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The remembered as well as the unremembered constitute one's self-identity. IV. The Memory Link Hume said that to be considered in possession of a mind, a creature needs to have a few states of consciousness linked by memory in a kind of narrative or personal mythology.
In God as God, in God as substance, there is no distinction. It is for man that the distinction exists, as also for him exists the distinction of good and evil. The superficial method of appraising philosophy is exemplified also in those who assert that it is a "system of identity." It is perfectly true that substance is this unity at one with itself, but spirit no less is this self-identity.
Both retain their identity despite the fact that their individual composition is different at different moments. The possession of a body as the foundation of a self-identity is a dubious proposition. Almost all the cells in a human body are replaced every few years.
In his community God is released from the abstractness of a mysterious self-identity, as well as from the naïve imprisonment in a bodily shape, in which he is represented by sculpture. Here he is exalted into spirituality, subjectivity, and knowledge. For this reason the higher content of art is now this spirituality in its absolute form.
To one who has gazed for many hours upon whirling scenes, and who at his journey's end has gone to sleep in an unfamiliar place, the question of self-identity presents itself at morning and of the dozing faculties demands an answer. Henry lay in bed, catching at flitting consciousness, but missing it. He tried to recall his own name, but could not.
On the contrary, all inherent power to do wrong is a direct infringement of the reality of free-will.... Free- will is not the independence of the creature, but rather his self- realisation in perfect dependence. Freedom is self-identity with goodness."
The main contribution of psychoanalysis and later psychodynamic schools is the understanding that self-identity is a dynamic, evolving, ever-changing construct and not a static, inertial, and passive entity. It casts doubt over the meaningfulness of the question with which we ended the exposition: "Who, exactly, then, is Dan?" Dan is not a thing he is a process.
The permanence is itself meaningless apart from some immediate judgment of self-congruence. Otherwise how is an elastic string differentiated from a rigid measuring rod? Each remains the same self-identical object. Why is one a possible measuring rod and the other not so? The meaning of congruence lies beyond the self-identity of the object.
We should also have to deny Fechner's 'earth-soul' and all other superhuman collections of experience of every grade, so far at least as these are held to be compounded of our simpler souls in the way which Fechner believed in; and we should have to make all these denials in the name of the incorruptible logic of self-identity, teaching us that to call a thing and its other the same is to commit the crime of self-contradiction.
What if all his conscious memories, drives, fears, wishes, fantasies, and hopes were to become unconscious while his repressed memories, drives, etc. were to become conscious? Would we still say that it is "the same" Dan and that he retains his self-identity? Not very likely.
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