A casual analysis of Personal Identity

You exist at the moment of reading this. If you can be certain of anything then it is that. Can you be certain about anything else? Can you be certain that you aren't a c haracter in a virtua l reality, a brain in a vat or God dreaming you? No. But what is certainty? Why are you certain that you exist at this moment? It feels that way. You are experiencing something, and you become aware that you are exp erie nci ng som eth ing whi ch is yet ano the r exp eri ence . So the pro of tha t you exist is sel f- contained in its own existence. You exist because you experience it. You do not exist because you doubt, you exist because you exist, existence meaning that something is being experienced by someone and you are identifying with that someone. I'm going to revert to first person. I am. Just me. I'm trying not to focus on anything right now. But that is proving impossible. I'm forced to focus on something right now. And now. And now. Now I just took a five seconds break from writing and I still was forced to experience something. It is obvious to me that I exist. But what is my point right now? The point is that my existence is self- evident, self-referential, self-emerging from this very moment of experience. I exist and that is all I can be certain about right now. But that isn't the whole story. My certainty about my own existence right now emerges from my experience of things that I don't perceive as me. I am observing something. Or so it feels. I am the subject, the experiencer of whatever it is that I am experiencing. And what am I experiencing? Feelings, thoughts, sensations, memories. It's insane. I feel like my experience is changing from every moment to the next. This moment doesn't feel like the one I remember experiencing just a fraction of a second ago. Now the experience has changed again. It doesn't surprise me though since that is exactly what I expect it to do. Right now I remember that my experience has been changing as far as I can remember. But how can I trust my memories? Where is the proof that I existed before this very moment and that what I remember happening really happened? How can I know that the universe wasn't created one second ago, implying that nothing that I remember happening before this second actually happened? I cannot know . All I can know is that I exist and that it feels like my existence has changed. And now again it feels like it just changed. My present moment feels like part of a sequence. It feels like there have been countless or at least many other present moments that felt just like this one but I cannot know for sure since I am not experiencing those moments, I am only experiencing this moment. Take one hour ago for instance. I remember that I was laying in my bed one hour ago. But how can I know for sure? I can't. There is absolutely nothing I can know for sure, except that I exist, but even that is something I only know when I am aware of it. The certainty of my existence is yet another feeling which I only remember experiencing when I think about it. But again, how can I know that I have existed before this very moment? I cannot. And neither can I know that I will exist after five seconds from now. Five seconds have passed. I still exist. Does this mean that I should expect to exist after the next five seconds? No, because now I can't be sure about my past again. You see? I at this moment cannot be certain about I five seconds ago or five seconds after this. So how does one solve this messed up state of affairs? What am I to do? Shall I just keep repeating this frustrating thought exercise for as long as my existence keeps lasting? No, I'm sick of that. Instead I shall opt for inference. What do I mean by that? Well, it is obvious that except for the certainty that I exist right

now