compels us to admit that real change is impossible. Parmenides’ doctrine led to
materialism, a worldview that wants to explain everything as movements,
collisions, and reconfigurations of unchanging atoms, including the atoms that
constitute our sense perceptions and mental events, e.g. admiring gulls in the
sky, remembering, and forgetting. In a world like this, the answer to the
question, ‘who am I?’ is this: a collection of physical events, some of which we
call mental states and sensations.
Heraclitus’ (535 BCE–475 BCE) dictum, ‘you cannot step into the same river
twice’, represents a conflicting position. Everything always changes. This
doctrine is compatible with the theory that space-time is constantly fluctuating
and the universe expanding. Expansion means real change, and if such is
possible, not everything is predetermined and can be reduced to atoms.
Evolution may have brought minds into existence, somewhere along the way
between the big bang and now. In a world like this, the question ‘Who am I?’
allows for a dualistic answer making a division of mind and body.
To date, huge progress in science notwithstanding, the case of Parmenides vs
Heraclitus isn’t settled. We are still stuck with the conundrum of how
something/someone can be the same and different, the problem of identity
through time.
Essentialism and the Ise Grand Shrine
The Ise Grand Shrine in Mie Prefecture, Japan is the sacred centre of Japan’s
native Shinto religion. Founded in the 4th century CE, the main shrine buildings
have been rebuilt many times. The periodic reconstruction is part of the cult.
More than six million pilgrims and tourists come to the shrine every year, and it
would not occur to them that they are visiting a replica, though not a single pillar
or rafter remains of the ‘original’ building. Renewal is part of the shrine’s spirit,
its identity.
Cells in the human body have a limited lifespan and are replaced with new ones
all the time. Could we think of ourselves, then, as a kind of walking Ise Grand
Shrine? This would be difficult, if only because the shrine is not just renovated
regularly, but built up from scratch every twenty years alternatingly on adjacent
plots of land. A clone of itself, as it were.