ANNOTATION:
The Illusion of Individuality

To see through our common blind-spot in this area, try this simple exercise: Create a list of those attributes and behaviors which separate you from others - those traits which comprise your "individuality". Such a list must inherently exclude "global" items, of which there are other instances of outside you. Excluded are the genes and memes which were passed to you, with the possible exception of mutations. Once genes and memes are set aside, there isn't an awful lot that can be put down on the list.

Another way of looking at this is to imagine the shortest complete description of you - the most compressed recipe with which a sufficiently talented entity could recreate you. For the shortest description, any component which is available from global sources ("off-the-shelf") would be given as a pointer to the global recipe for that component. Hence the vast bulk of your recipe would consist of these pointers, while only an amazingly small fraction of the information would describe local genetic mutations and meme syntheses.

To say that the infinitesimal smattering of unique information required to complete the recipe for an "individual" is the principal defining characteristic of that recipe is like saying that every McDonald's Big Mac is a unique individual, because each has a unique element of dust from the air, and each posesses a different arrangement of poppy seeds on the bun.

A grand case of the tail wagging the dog, really.

REPLY:

The use of the McDonald's burger analogy suggests to me not that individuality does not exist at all, but rather that it does or does not exist depending on how small or large of a scale one examines a grouping of things with similar characteristics.

No, McDonald's burgers are not all "individuals" when viewed as a whole grouping. But if examined on the level of individual seed placement on the buns, then, yes they are "individuals" insofar as the seed placement varies from burger to burger.

Similarly, while human beings are not "individuals" when viewed only as members of the grouping "human beings" as a whole, they are individuals when viewed from the perspective of the variety of characteristics and combinations of those characteristics which make each of us different -- if only slightly different - from everyone else.

REPLY: Tail still wagging the dog

You seem to have missed the point. I was saying that in the context in which a person exists, within society, having genes from a gene pool, memes from a meme pool, the vast bulk of what that person is composed of comes from outside. The small bit of information unique to that person is dwarfed by the outside information. To focus on that small crumb of "uniqueness" and stridently proclaim that it is the defining characteristic of this bag of molecules while ignoring the mountain of common information this bag shares is like spotting a dime on the sidewalk and proclaiming the streets to be paved with money, never mind all that macadam.

Krzysztof Pieranski (cortland[ at ]zeus.polsl.gliwice.pl)
Date: Mar 5, 1996

REPLY: More on illusion of Individuality

REPLY: Which hamburger is which?

Take two McDonalds's hamburgers. The one on the left looks pretty similar to the one on the right. Hardly any difference at all really. Except this: the one on the left is *that one* on the left, while the one on the right is another one, over there on the right. Even if there are absolutely zero structural or organisational differences between hamburger A and hamburger B, it still remains fundamentally true that A is not B. A is A and B is B. The difference ('individuality') is not an illusion, and in human experience, this difference is crucial.

I do not experience myself as an individual because I am taller or shorter or smarter or in any other way structurally/behaviourally different from others, but because I am aware of being THIS one -- and not THAT one or THAT one or THAT one. Even if we were all clones, I would still be experiencing myself as this one, not another. The actual differences between us merely arouse the awareness of that.

REPLY: We're not telepathic

I agree with Barry McGuiness' comments, but I would also
like to add another supporting reason why individuality is
not an illusion. 
  Each individual processes his or her own thoughts
individually. The 'I' of a person is that persons mind, not 
their body or physical characteristics. This gets into
questions of what, exactly, IS the mind. 
 The mind can be look at from a systems approach. Consider
the brain as a system. Coming into the system is sensory
information, which is then processed internally, in ways 
ihat vary according to the individual differences in the 
structure of the brain in that particular individual. This 
structure is itself constantly being reshaped by incoming 
information, and by the preexisting baises in the interpretation
of that information (positive feedback). The output occurs
in the form of actions and words. The individual can
receive positive or negative feedback from the environment 
in the form of either physical reality or interaction with 
other individuals. Thus there is feedback within the brain 
itself (certain thoughts conflicting with the existing 
thought processes), and from outside the brain (actions 
resulting from certain thought processes producing 
new perceptual data to be received by the individual). 
   The brain is composed of many billions of neurons, each 
with dozens to hundreds of possible connections to other 
neurons. These connections in turn vary in the 
strength of those connections, determining the probability
that a given electric signal will activate that particular 
connection and thus propagate on to the connecting neuron. 
In addition, the mind is not merely the static state of 
the structure of those neurons and the various strength of
their connections to other neurons, but the ongoing electrical
signals continually casacading throughout the brain and 
modifying it internally in the process, strengthening or 
weaking connections or making new ones. The brain is a 
continually evolving chaotic system. Thus there are a 
virtually infinite number of unique states to the overall
system, and therefore a potentially infinite number of
unique individuals.  
  The original poster, Mr. Bloom, takes memetics a little 
too far by regarding the mind as little more than a bucket 
into which various memes are tossed, without regarding the 
possibility of internal modification of those memes, or the 
differences in which memes are perceived and integrated into 
the individuals mind. If it were not for these differences, 
this individuality, there would be no new memes, and therefore
no possibility of memetic evolution, an idea which is 
clearly refuted by the very existance of this conversation. 
i.e. If I am no different from you, you would be able to 
read my mind, so why are we having this conversation? 
  The inability to read minds, and more generally the 
difficulty of communication, is both the result of 
individuality, and the cause greater individual differences 
than would exist if communication were easier. Despite 
the increase speed and access which the web allows, our means 
of communcation is still fundamentally the same. We 
communicate by means of words and pictures, whether spoken, 
written, typed, painted, sculpted, pointed at or digitally 
transmitted. (we might also throw in body language, emoticons, 
and music). We are not telepathic. We cannot transmit our 
'memes' directly, and it remains one of the greatest problems
of human existance to overcome this communcation barrier. 
Each individual processes his or her own thoughts in relative 
isolation, with only imperfect communication with other 
humans, resulting in a divergence of states between individuals. 
This all raises lots of interesting questions about human 
interaction, generation gaps, personalities as equilibrium 
states, the efficiency of communication, and the future 
evolution of society, but they are all wildly diverging from 
the topic at hand. I will just leave the issue of 
'the illusion of individuality' to rest quietly in its tomb. 

REPLY: Crazy

Doesn't everybody has an indviduality?

REPLY: Crazy

Doesn't everybody has an indviduality?

REPLY: Crazy

Doesn't everybody has an indviduality?

REPLY: And your point is

individuality individuality individuality
everyone is an individuality
what is up with hambugers?

REPLY: And your point is

individuality individuality individuality
everyone is an individuality
what is up with hambugers?

REPLY: The Point