Posted By :
liamjtolentino
24 Jan
The Essence of Self and the Pain of Loss
I don’t remember too much from my Philosophy class in university, but I remember a huge discussion about what defines the self. What makes you you and what makes me me, etc.? Are we defined by our physical form or is there something more to the self? There is obviously a lot to talk about here, but for now, I just want to talk about my current thoughts on it and how it relates to the pain of loss.
Firstly, let me show you this video here:
You don’t need to watch it, but I think it will give a lot of context on my thoughts. For now, I’ll begin from the Philosophy class I mentioned.
So a bit of background first: I took Philosophy in the spring of 2021 during the Covid pandemic, so attending class in-person was optional, and only a few weeks into the semester, it was just me and one girl in the class. Why is this important? Just to explain why there was only one other student in the discussion. That’s it.
Anyway, we discussed the thing about the essence of self and we shared our own beliefs. The other student, I’ll call her Flower since she’ll come up later, said she believed that it’s the consciousness that defines the self. I stated that we are defined by our actions and the consequences we have on the world and that the self lives on even after the body and the consciousness fade. Four years later, I look back on this discussion and I both agree and disagree on these statements. A lot has happened in my life since then and I think that shaped my thoughts and feelings on this topic.
Let’s start with Flower’s statement about the consciousness. Firstly, is the consciousness/mind bound to the physical brain that contains and processes it, or is it much like software that can be replicated and copied to another form? What then happens if you transfer it to another body, via a brain transplant, telepathy, whatever? More importantly, what if it is a completely different body? From the video linked above, it’s clear that even just losing a limb is a drastic and terrifying change of self, so being placed in a completely different body would be an existential nightmare. That’s why I don’t fully believe that the mind alone defines the self because the body plays too big of a role in a person’s sense of identity. I guess it’s kind of like a ship of Theseus situation because at what point is a change too big of a change to still be considered the same as before? Okay, maybe I’m getting too carried away, so let’s move on.
My statement from that class discussion is one I still kinda agree with but I still ponder on it. Some time ago, I formed a bit of a thought experiment on this. Imagine I wanted to live forever. Let’s say in this hypothetical, I had no records of my DNA, fingerprints, anything to confirm my body as my original. So now imagine I found a perfect body double. He’s ten years younger than me but still looks identical to me that people in my life can’t tell the difference. Now, I have him fake his death so then I can train him to eventually take my place. I teach him all of my mannerisms, all of my thought processes, philosophies, everything that people in my life would know about me and he perfects all of them to the point that no one can tell the difference. Now, I disappear from everyone’s live and have my double completely taking over my life, living exactly the same way such that no one can tell the difference. I, the original, can simply pass away with no one knowing, and this younger replacement can continue living as me without anyone having a clue. Ten years pass, and he then does the exact same thing with another body double that’s ten years younger than him and this goes on for several iterations. Of course, slight changes will occur over time, but if the changes between the two physical persons remain smooth and continuous as possible (I wanna make a calculus/differential equations joke here but nah), no one will ever know that I’ve died many times and they’ll think I’m immortal and only the people in on it, the people who are “me” will know about it. So then, are they still me, or is it something more?
Those with similar movie tastes to mine may draw comparisons to Dread Pirate Roberts from The Princess Bride and yes, that was the inspiration. But let’s step back and think about this. What does this say about the self? Because in this thought experiment, the person that’s me is just the concept that lives in everyone’s minds, the impact I had on their lives and not my physical form. But does that mean that we are all just defined by what other people think of us? Honestly, I don’t think so. This version of the self, I like to call it the other because I’m bad at naming things. Okay but seriously, I think it’s important to make this distinction because I think the self includes the other and a lot lot more.
So what is it that I think defines the self now? There’s obviously a lot to discuss, but let’s go back to the bit about the body. Now, like I said before, the physical body still makes up the self as much as the mind and soul. When a person loses a limb or organ or whatever, they lose a part of themselves and depending on the situation and stuff, this can lead to not just physical pain, but emotional pain of loss. And there we go, we’ve reached the second part of the title.
The pain of loss is usually associated with losing someone in your life, most often death. We feel that pain almost like losing a part of our body and even if we heal over time, the grief remains present and we only learn to live with it. We can never get them back, but they remain as phantom pain (insert MGS joke here). This is why I think that people in our lives make us who we are and should count in the essence of the self. When we lose someone, it feels like we lose a part of ourselves because we do. In fact, I think we’re all basically a part of each other, forming a huge network of connections like a massive organism. Those closest to you will feel the most painful to lose, much like losing a whole organ, but those who drifted away from you over time to the point that you forget each other, may feel like less of a loss, much like a hair falling off because you know deep in your heart that at some point someone may take their place or maybe you don’t need them anymore, kinda like baby teeth.
It’s at this point that I’ll be sharing a bit of my own personal experiences, so you can stop reading here if you don’t wanna hear me yap about my pain and what I consider to be my own self, but I might add a bit more worth mentioning. But anyway, I want to start from March of 2023 when I heard the news about my old friend passing away. I hadn’t spoken to him in 5 years so he was not a part of my life for a long time, but even then, losing him felt like losing a part of myself. It made me away of how much time had passed since the last time I saw him and losing him made me more aware of what else I lost. It’s painful to talk about this time in my life, but I should mention that all this happened when I was perhaps at my lowest point (second only to another moment in my life that I won’t get into here unless I wanna torture myself with more traumatic memories). This was the time when I had completely burned myself out with academics having failed enough classes to hold me back a year so I took a gap year to reassess my life. I felt done with everything I used to care about: programming, poetry, music, etc. so I made the decision to spend that year working as a tutor so I could take time figuring out who I am. Losing my friend made me notice just how much of myself I had given up. I was not me anymore; I was someone else. However, unlike a limb or a friend, I could always get those parts of me back and regain my passions, my ambitions, my loves. In honor of my friend, in fact I’ll say his name: Brandon Po, I decided to get my shit together and find myself again. Unfortunately, this part also involved cutting out another person in my life.
Remember earlier I said Flower was gonna come up again later? This is later. To sum it up, I kept in touch with Flower long after that class ended and we became incredibly close. I won’t go too deep into the details and nature of our relationship, but the important thing to note is that by the end of 2023, the same year that Brandon passed away, I decided to cut Flower out of my life. To this day, I’m still unsure of that decision, and I won’t get into the reasons behind it since it’s extremely personal, but basically, this loss was almost as painful as losing Brandon. Not quite the same, but it still felt like I lost a part of who I am. However, this time felt more like removing wisdom teeth or some other vestigial organ. It may have been painful at first, but in the end, I found I never needed Flower in my life to begin with. Sure, I’m still happy with all the good times we had, but in the end, I could live without her.
That following year, 2024, was honestly probably the best year I’ve had in a long time. Without getting too specific, I got back into university, back on track to getting my degree, I got a new job that earned me a lot more than my old one, and I reconnected with a lot of people I haven’t connected with in a long time, including myself. Those who are close to me know that I don’t look fondly at my old self. I look back on how I used to be and openly despise that person. However, that’s not who I’m talking about when I say I reconnected with myself. What I mean is the glowing brightness hidden in all the darkness from before. I see now that the negativity that I thought defined me back then was actually a shell hiding my true form, the person I’m meant to be. Now I’m writing poetry again, not out of pain and frustration, but out of love and hope for the future. Now I’m practicing martial arts again, not to express my physical anger and frustrations but to find balance in myself and to reconnect my mind and body which have so long lost touch with each other. I’m doing all the things I used to do but now I have a new positive perspective on life and I don’t want to waste it. I want to make Brandon proud by making myself proud and if there is a life after this one, I hope to see him there and tell him all about it.
So now we’re here, what then defines the self? Is everything that we feel as loss a part of the self? See, the beauty in the question is that no answer will fit it perfectly. What defines the self depends entirely on how you approach life. I no longer consider my negative thoughts and actions from the past as a part of myself, but I still acknowledge that they once were. And I know that one day, what I consider an essential part of me will no longer be and I will live on. Damn idk how to end this, but yeah, go on and find yourselves!