Overview of personal identity from a philosophical perspective as conceived traditionally and disputed by Derek Parfit (Reasons and Persons; ‘personal identity is not required for the survival of the person’). An account of personal identity per philosophers Hume, Derrida, Deleuze, and Simondon. The evolutionary biological case for personal identity in humans. There is a large literature on the ability of members of many animal species (wasps for example) to distinguish specific individual others. I consider why and how personal identity might have evolved to bring adaptive fitness to humans, if the adaptation is still serving, and what forces might cause this to be different in the future.

1. Personal Identity:
A Multidisciplinary Inquiry
October 23, 2014
ASU, Origins Project, OPTIM
Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga
Melanie Swan
m@melanieswan.com

2. Personal Identity: Multidisciplinary Question
October 23, 2014
Personal Identity
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Philosophy of Mind Psychology
Evolutionary Biology
Evolutionary Psychology
Philosophy of Biology
Theoretical Biology
Social Theory
Sociology
Sociobiology
Biology

3. Hypothesis
 If the evolutionary biological drivers that caused personal
identity to develop as a fitness adaptation were to
change, the need for personal identity too would change
and perhaps disappear
 Main evolutionary biological / cultural drivers:
 Resource acquisition, status garnering, mate selection, group
acceptance , gender roles (Hrdy)
 Absent these drivers, how would the adaptation benefit
conferred by personal identity change?
 Examples of shifts in social goals and outcomes
 Worldwide birth rate declines
 Below replacement population declines (Japan, Italy)
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4. Philosophical Views of Personal Identity
 Traditional ‘philosophy of mind’ view
 Assumes already-existing subject
 Personal identity needed for continuity
and persistence
 Personal identity is not required for
the survival of the person, relational
experience between past/future
selves and experience is (Parfit)
 fMRI studies: We procrastinate because
we think of our future selves as strangers
 Third persons no different than politicians
or celebrities
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http://nautil.us/issue/9/time/why-we-procrastinate citing van Gelder JL, Hershfield HE, Nordgren LF. (2013). Vividness of
the future self predicts delinquency. Psychol Sci. 24(6):974-80, and Pronin, Emily. (2008). How we see ourselves and
how we see others. Science. 320(5880):1177-80.

5. Philosophical Views of Personal Identity
 Self is a flux of unconnected perceptions
(Hume, 1739)
 Self as a constantly re-written, re-interpretable
October 23, 2014
Personal Identity
text, written in difference to the
local relational context (Derrida)
 Subjectivation is the important locus,
facilitated by the movement-image and the
time-image (Deleuze)
 Individuation as a dynamic world process of
which the subject is an effect not a cause;
living beings exist on a capacity spectrum
for individuation (Simondon)
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6. Literary View
Philosophical Issue:
Group, Individual, Particular
Proust, Albertine, the
‘little band’ of girls at Balbec
“…when I saw the little band again on the beach, and indeed long
afterwards when I knew all the girls who composed it, I could never be
absolutely certain that any of them — even she who among them all
was most like her, the girl with the bicycle — was indeed the one that I
had seen that evening , a girl who differed hardly at all, but was still just
perceptibly different from her whom I had noticed in the procession”
October 23, 2014
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Proust, In Search of Lost Time, Within a Budding Grove, Seascape, with Frieze of Girls

7. Biology Basics: Why do Individuals Exist?
Classical Biological View: Kin Selection
 Kin selection is the evolutionary strategy
that favors the reproductive success of an
organism's relatives, even at a cost to the
organism's own survival and reproduction
(Darwin, 1859)
 Individuals are a mechanism for kin
selection; individuals are able to identify
their relatives (kin recognition) (Hamilton,
1964)
 Evidence: red squirrel mothers adopted
related orphaned squirrel pups but not
unrelated orphans (2010)
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Gorrell JC et al. (2010). Adopting kin enhances inclusive fitness in asocial red squirrels. Nature Communications 1 (22): 1.

8. Biological View: Distinguishing Individuals
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 Wasps wired to distinguish
each other’s faces
 Wasps identified colony
facial images faster and
more accurately than other
types of images (2011)
 Wasps developed better
vision to identify others’ rank
and possibly allegiance
(fighting queens within
colonies); scent only
identifies the nest mate level
MJ Sheehan, EA Tibbetts. (2011). Specialized face learning is associated with individual recognition in paper wasps.
Science 334 (6060), 1272-1275. http://www.livescience.com/17259-paper-wasps-facial-recognition.html

9. Biological View: Dolphin ‘Identities’
 Dolphins have a unique name
in the form of a whistle
 Dolphins responded when they
heard the sound of their own
signature whistle, repeating
that whistle back in a way that
seems to say, "Yes, I'm here -
did you call me?"
 Bottlenose dolphins can follow
"recipes" in preparing mollusks,
help other species in distress,
and possibly do math
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Friedman, W. (2013). PNAS. Jul 23, 2013. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/07/130722-dolphins-whistle-names-
identity-animals-science/

10. Theoretical Biological View:
Groups and Individuals
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 Theoretical biology perspective of sociality
 “He who understands the baboon would do more towards
metaphysics than Locke” (Darwin 1838)
 Evolved biological individuals (not personal identity)
 Revisionary view of individuality, adequate definition
 Kin selection is insufficient to capture what is common
to all forms of groups evolving into individuals
 A theory of evolving individuality requires a
sophisticated variety of concepts that
 advocates some form of self-organization that supplements
natural selection, and
 accounts for the most complex forms of individuality
From Groups to Individuals: Evolution and Emerging Individuality. Eds. Frédéric Bouchard and Philippe Huneman.
2013. http://www.livescience.com/17259-paper-wasps-facial-recognition.html

11. Psychological View: Personal Identity is…
 A person's conception and expression of
self-identity including with regard to
others' individuality or group affiliations
(Wikipedia; Psychology/Sociology)
 The concept you develop about yourself
that evolves over the course of your life
(Education-Portal: Sociology)
 Self-knowledge that derives from the
individual’s unique attributes (U Twente)
 The distinct personality of an individual;
characteristics by which a person is
recognized or known (IEP)
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12. Psychological View: Social Identity Theory
 Multiple ‘levels of self’
 A person has not one, personal self,
but rather several selves that
correspond to widening circles of
group membership
 Different social contexts may trigger an
individual to think, feel and act on
basis of his personal, family or national
‘level of self’ (Turner et al, 1987)
 Multiple social identities
 Self-concept derived from perceived
membership in social groups (Hogg &
Vaughan, 2002)
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http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/theory%20clusters/interpersonal%20communication%20and%20relations/s
ocial_identity_theory/

13. Social Theory
 Identity Politics
 Political attitudes regarding the
concerns of social groups based on
identifications such as gender, race,
ethnicity, and sexual orientation
 Anti-identity movement, text
without author
 “Do not ask who I am and do not ask
me to remain the same, leave it to our
bureaucrats and our police to see that
our papers are in order” – Foucault,
1982
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Foucault, Michel. (1982). The Archaeology of Knowledge. Vintage Books: New York, NY. Page 17.

14. Evolutionary Biology View
 Adaptation/fitness benefit conferred
 Co-evolution of culture and personal
identity
 Drivers of identity and social behavior:
 Resource acquisition, status garnering, mate
selection, group acceptance, gender roles
 “Apart from economic payoffs, social
status, seems to be the most important
incentive and motivating force of social
behavior” - John Harsanyi, Nobel
Laureate economist
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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-psychology-of-social/

15. Multidisciplinary Conclusion: Personal
Identity is Ephemeral and Constructive
 Hypothesis is supported by these four fields
 If the evolutionary biological drivers that caused personal
identity to develop as a fitness adaptation were to change, the
need for personal identity too would change/disappear
 Biology
 Individuality is not personal identity
 Psychology/Sociology
 Malleability of self
 Philosophy
 Relationality and subjectivation
 Evolutionary Biology
 Fitness adaptation
October 23, 2014
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16. Personal Identity:
A Multi-disciplinary Inquiry
October 23, 2014
OPTIM
Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga
Melanie Swan
m@melanieswan.com
Thank You! Questions?