It is the first day of November and trees have let
go most of their cover and leaves. It is time to be tree again – naked,
unassuming but full of promise.
Because indeed the oak sleeps in the acorn, as James
Allen wrote in A Man Thinketh. Because the memory of what we have done or
produced defines who we are.
… I periodically re-read works which once affected
me. Not only because I am eager to discover what I have missed during previous
readings, but also to uncover how I interpret ideas as I change. It is both a
re-discovery of the written works and a discovery of my-self.
So, I re-read a bit of Hume and a bit of Locke.
These philosophers have helped me ask the questions for which I seek no
answers, since these all pertain to the notion of identity. Indeed, in my
humble and amateur way, over the past half a century I have been faced with
notions of identity that have shaped my actions. And they have shaped my
writings in books, articles, blogs and on numerous tortured pieces of paper
that never graduated to becoming published.
Because the oak sleeps in the acorn.
Because there is no “I” in identity.
Because I was told that I can only recall and act
upon my own experiences. No one else’s.
And therefore personal identity is defined by personal
memory alone.
… Locke shaped entire generations of philosophers
with his statements about memory and identity. And Hume criticized our believes
in causality so radically that even as a researcher I often stopped to think if
causality was indeed a normative concept or a human translation of the senses
we harbor within ourselves, during our short passage.
But, I never sought answers. Because I grew up with
the notion that “regret” is an illogical construct.
Because one can really
never regret given that one is never the same person as when an act or thought
was undertaken. Man is variable in time and space. The memory of a past act is
based on the consciousness we had on that very moment of the act. When
consciousness changes in time and space, that memory becomes irrelevant to our
present consciousness. We thus cannot regret that act-memory. It is unfair to
the memory of that act!
If our consciousness changes, should we also expect
a change in our self- identity?
… The relationship between consciousness, memory and
identity is dictated by our spacial impulse to be what we are. Not necessarily
who we are.
We are acorn with a promise of an oak tree. But we
are not an oak tree.
So, when do we become an oak tree? Or even more
importantly a forest of oak trees?
In other words, group identity. Is it the sum of
self-identities that change over time? If so, then historical causal relationships
cannot exist in a group because if acorns become oak trees with random frequency,
unequal probability, and exposure to changing environments, then the memories
of their experiences is different. Each acorn recants its experience
differently. So, how can these dissimilar
recollections of memories add up to a group identity, which suggest uniformity
and uniform conforming to normative attributes?
… I have always been amazed by the above concepts
within the context of Quantum Mechanics. Consider Heisenberg’s Uncertainty
Principle. It says that the momentum and position of a particle cannot be simultaneously
and precisely measured because by the time the momentum is measured the
position is less specifiable. In fact all wave-like elements adhere to this
Principle.
So, if Hume and Locke were contemporaries of Heisenberg
how would they view the sub-particle theories affect their thinking? Would they
see a grander Principle that affects the memory and consciousness move
(wave-like) through time and space like sub-atomic particles do? Would there be
support for the concept of identity for not being a singular happening during
the life of a person but a series of self-consciousness changes that in turn
change identity itself? Is there a universal principle
that best describes all movements in nature as identifiable only one point at a
time and subject to change over time and space?
It is
the first day in November and the wind makes dead leaves dance in the street.
November 1, 2017
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017
