A little bit of a wild idea: what if the concept of a single unified identity is a social construct?
I’m reading “RESTful web API”, O’Reilly’s book about the REST protocol, which contains this sentence: “Just as one person may be addressed by different names in different contexts”, then gives as example a friendly surname, a Twitter handle and a formal salutation. Reading that sparked an association: back when there were no social media, and even further away in time when there was no Internet at all, we all had one name: our complete name, given to us by our parents / family. But then context started to multiply, and so did names: email addresses, chat nicknames, social media handles, etc.
But what if it’s the reverse? What if we have only one name because technology was not advanced enough to presents us with different contexts? What if different handles reflects a true disposition of our mind, that has remain hidden because technology wasn’t sufficiently advanced?
This would tie neatly with the presence of conflicting beliefs and behaviours (beliefs and aliefs), and the problem of anthropic identities.
back when there were no social media, and even further away in time when there was no Internet at all, we all had one name: our complete name, given to us by our parents / family.
That is incorrect—there were nicknames, various nom de guerre/plume/..., etc. Besides, most societies have a variety of ways to address an individual depending on the formality of the occasion and the relative status of the speaker: compare “Hey Lizzy” to “Your Majesty” :-D
That might be true, but the fact remains that one person is still completely dependent on and consequently bound to one neural substrate, and the support system for said neural substrate, which permits us (for now) to tie a person’s personality to their distinct ‘body’.
This remains true even in the spectrum of cases when multiple personalities or possibility even people (appear to) inhabit or share the same neural substrate.
If the substrate is disrupted, the indivdual(s) are destroyed.
This will not always be the case, once technology progresses to such an extent that synthetic and digital persons living in distributed neural substrates become first possible at all and then commonplace in society, the the above statement will be false and a society wide identity crisis will emerge for those not born into the new status quo.
We biological humans, with our antiquated instincts for people in single bodies will be old & regressive compared to the zeitgeist of society.
As Lumfier says naming is often more complicated than that. Scientists who published in Latin for example often didn’t simply write their name as they get called in their native language on their manuscript but Latinized it.
People who move to Spain often adopt the Spanish naming convention where the last name is inherited from both mother and father.
I remember (I think from Code Complete) that the assumption that everybody has a name is also false.
A little bit of a wild idea: what if the concept of a single unified identity is a social construct?
I’m reading “RESTful web API”, O’Reilly’s book about the REST protocol, which contains this sentence: “Just as one person may be addressed by different names in different contexts”, then gives as example a friendly surname, a Twitter handle and a formal salutation. Reading that sparked an association: back when there were no social media, and even further away in time when there was no Internet at all, we all had one name: our complete name, given to us by our parents / family.
But then context started to multiply, and so did names: email addresses, chat nicknames, social media handles, etc.
But what if it’s the reverse? What if we have only one name because technology was not advanced enough to presents us with different contexts? What if different handles reflects a true disposition of our mind, that has remain hidden because technology wasn’t sufficiently advanced?
This would tie neatly with the presence of conflicting beliefs and behaviours (beliefs and aliefs), and the problem of anthropic identities.
That is incorrect—there were nicknames, various nom de guerre/plume/..., etc. Besides, most societies have a variety of ways to address an individual depending on the formality of the occasion and the relative status of the speaker: compare “Hey Lizzy” to “Your Majesty” :-D
That might be true, but the fact remains that one person is still completely dependent on and consequently bound to one neural substrate, and the support system for said neural substrate, which permits us (for now) to tie a person’s personality to their distinct ‘body’.
This remains true even in the spectrum of cases when multiple personalities or possibility even people (appear to) inhabit or share the same neural substrate.
If the substrate is disrupted, the indivdual(s) are destroyed.
This will not always be the case, once technology progresses to such an extent that synthetic and digital persons living in distributed neural substrates become first possible at all and then commonplace in society, the the above statement will be false and a society wide identity crisis will emerge for those not born into the new status quo.
We biological humans, with our antiquated instincts for people in single bodies will be old & regressive compared to the zeitgeist of society.
As Lumfier says naming is often more complicated than that. Scientists who published in Latin for example often didn’t simply write their name as they get called in their native language on their manuscript but Latinized it.
People who move to Spain often adopt the Spanish naming convention where the last name is inherited from both mother and father.
I remember (I think from Code Complete) that the assumption that everybody has a name is also false.