and so too in philosophy we have to get
rid of the concept of absolute time, providing a reasonable proposal that can
explain all the phenomena we consider.
40. Open
Individualism requires the conception of
a subjective time bounded to each occurrence of the subjectivity phenomenon,
and an external space-time that must
be thought of as the container of all the stories that ever occur in the world.
41. Note: Even
though this is far from my area of competence, I just want to remark that the
existence of a subjective time bounded to each active brain has some scientific
grounding. In regard to the brain, many authors advocate
a quantum physics role in the brain/consciousness relation. For example,
David Pearce suggests that it may be
based on entanglement phenomenon (read about non-materialist physicalism at
http://www.physicalism.com/
. In regard to time, some experiments show how
time can result from becoming entangled
with an existing entangled system (see the article at
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/quantum-experiment-shows-how-time-emerges-from-entanglement-d5d3dc850933
, where a link to the original paper is provided).
42. A good
model for this external space-time is the eternalist framework proposed by
Julian Barbour in his book
The End of Time, published by Oxford
University Press in 1999. Briefly, his model considers the whole set of all the
actual and possible world configurations that exist statically; time is not
something that flows. External time must be regarded as the property
that allows to sort chronologically two states of the world, when comparing the one with the other.
43. The mind,
or the subjectivity phenomenon, appears where some special parts of the world
(specifically, the time slices of a brain) can form a sequence of states that
the subjectivity function transforms into a succession of mind states,
originating the corresponding mind (or
the occurrence of a subjectivity phenomenon) together with the subjective time
that the mind perceives as flowing. The fact that each occurrence of this
phenomenon involves its own subjective time frees the model from the need to
assign a different identity to each occurrence.
44. We may
imagine two successions of brain states in two nearby space-time regions. These
successions are both transformed by the subjectivity function into two
successions of mind states, each of them originating the corresponding
subjective times of the subjectivity phenomenon. In the eternalist framework, it
does not matter if these two events are experienced as simultaneous
by some observer or not. There is no
meaning in saying that one subjective time is created before or after the other,
nor that they do or do not flow at the same time.
We cannot sort the subjective times into
an external time that flows over the eternalist framework. External time may
be helpful to assign the date of birth of two individuals, but it is useless if
we want to know if the subjective function has been applied to one succession of
brain states before or after the other. Indeed, each of these applications
generate their own subjective times, which cannot be sorted along a longer
subjective time. This is what we need to regard the Open Individualism View as
viable, because it frees the model from the need to assign a separate identity
to each subjectivity phenomenon, and the need to find something that allows us to
distinguish each of its occurrences interacting in near space-time regions.
Because we do not need to assign any
identity to the subjectivity phenomenon,
the identity concept can be dismissed as illusory even when it is applied to
persons.
45. When a
functioning brain splits into two (or more) functioning brains,
the subjective time related to the
subjectivity phenomenon splits into multiple branches, allowing the subjectivity
phenomenon to indifferently follow all the paths. The same occurs when two
(or more) functioning brains are melded into one bigger functioning brain. In
this case, multiple subjective times
converge to a single subjective time for awhile, and then the single
subjective time splits again into multiple paths. We do not have to question
“who” follows one path or the other: the subject that follows all the paths is always the same subjectivity
phenomenon. We do not have to question whether this phenomenon occurs in one
path “before” or “after” the other; in the eternalist framework you may figure
them to be coexisting paths.
46. Eternalism
may appear to be a theory that requires determinism, because it makes the
universe appear to be static. But it is
possible to complicate the model by considering all the possible theoretical
states of the universe, and all the possible ways to sort them according to
physical laws. The model proposed by Julian Barbour does this. This corresponds
to considering all the possible universes of the Everett interpretation of
quantum physics, where the collapse of the wave function is actually a selection
of one of the simultaneously existing branches of a greater multiverse. We may
also suppose that the subjectivity
phenomenon can split into all of the branches, generating a respective
number of subjective times.
47. Moreover,
it is possible that states of the world
that are different at one point in time may converge to being in the same state
at a later point in time. This is what happens in phenomena such as the
quantum eraser experiment. It is also possible that
some of the future states of the world may coincide with some of the past states,
so that the sorting of two physical
states is not absolutely univocal, despite the fact that the arrow of time
results almost certainly from probabilistic considerations. Notwithstanding
this, what we perceive subjectively is
always a single subjective time, even if it coexists together with a bunch
of alternative subjective times joining and splitting at every moment.
48. This view
transforms the linear world of a deterministic universe into a labyrinth where
the paths of all the possible multiverses continuously intersect with each
other, making our current life just a
variation of all the possible alternate lives that we could experience if we
had behaved differently some time in the past. This view
leaves an open door to the possibility of
free will, as we will see in more details in one of the conclusory notes.
49. At first
sight, Open Individualism may seem to
intrinsically deny the possibility of free will, because if I accept that in
some way I will find myself living in the first person the life of any
individual who is interacting with me in this moment, I am inclined to believe
that then I will be constrained to act
exactly as I currently see the other is acting now. If we are in dialogue
right now, we are deciding freely the future of our dialogue, but if I imagine
finding myself replicating this same dialogue as you, I necessarily will be
forced to speak the same words that you are currently saying.
This error derives from ignoring the fact
that external time is not flowing. Only our subjective times are flowing
through the common eternalist framework. So, when I find myself experiencing our
same dialogue as you, it will be not “another time”, it will always be the very
same time that I will influence with the same freshness and feeling of
flexibility I am currently experiencing. You may grasp what is occurring
according to Open Individualism, thinking in terms of the temporary split-brain
experiment. In that case, it is easier to imagine that each half-mind can
express a genuine free will, though they are separated experiences of the
subjectivity phenomenon. The two subjective times of the two half-minds are both
part of your subjective time that flows before the splitting and again after the
rejoining, but you cannot say whether you experienced the left half-mind
before or
after the right half-mind.
Events can be ordered in the external
time that does not flow, but subjective times and the subjective experiences of
two separate lives cannot be ordered in the same way using external time.
50. For the
same reason, it is impossible to say
whether I will find myself living your life before or after my current life.
Despite our need to sort every event in time, the question “what will my next
life be?” has no answer. A life can be seen as a complete sequence of brain
states that is suitable for being processed by the subjectivity function,
ordered from the first to the last according the external time of the eternalist
framework. If this sequence has no other singular points (splitting or joining
points), the subjectivity phenomenon and the subjective time may flow straight
until the last of the sequence. But after death there are no subjective times that may bring the subjectivity
phenomenon to another starting point. We always find ourselves only at some
point of some subjective time.
51. Derek
Parfit calls questions that cannot be answered, even if we have all the physical
information related to them, “empty
questions”. This can be applied to
the problem of the sequence of the lives experienced by the subjectivity
phenomenon. The problem with the sequence of lives may mislead us into thinking
that the subjectivity phenomenon is like a phantom that goes back and forth in
time between one life and the next. Actually, you may grasp a less-naive
representation, thinking again about the problem of the temporary split-brain
experiment. The same empty question
concept can also be applied in this case: once the two hemispheres are
joined together, the questions “Was I the left-hemisphere originated mind? Was I
the right hemisphere originated mind? Was I both? Did I experience being the
left part before or
after having experienced being the
right part?” are empty. You may see that
the question about how we should sort these subjective times has no answer,
that there does not exist any physical information that may ever answer it: it
is an empty question. So, we have to conclude that
it is impossible to determine the sequence in which two paths are traversed by
the subjectivity phenomenon: to sort events in time is a need we have in our
daily life, but there is no physical
information available to sort the experiencing of two subjective times.
52. It is
important to show that the Open
Individualist Theory of personal identity proposes a model that corresponds with
the practical experience that we actually have in our daily life anyway, and
moreover, that it can solve many
questions that appear difficult to explain or have no viable explication. It
is easy to misunderstand Open Individualism, classifying it as a theory that
implies some mystical connection between all living beings. Actually, the only
connection proposed is that the subjectivity phenomenon, the experiencing of the world from a subjective
first-person-point-of-view, is always the same one that each of us experiences
in the first person, despite us wrongly believing that everybody else has
their own personal occurrence of the same phenomenon.
Getting rid of the identity concept
means that each occurrence cannot have its own identity, so
the subject that experiences all these
first-person point-of-view flows of mind states has to be regarded as the very
same subjectivity phenomenon in every instance, despite the fact that it
occurs in many bodies/brains at the same external time.
53. Speaking of
the subjectivity phenomenon in these terms may cause some to think that I will
assign it a special or divine role to it, but I strongly deny that:
I simply take my own
experience of being an experiencer-in-the-first-person of the world, which I
call the subjectivity phenomenon, and
then I generalize it by taking away the contingence of my particular experience.
I do not add any special power or any special knowledge or any mystical feeling.
54. All this
provides a complete model that even
without a definitive argument is coherent
and offers easy answers to many problems about the mind, as described later
in this document. This would be sufficient for it to be considered worthy of
being evaluated by all thinkers who study personal identity and related
problems.