Back to "Identity" - Index

Who is who - a question of identity

The question of identity is not a simple issue. People worry about this matter far more than it is expected, and their worries often start when cloning and its significance for mankind is brought up. Since nobody knows, where the individual starts and the body ends, scientists, philosophers, ethicists and theologians wonder what identity is all about. Is the self in the brain or in the body? So far, no answers have been found to answer this question reasonably. And maybe that's what scares people the most, this ignorance about ourselves and about who we really are.

Same look but not the same

According to a Stanford philosopher, identity is not about sameness, but about uniqueness, meaning that everybody is an individual. He supports this argument by saying that what makes a person is its history and experiences like emotions, fear or joy, so a person and its clone could never be the same, because what's missing is the past, the memories and the feelings that made that person who it is. The clone can only share the outward appearance and inner organs of this person but never replace the being itself.

Einstein in the 1990's

Furthermore, what makes us who we are is our environment. As an example, Albert Einstein is pointed out and the possibility of what might have become of him, if his DNA had been put into the womb of a middle-class working woman of our times. Because of his environment, ruled by fast food and MTV, he most definitely wouldn't have thought of figuring out the theory of relativity. As scientist Philip Hefner says, we come as "bodies in a world".

Our body at court

In addition, our body is a main part of who we are, too. We were born with it, had to learn how to walk, talk, eat and work with it, it carried us through every aspect of our life, and even though our atoms change every seven years, the structure of the body itself stays the same and represents our being to the outer world. According to this, one would expect us to be in charge of our bodies and minds, who form a union, and be the ones who make the decisions concerning the two.

A US court rule, however, from 1991 says something different. Back then, a cancer patient was denied profit from UCLA for using his diseased cells in order to invent new drugs. So, according to the court, this patient didn't own his own body.

How to define identity?

So, what now is identity? Still, there is no clear answer to this question. Identity is something that we cannot touch, cannot work into our systems, which makes it hard for us to explain. What we need to understand is the fact that identity doesn't change with for example a haircut or another colour of skin. It is the unique part of us that always will be the same, despite our physical evolution. Take, for example, the Mississippi River. Even though it changes continually and drastically, there is something that is unique about it, and that is its identity.

Human fascination with cloning

Why is it then, that people are so fascinated by the idea of cloning? The answer probably finds its roots in our society. Copies of ourselves can be found everywhere, pictures on passports, driver's licences, fingerprints are all instruments to prove who we really are and that we really do exist. One reason, therefore, that people long for their own clones to appear, is to prove to the world that they are there and of importance for this world.

Dangers?

There is, however, a danger to all this. As Rabbi Dorff states, children already struggle to create their own identity and separate from their parents. Cloning would worsen this problem for the child, since it is not able to fight against parents, it doesn't have them. All it has is somebody who is somewhat similar to a sister or brother. So instead, this cloned child would struggle to find its place in the family and in society itself, never knowing where it really belongs. How can somebody who is supposed to be like somebody else find an identity of his own?

by Mareike

Source: Upsetting Our Sense of Self, by K:C. Cole, Times Science Writer