What constitutes an individual?

  • Thread starter Loren Booda
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In summary: It is a reality that we can experience through our thoughts, feelings and actions. There is no one right answer to this question as it depends on individuals' beliefs. Some people believe that there is an essential or absolute nature to individuality while others believe that it is a social construct that we create. Some people even believe that there is no such thing as an individual at all, but instead that we are all manifestations of the collective unconscious.In summary, this conversation explores the concept of individuality and the different ways that people believe it exists. Each individual has their own opinion on the matter, and no one answer is definitively correct.
  • #1
Loren Booda
3,125
4
Take your pick, or feel free to embellish:

Must an individual be unique? Must an individual be alive? Must an individual be sentient? Must an individual be an observer?

Do you consider yourself to be an individual? How would you convince another that you are an individual? Is every individual equal, deserving respect, and endowed with individual identity and the right to exist?

Can an individual exist without other individuals? Can a plurality of individuals become an individual, or vice versa? How has the concept of individuality evolved over time?

Does an alter ego exist for individuals? Is individuality an illusion? Must God be an individual?
 
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  • #2
Very interesting questions you ask, Loren!
I'm sorry I have no time to address them. Perhaps later.
 
  • #3
An individual human being is actually constituted of millions of living organisms, most of whom live in the digestive tract.

Hmmm, maybe that is not quite what you are getting at. :redface:
 
  • #4
Loren Booda said:
Take your pick, or feel free to embellish:

Must an individual be unique? Must an individual be alive? Must an individual be sentient? Must an individual be an observer?

Do you consider yourself to be an individual? How would you convince another that you are an individual? Is every individual equal, deserving respect, and endowed with individual identity and the right to exist?

Can an individual exist without other individuals? Can a plurality of individuals become an individual, or vice versa? How has the concept of individuality evolved over time?

Does an alter ego exist for individuals? Is individuality an illusion? Must God be an individual?

Loren, You have 100 threads bunched into one. So then your first question.

Must an individual be unique? Must an individual be alive? Must an individual be sentient? Must an individual be an observer?

A human individual meets all of those qualifications for one precise reason and that is its creation in one precise moment in space-time. That moment dependent on all other moments and spaces.
 
  • #5
BoulderHead,
Very interesting questions you ask, Loren! I'm sorry I have no time to address them. Perhaps later.
Indeed, it would seem that an individual has choice, too!
 
  • #6
Janitor,
An individual human being is actually constituted of millions of living organisms, most of whom live in the digestive tract.
E-coli-xactly! ...and so ad infinitum.
 
  • #7
Rader,
A human individual meets all of those qualifications for one precise reason and that is its creation in one precise moment in space-time. That moment dependent on all other moments and spaces.
Then all individuals maintain uniqueness by occupying a particular set of events within a unique horizon in spacetime? Could it also be said that an individual is described uniquely by a particular entangled wavefunction since its genesis?
 
  • #8
Loren Booda said:
Rader, Then all individuals maintain uniqueness by occupying a particular set of events within a unique horizon in spacetime?

By choice it seems from creation to destruction with those unique horizons overlapping other individual boundries.

Could it also be said that an individual is described uniquely by a particular entangled wavefunction since its genesis?

If you consider an individual a complex mathematical formula, it could be a ontological truth.
 
  • #9
Rader,
If you consider an individual a complex mathematical formula, it could be a ontological truth.
I meant to say that an individual might be described by an entangled wavefunction - but how so an ontological truth in the mathematical sense as you propose?
 
  • #10
Loren Booda said:
Must an individual be unique? Must an individual be alive? Must an individual be sentient? Must an individual be an observer?

Unique? Yes or it would not be an individual.

Alive? No not in the broadest sense of the word, individual; i.e. individual,unique rock.

Sentient? No. for the above reason.

Observer? No, again for the same reason. However, if we limit the meaning of individual to mean an individual person or human as it is commonly used then YES! to all of the above.

Do you consider yourself to be an individual? How would you convince another that you are an individual? Is every individual equal, deserving respect, and endowed with individual identity and the right to exist?

Yes and Yes to all as well as the right Life, Justice, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.


Can an individual exist without other individuals? Can a plurality of individuals become an individual, or vice versa? How has the concept of individuality evolved over time?

No, No man is an island. We are social animals and can not thrive without human contact, interaction and love.
Yes, a society is made up of individuals that can become an individual nation, tribe etc. They are still, however, individuals themselves.
An individual has developed rights and recognition rather than indistinguishable members of a class, slaves, serfs, peon, peasants etc.

Does an alter ego exist for individuals? Is individuality an illusion? Must God be an individual?

No, alter ego as I understand the term, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
No, unless life and reality is an illusion.
Yes, There is only one God as there is only one universe; but, as God is the universe and part of all of us and we all part of him then God is and individual partly made up or containing many individuals.

Did I pass? :confused: :tongue2:
 
  • #11
Individual is a concept, a word, and words only have demonstrable meaning according to their function in a given context. Hence the answer to all your questions is yes and no or "what was the question exactly?"

To quote that immortal philosopher, Popeye, "I yam what I yam and dat's all dat I yam."

I can no more convince another of my individuality than I can prove the moon is made of cheese. In the final analysis, we are the belief makers, we give it all meaning or no meaning at all. Do I mean we as in the plural, or we as in the royal we? Only a specific context can illuminate that question. :0)
 
  • #12
Wait a second here, Wu. Function and context are words, and only have demonstrable meaning - wait. But demonstrable and meaning are words, too. Jeez, how do we communicate at all? What do I mean by communicate? What is the context? What do I mean by context?
 
  • #13
loseyourname said:
Wait a second here, Wu. Function and context are words, and only have demonstrable meaning - wait. But demonstrable and meaning are words, too. Jeez, how do we communicate at all? What do I mean by communicate? What is the context? What do I mean by context?

Ultimately, if it comes down to it, I can demonstrate the meaning of something by actually pointing to it, without using any words whatsoever. That is what I mean by demonstrable. If you ask me the meaning of "gravity" and I push you off your chair that is a demonstration. What you mean by the use of such words I can only guess according the context you use them in.

In this case, the context is a philosophical bulletin board. As for how we manage to communicate at all, apparently we are the belief makers, we give it all meaning or no meaning at all. That is, perhaps, the ultimate context.
 
  • #14
Loren Booda said:
Rader, I meant to say that an individual might be described by an entangled wavefunction - but how so an ontological truth in the mathematical sense as you propose?

Ontological philosophy has to do with what reason ought to believe about the world to be true, which is discovered by theoretical reason. Beliefs are true when they correspond to with what exists, and truths are necessay when beliefs correspond to what exists in the world. Properties relations and change are part of, what is, of those truths of the Wholeness of the World. "I am" by thinking, believed to exist. Mathematics describes relations between space and matter, of which "I am".

Are you interested in Ontological philosophy?
 
  • #15
wuliheron
Individual is a concept, a word, and words only have demonstrable meaning according to their function in a given context. Hence the answer to all your questions is yes and no or "what was the question exactly?"

To quote that immortal philosopher, Popeye, "I yam what I yam and dat's all dat I yam."

I can no more convince another of my individuality than I can prove the moon is made of cheese. In the final analysis, we are the belief makers, we give it all meaning or no meaning at all. Do I mean we as in the plural, or we as in the royal we? Only a specific context can illuminate that question. :0)
Simple beauty in motion. Enjoy your (individual) universe. You know it so long as it remains whole, and free of analysis (an analytical statement in itself). Duality to me is a practical necessity of multifold beings.

Royce,

The quest is not a test, or to best, but to fest - the rest is jest.

Rader,

I have a hard enogh time remembering the definition of the word "ontological" - it seems more a process than a state. Your descriptive contribution is helpful, considering this (individual) recipient; but will I retain it? I believe I am a physicist first because I rely upon my immediate physical environment and mental representations thereof rather than less grounded philosophical terms as a source of inspiration.
 
  • #16
Loren Booda said:
wuliheron Simple beauty in motion. Enjoy your (individual) universe. You know it so long as it remains whole, and free of analysis (an analytical statement in itself). Duality to me is a practical necessity of multifold beings.

Both are just tools, to be used and abused when we forget we can lay them down when we are done with them.
 
  • #17
Loren Booda said:
I have a hard enogh time remembering the definition of the word "ontological" - it seems more a process than a state.

If we observe from within the universe, it would seem that it is, but if you could observe from without, might it be a state.

Your descriptive contribution is helpful, considering this (individual) recipient; but will I retain it? I believe I am a physicist first because I rely upon my immediate physical environment and mental representations thereof rather than less grounded philosophical terms as a source of inspiration

Well let me try and help. While I can only be what I know, learned and believe, it is fully understood that you must be also be. If an individual evolved and was aware of being aware, of its "I", it would then posses an absolute truth. It would eventually know it is not alone in the world and come to understand that properties relations and change, are all part of what makes it aware of being aware. Hence understanding, those beliefs, of what is, with sufficient intellegence could describe with a mathematical formula, a inidvidual atom, inidvidual human or its own universe. Write your formula. :wink:
 
  • #18
wuliheron said:
Ultimately, if it comes down to it, I can demonstrate the meaning of something by actually pointing to it, without using any words whatsoever. That is what I mean by demonstrable. If you ask me the meaning of "gravity" and I push you off your chair that is a demonstration. What you mean by the use of such words I can only guess according the context you use them in.

In this case, the context is a philosophical bulletin board. As for how we manage to communicate at all, apparently we are the belief makers, we give it all meaning or no meaning at all. That is, perhaps, the ultimate context.

So what do you point to for an explanation of "context?" What about "meaning?"
 
  • #19
Over time it seems to me that wuliheron has developed a most genuine philosophy - one applied to daily practice, enlightening yet grounded, progressive yet patient.

Rader, I am a raider of equations. See how I inverted the quantum wavefunction in the first article of my website, below.
 
  • #20
Loren Booda said:
Rader, I am a raider of equations. See how I inverted the quantum wavefunction in the first article of my website, below.

So you are up to the endeavor. I have zapped through your site several times to get a feel of what you want to say.

"Conventional" (real) phase space transforms to "inverse" (virtual) phase space, and vice versa, upon such a dynamic inversion through h. Now virtual state actions conform to a discrete pattern, instead of an assumed continuum.

The dichotomous wavefunctions evolve particles from their mutual interference, expanding geometrically the efficacy of either wavefunction alone.The mirror symmetry of P-duality is defined: virtual quantum states are represented in reciprocal phase space through an inverse wavefunction as real quantum states are represented in traditional phase space through a conventional wavefunction.

Knowing the world is cyclical in nature. Might it be possible to have a classical explanation of what now appears, to not be so classical?

If an individual has come to know two languages as if it were one, then he would posess the experience of knowing, that one is to the other, as if it is one.
 
  • #21
Thanks for your questions, Rader, from that beautiful country of great inspiration (people, Dali, Alhambra, climate, terrain, coastal waters, history, Paradors...)

I don't think one can express quantum mechanics classically in mathematics, by definition. It may be as simple as to say that imaginary numbers are not linear functions of real numbers. The complex numerology enables the expression of two orthogonal functions interacting. There may be a simpler way of depicting the situation geometrically, like Feynman's favorite, the two-slit experiment. However, read below about the observer-object.

A bilingual is best trained as a child, when they have not yet "measured" ("observed") much language information, and therefore may use the uncertainty between both languages to benefit overall understanding - much like a unique "mixed state."

Quantum measurement yields an object state whose complementary state traditionally remains in complex Hilbert space, where complementary pairs separate orthogonally. The "observer-object," however, associates one complement with observation, and the other with observation inverted through Planck's constant. Of the many quantum interpretations, none seems to suggest that the process of complementarity may unfold exclusively in relatively real, accessible phase space. Here the observer provides herself as the locus for the missing complement to the quantum object.
 

What constitutes an individual?

1.

What is the definition of an individual?

An individual is a single, unique entity that can be distinguished from others based on physical, biological, or psychological characteristics.

2.

What makes someone an individual?

Being an individual means having a distinct identity and being separate from others. This can be determined by factors such as genetic makeup, personality, and experiences.

3.

Are there different types of individuals?

Yes, there are different types of individuals based on various factors such as species, gender, age, and culture. Each individual can also have unique traits and characteristics that set them apart from others.

4.

Can an individual change over time?

Yes, individuals can change over time due to various factors such as aging, experiences, and personal growth. However, their core identity and characteristics may remain the same.

5.

What role does the environment play in shaping an individual?

The environment can have a significant impact on an individual's development and characteristics. It can shape one's behaviors, beliefs, and opportunities, which can ultimately influence their identity as an individual.

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