it seems to be a frequent account that identity is something experienced, and then that experience along with others’ accounts are used to create a philosophical account of identity. charlotte thinks it is important to go the other way too, that one’s philosophy about identity and the self should inform one’s identity. this is a brief collection of thoughts about the self, identity, and how names, labels, and language impact our perception and understanding of them.

---

the self

the philosophy of self is well-studied and very old. there is too much to talk about in one blog post. however, at least a little bit of background is in order.

• writers like Mead argue that the self is defined through social interaction; how others perceive us and how we interact with them is the self, to Mead.
• some philosophers claim that one’s identity is constituted through narrative, that the stories we tell about people are actually the matter of the self.
• some argue that the self only exists relative to others, and that we mutually constitute each other.

these all touch on related ideas, but ultimately fail to capture the point which this post is trying to articulate: that there is not one singular “self” at all.

internal fracturing

a very easy first pass at grasping this concept is to consider the boundary of the self in time. many see their younger selves as wholly different beings, and no longer identify with them (“I was a different person back then,” one might claim). even if one does not believe that this is true for themself, it should at least be reasonable to see how someone might hold this view.

plural readers will be all-too-familiar with the idea that there is not just one such self, as they experience their lives as many beings inhabiting the same mind. the author’s experience talking to plural systems is that some rare collection of them tie this part of their identity/labels to “dissociative identity disorder” but that most of them simply experience plurality as a framework to understand themselves and their experiences better:

“We observed that sometimes we preferred different pronouns when we were in different moods or headspaces, and it sort of grew from there. Eventually we came up with names to describe ourselves in these different states because it became useful.”

this account is still consistent with the idea that the “self” (whatever that may be) is contained within one body. we will now explore an account which does not hold this view.

external fracturing

the author does not self-describe or identify as plural, but it experiences something slightly different which it has not seen articulated elsewhere. namely, it experiences the self as fragmented amongst others, a distributed self.

just as with plurality, this probably warrants an easier analogy (like with the time-dependent self above). for this, consider how people act differently around different people; their behaviour is influenced by their social interactions. to the author, this is a reflection of the fact that there is this “distributed self” which is made up not just of the interior self-perception, but also the models of that “self” in the minds of those other social beings. the self can extend in space and be split apart into separate beings, not wholly unlike how the mind can extend in space according to the extended mind thesis (e.g. memories and thoughts and feelings can be stored in notebooks and smartphones).

this is definitely a big part of the author’s identity. as noted previously, it seems pretty important to put names and labels on things like this, since language is a beautiful art and also a great weapon held at our throats at all times, and we must acknowledge its manipulative nature and simultaneously wield it also in an attempt to free ourselves.

for this reason, it gives those in its life whom it trusts the freedom to (within the limits of its comfort) forge their own names for it. these names are to reflect who, or what, it is, not as a “self” but as a vessel of interaction with the one who gave it the name. the parallels to pluralism seem pretty clear, but the primary difference is that the analogue of “headmates” in this case are defined by others, rather than some inherent part inside of oneself.

the author hopes this is coherent enough of a description, and that maybe by sharing this someone else may resonate with the ideas present.

---