Origo

Back to the matter of personal identity. Join me in a little thought experiment. Imagine for a moment that you are the only person in the universe. You are human and mortal, but there is no one else, no God, no angels, no other human beings. Now try to answer the question, “Who am I?” In a truly empty universe the question is unanswerable; it doesn’t even have meaning. In an empty universe you would have no identity even though all your qualities would be unique. Whatever wonderful traits you might possess would not matter at all, for there would be no one to be aware of them or to care about them one way or the other.

So let’s add one more person to our imaginary universe, another person, human and mortal like you. Now who are you? Assuming you are in proximity with that other person, you can now have an identity, and assuming you are not clones who look and think exactly alike, your identity can be personal. Depending upon your genders, you may become the other persons spouse, or you may remain just friends. You may become his master and he your slave, or vice versa. You can compare yourselves and discover that you are the studious one and she the athletic one, and so on. Any one of these relationships can answer your question, “Who am I?” You can now say, “I am that person’s best friend,” or whatever. The point is that identity depends upon relationship, even more than upon uniqueness. Without uniqueness our identity cannot be personal, but without relationship we can have no identity at all.